pxe, e1000 and qemu-kvm 1.6 workaround

With the last update in Debian of qemu-kvm to version 1.6, booting vms via pxe with the e1000 (and ne2k_pci) network cards is no working anymore. I didn't take a deep look of the issue yet, but there is an easy solution (actually 2) for that.

Easiest one:
    wget https://github.com/qemu/qemu/raw/master/pc-bios/pxe-e1000.rom -O /usr/lib/ipxe/e1000_82540.rom 

Another one:
    git clone http://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git 
    cd ipxe/src 
    make bin/8086100e.rom 
    cp bin/8086100e.rom /usr/lib/ipxe/e1000_82540.rom 

OpenVSwitch and kvm

#virsh edit domain

<interface type='bridge'>
    <mac address='52:54:00:43:1f:f4'/>
    <source bridge='br0'/>
    <virtualport type='openvswitch'>
    </virtualport>
</interface>

OpenVswitch and kvm

#virsh edit domain

<interface type='bridge'>
    <mac address='52:54:00:43:1f:f4'/>
    <source bridge='br0'/>
    <virtualport type='openvswitch'/>
    </virtualport>
</interface>

Long live to openvswtich-brcomptt

Now that openvswitch-brcompat is not officially supported with recent kernels (Ubuntu 12.10 with kernel 3.5), the alternative to configure the bridges directly in the interfaces file has change a bit... but is still pretty forward!
Simple case with 1 bridge and 1 attached interface:

allow-ovs br99
iface br99 inet dhcp
    ovs_type OVSBridge
    ovs_ports eth0
allow-br99 eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
    ovs_bridge br0
    ovs_type OVSPort

And to bring it up and down:

ifup --allow=ovs $list_of_bridges
ifdown --allow=ovs $list_of_bridges

Et voilà! 

More info at:  openvswitch-switch.README.Debian

Long live to openvswitch-brcompat

Now that openvswitch-brcompat is not officially supported with recent kernels (Ubuntu 12.10 with kernel 3.5), the alternative to configure the bridges directly in the interfaces file has change a bit... but is still pretty forward!

Simple case with 1 bridge and 1 attached interface:


allow-ovs br99
iface br99 inet dhcp


    ovs_type OVSBridge
    ovs_ports eth0

allow-br99 eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
    ovs_bridge br0
    ovs_type OVSPort

And to bring it up and down:

ifup --allow=ovs $list_of_bridges
ifdown --allow=ovs $list_of_bridges

Et voilà! 

More info at:  openvswitch-switch.README.Debian