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7.224. seabios

Updated seabios packages that fix several bugs and add two enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The seabios packages contain an open-source legacy BIOS implementation which can be used as a coreboot payload. It implements the standard BIOS calling interfaces that a typical x86 proprietary BIOS implements.

Bug Fixes

BZ#771616
In the QXL-VGA drive, the ram_size and vram_size variables were set to a default value that was too high. Consequently, the guest was not able to boot, and the "VM status: paused (internal-error)" message was returned. This update uses extended addressing for PCI address space and the guest can now boot successfully.
BZ#839674
Previously, the advertisement of S3 and S4 states in the default BIOS was disabled for which a separate BIOS binary file had been created. This update enables users to configurate S3 and S4 states per virtual machine in seabios and thus, the extra BIOS binary file is no longer necessary. Now, a single binary is used to enable these states.
BZ#851245
Prior to this update, the SeaBIOS component did not support the non-contiguous APIC IDs. This resulted in incorrect topology generation on SMP and NUMA systems; moreover, QEMU-KVM was unable to run on some of the host systems. A patch has been provided to fix this bug and Seabios now supports the non-contiguous APIC IDs.
BZ#854448
The seabios packages used the time-stamp counter (TSC) for timekeeping with a simple calibration loop. As a consequence, on a busy host, the magnitude calibration could be set incorrectly and could lead to boot failures. This update provides the power management timer (PMT) with a fixed frequency, which does not suffer from calibration errors due to a loaded host machine. As a result, timeouts work correctly under all circumstances.

Enhancements

BZ#827500
With this update, it is possible to configurate S3 and S4 states per virtual machine.
BZ#831273
The seabios packages are now able to reboot a VM even if no bootable device can be found.
Users of seabios are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.