Skip to content

docs: add overview of mkosi and systemd use - #262

Draft
markg-github wants to merge 1 commit into
AMDEPYC:mainfrom
markg-github:pr/general-docs
Draft

docs: add overview of mkosi and systemd use#262
markg-github wants to merge 1 commit into
AMDEPYC:mainfrom
markg-github:pr/general-docs

Conversation

@markg-github

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

A bit of a placholder for now (and, therefore, a draft), but intended to do what the title says.

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings July 10, 2026 17:04

Copilot AI left a comment

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Pull request overview

Adds a new documentation landing page intended to capture shared architecture context between sev-certify and the forked sev-performance, focusing on how mkosi-built host/guest images are produced and orchestrated (not step-by-step usage).

Changes:

  • Introduces docs/architecture.md describing the mkosi-based image workflow and host/guest relationship.
  • Documents distribution via GitHub Release Assets and batch-mode orchestration via systemd/journald.
  • Adds “where to look next” pointers to related docs (with some references needing adjustment).

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

Comment thread docs/architecture.md

A common pattern is to forward **guest journald** logs to the host so you can inspect guest behavior without needing SSH.

In perf, see `docs/modules/logging.md` for the implementation details.
Comment thread docs/architecture.md
Comment on lines +65 to +66
- Certification/dispatch-style running: `docs/how-to-generate-certs.md` (stub)
- Manual guest launching (debugging): `docs/how-to-run-guest-manually.md` (stub)
Comment thread docs/architecture.md
Comment on lines +67 to +68
- perf-specific guest orchestration: `docs/modules/launch-snp-guest.md`
- perf-specific containerized workloads: `docs/modules/workload-runner.md`
Comment thread docs/architecture.md

Historically, sev-certify used a “results as GitHub Issues” approach to persist run outputs.

Perf currently still has related plumbing/code paths, but this is expected to change as:
@amd-aliem

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Overall doc name and scope seems like a good idea to me - though I don't know about having a shared doc w/ sev-performance, I'd think it'd be better to not have references to sev-performance (as that opens a whole other discussion on what that project does, which is imo not necessary to know about).

In this arch doc I'd want to link in how sev_verify is run and the various stages (i.e. boot.target -> system.target -> test.target -> stop.target) as well.

Also useful to have the diagram about dispatch, beacon, and github relationships (data flow) - I think @DGonzalezVillal had one.

Similar points about missing docs in docs/modules, though I assume you'd add that later.

@markg-github

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

Overall doc name and scope seems like a good idea to me - though I don't know about having a shared doc w/ sev-performance, I'd think it'd be better to not have references to sev-performance (as that opens a whole other discussion on what that project does, which is imo not necessary to know about).

In this arch doc I'd want to link in how sev_verify is run and the various stages (i.e. boot.target -> system.target -> test.target -> stop.target) as well.

Also useful to have the diagram about dispatch, beacon, and github relationships (data flow) - I think @DGonzalezVillal had one.

Similar points about missing docs in docs/modules, though I assume you'd add that later.

Agree. It may only ever be a placeholder/reminder that it would be good to have an "architecture" (overview) doc.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants