[Bug 1902179] Re: [20.04 FEAT] Support/enhancement of NVMe IPL

[Frank Heimes]

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Title:
  [20.04 FEAT] Support/enhancement of NVMe IPL

Status in Ubuntu on IBM z Systems:
  Triaged
Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in s390-tools package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in linux source package in Focal:
  New
Status in s390-tools source package in Focal:
  New
Status in linux source package in Groovy:
  In Progress
Status in s390-tools source package in Groovy:
  Fix Released
Status in linux source package in Hirsute:
  Fix Released
Status in s390-tools source package in Hirsute:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  SRU Justification: (groovy)
  ==================

  [Impact]

  * The basics for being able to IPL (boot) from NVMe devices on s390x
  were introduced with kernel 5.8.

  * This was tested and is proven to work with groovy.

  * Now a patch was requested to be added to groovy that introduces
  support for NVMe IPL kernel parameters.

  [Fix]

  * d9f12e48d08ec08ace574050a838e001e442ee38 d9f12e48d08e "s390/ipl:
  support NVMe IPL kernel parameters"

  [Test Case]

  * IBM z15 or LinuxONE III hardware is needed with an NVMe device
  attached to a LPAR.

  * Just check if NVMe kernel parameters can be passed over.

  * Due to the lack of hardware this test needs to be done by IBM.

  [Regression Potential]

  * There is a certain regression risk with this patch, since:

  * The handling of 'scpdata' is changed, and with that the way how
  kernel cmd-line parameters are extracted from the NVMe IPL block, that
  is passed by the firmware to the kernel at boot time.

  * If broken such a hand over will not work for NVMe anymore - which
  wouldn't be a very big problem for now, since booting w/o still works
  fine (as it does today).

  * But in worst case it could break the hand over of cmd-line
  parameters for FCP devices, since some code is shared or even harm ipl
  in general.

  * The patch is upstream accepted (with v5.10-rc1 - as of today in
  linux-next) and a patched groovy kernel was build and shared for
  further testing.

  * All modifications are limited to the s390x architecture and there
  again to the unique way of booting aka IPL (s390/boot/ipl*).

  [Other]

  * This is in preparation for getting IPL (boot) from NVMe device
  support on s390x backported to focal (for hardware enablement
  reasons).

  * Without having this patch in groovy, one may face a regression
  during upgrade from groovy to focal.

  * Since it's planned to have the hirsute kernel on 5.1x, it will have
  this patch sooner or later.

  * However, since the today's hirsute kernel is just based on groovy,
  I've added hirsute to the SRU.

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