1512056 - create new worker type(s) to support testing firefox on windows 10 for arm64

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Infrastructure & Operations :: RelOps: OpenCloudConfig, task)

Comment 1

[Rob Thijssen [:grenade (EET/UTC+0300)]]

where are we now?

- arm iso created (uup.rg-adguard.net)
- iso-to-ami scripts modified to support iso to vhd conversion (https://github.com/mozilla-platform-ops/relops-image-builder)


what are the current bottlenecks?

- bcdboot support on arm is slightly weird. it's worked around for now, by just skipping it (https://github.com/mozilla-platform-ops/relops-image-builder/blob/aef1eb0/Convert-WindowsImage.ps1#L4248-L4249). still need to see if this works for us.
- ec2 only documents x86/bios boot (no uefi support). right now, our ami is missing its boot sectors.
  - still trying to figure out how windows on arm64 boots, but i believe it's uefi
  - need to understand how the ec2 linux on a1 instance types are booting, and see if we can adapt for windows
- the amazon ena drivers for windows are only supplied in x86 & x86_64 flavours. since a1 instances are ena enabled, we'll need to find away to make the x86 driver work.

Comment 2

[Rob Thijssen [:grenade (EET/UTC+0300)]]

i tried a couple approaches to getting the converted ami to boot:
- mbr/bios was a non starter as i believe arm64 doesn't boot this way anyhow and the vhd conversion process fails at the vhd save step.
- gpt/uefi didn't work either although the vhd was successfully created (no reported errors), but once the vhd is converted to an ami, it also fails to boot.

we'll have to look at how linux arm64 boots on ec2 and how win10 64 boots on the arm yogas and see if there's any way to hack a solution that will work for windows/arm/ec2...

Comment 3

[pierredittes]

I'd start with getting a a1 linux ami and have a look how they work. Should provide some insight, not sure how applicable it is later for Windows though

Comment 4

[Rob Thijssen [:grenade (EET/UTC+0300)]]

(In reply to pierredittes from comment #3)
> I'd start with getting a a1 linux ami and have a look how they work. Should
> provide some insight, not sure how applicable it is later for Windows though

best suggestion i've had so far. this way we can at least see what boot mechanism the a1 instances support. it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere i can see.

Comment 5

[Rob Thijssen [:grenade (EET/UTC+0300)]]

i've noticed a new message in the ec2 console today saying that screenshots are not supported for arm instance types. normally we rely on the screenshots to tell us about problems in windows setup like the network or storage driver is not configured or is missing, etc. we also expect to have issues with the network driver because we don't have / aren't yet installing an aarch64 ena driver for windows onto the ami but the absence of the screenshot facility makes it that much more difficult to get feedback on issues inside the ami. i can only guess at what's wrong inside the ami and instances spawned from it.

Comment 6

[ablew]

No longer needed.