This is a Linux specific chapter. Accessing the CD-ROM of the host machine from inside the simulation is supported on Linux hosts. This is done by creating a cdrom-image object using the new-cdrom-image command. First, you should insert the CD in the host machine and figure out which device name it uses.
On a Linux host, this is typically /dev/cdrom, which is a symbolic
link to the actual CD-ROM device, e.g., /dev/hdc. Note that you
need read/write access to the CD-ROM device for this to work.
When you have the correct device file name, you create a cdrom-image object and insert it into the simulated CD-ROM drive:
simics> new-cdrom-image /dev/cdrom file_cd0 CDROM 'file_cd0' created simics> cd0.insert file_cd0 Inserting media 'file_cd0' into CDROM drive
Note that you must replace /dev/cdrom with the correct host device
name as mentioned above, and cd0 with the correct Simics object
name. Use the list-objects command to find the correct object of
class ide-cdrom.
The cd0.insert command simulates inserting a new disk into the CD-ROM drive, and there is also a corresponding cd0.eject command that simulates ejecting the disk.
A file containing an ISO-9660 image can be used as medium in the simulated CD-ROM. This image file can be created from real CD-ROM disks, or from collections of files on any disk.
On Linux, an image can be created from a set of files with the
mkisofs program. For example:
mkisofs -l -L -o image -r dir
On Windows, you can use a third-party product to create ISO-9660 images from files or from CD-ROMs, and a non-exhaustive list is given in figure 1. Note that many programs can read CD-ROMs in either "file" or "raw" mode ("raw" mode is often called "aspi"). If CD-ROMs are read using file mode, the resulting image will not be bootable.
| WinImage | http://www.winimage.com |
| Shareware, only copies images from real CD-ROM | |
| WinISO | http://www.winiso.com |
| Shareware | |
| UltraISO | http://www.ezbsystems.com/ |
| Shareware | |
| MagicISO | http://www.magiciso.com |
| Shareware, can make images from files, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs, and edit ISO images. | |
| mkisofs | http://wiki.osdev.org/Mkisofs |
| Part of the cdrtools package, free, need Cygwin |
Once you have an image file, a cdrom-image object can be created, and then inserted into a simulated CD-ROM device in the same way as above:
simics> new-cdrom-image myimage.iso CDROM 'myimage' created simics> cd0.insert myimage Inserting media 'myimage' into CDROM drive
Note that cd0 above refers to the Simics object name of the CD-ROM drive. This may or may not be called cd0. To see which object name to use, try the list-objects command and look for an object of class ide-cdrom.
This is a Linux specific chapter. It is possible to access a floppy on the host machine from within Simics if the host is running Linux. For example (assuming the floppy device object is called flp0):
simics> flp0.insert-floppy A /dev/fd0
enterprise-common.simics):
simics> system_cmp0.cmos-boot-dev A
Sometimes it can be convenient to have copies of boot floppies as image files. On Windows, to create an image of a floppy you can use, for example, WinImage (see section 7.3.2 above).
On Linux, you can use the dd command:
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy.img
It is then possible to use this image file in Simics:
simics> flp0.insert-floppy A floppy.img
enterprise-common.simics):
simics> system_cmp0.cmos-boot-dev A
If it is formatted as a FAT file system, a floppy image can be manipulated with, for example, Mtools (Linux only, see section 7.2.5 for more information).