--- /dev/null
+'virt' generic virtual platform (``virt``)
+==========================================
+
+The `virt` board is a platform which does not correspond to any
+real hardware; it is designed for use in virtual machines.
+It is the recommended board type if you simply want to run
+a guest such as Linux and do not care about reproducing the
+idiosyncrasies and limitations of a particular bit of real-world
+hardware.
+
+This is a "versioned" board model, so as well as the ``virt`` machine
+type itself (which may have improvements, bugfixes and other minor
+changes between QEMU versions) a version is provided that guarantees
+to have the same behaviour as that of previous QEMU releases, so
+that VM migration will work between QEMU versions. For instance the
+``virt-5.0`` machine type will behave like the ``virt`` machine from
+the QEMU 5.0 release, and migration should work between ``virt-5.0``
+of the 5.0 release and ``virt-5.0`` of the 5.1 release. Migration
+is not guaranteed to work between different QEMU releases for
+the non-versioned ``virt`` machine type.
+
+Supported devices
+"""""""""""""""""
+
+The virt board supports:
+
+- PCI/PCIe devices
+- Flash memory
+- One PL011 UART
+- An RTC
+- The fw_cfg device that allows a guest to obtain data from QEMU
+- A PL061 GPIO controller
+- An optional SMMUv3 IOMMU
+- hotpluggable DIMMs
+- hotpluggable NVDIMMs
+- An MSI controller (GICv2M or ITS). GICv2M is selected by default along
+ with GICv2. ITS is selected by default with GICv3 (>= virt-2.7). Note
+ that ITS is not modeled in TCG mode.
+- 32 virtio-mmio transport devices
+- running guests using the KVM accelerator on aarch64 hardware
+- large amounts of RAM (at least 255GB, and more if using highmem)
+- many CPUs (up to 512 if using a GICv3 and highmem)
+- Secure-World-only devices if the CPU has TrustZone:
+
+ - A second PL011 UART
+ - A secure flash memory
+ - 16MB of secure RAM
+
+Supported guest CPU types:
+
+- ``cortex-a7`` (32-bit)
+- ``cortex-a15`` (32-bit; the default)
+- ``cortex-a53`` (64-bit)
+- ``cortex-a57`` (64-bit)
+- ``cortex-a72`` (64-bit)
+- ``host`` (with KVM only)
+- ``max`` (same as ``host`` for KVM; best possible emulation with TCG)
+
+Note that the default is ``cortex-a15``, so for an AArch64 guest you must
+specify a CPU type.
+
+Graphics output is available, but unlike the x86 PC machine types
+there is no default display device enabled: you should select one from
+the Display devices section of "-device help". The recommended option
+is ``virtio-gpu-pci``; this is the only one which will work correctly
+with KVM. You may also need to ensure your guest kernel is configured
+with support for this; see below.
+
+Machine-specific options
+""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+The following machine-specific options are supported:
+
+secure
+ Set ``on``/``off`` to enable/disable emulating a guest CPU which implements the
+ Arm Security Extensions (TrustZone). The default is ``off``.
+
+virtualization
+ Set ``on``/``off`` to enable/disable emulating a guest CPU which implements the
+ Arm Virtualization Extensions. The default is ``off``.
+
+highmem
+ Set ``on``/``off`` to enable/disable placing devices and RAM in physical
+ address space above 32 bits. The default is ``on`` for machine types
+ later than ``virt-2.12``.
+
+gic-version
+ Specify the version of the Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) to provide.
+ Valid values are:
+
+ ``2``
+ GICv2
+ ``3``
+ GICv3
+ ``host``
+ Use the same GIC version the host provides, when using KVM
+ ``max``
+ Use the best GIC version possible (same as host when using KVM;
+ currently same as ``3``` for TCG, but this may change in future)
+
+its
+ Set ``on``/``off`` to enable/disable ITS instantiation. The default is ``on``
+ for machine types later than ``virt-2.7``.
+
+iommu
+ Set the IOMMU type to create for the guest. Valid values are:
+
+ ``none``
+ Don't create an IOMMU (the default)
+ ``smmuv3``
+ Create an SMMUv3
+
+ras
+ Set ``on``/``off`` to enable/disable reporting host memory errors to a guest
+ using ACPI and guest external abort exceptions. The default is off.
+
+Linux guest kernel configuration
+""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+The 'defconfig' for Linux arm and arm64 kernels should include the
+right device drivers for virtio and the PCI controller; however some older
+kernel versions, especially for 32-bit Arm, did not have everything
+enabled by default. If you're not seeing PCI devices that you expect,
+then check that your guest config has::
+
+ CONFIG_PCI=y
+ CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=y
+ CONFIG_PCI_HOST_GENERIC=y
+
+If you want to use the ``virtio-gpu-pci`` graphics device you will also
+need::
+
+ CONFIG_DRM=y
+ CONFIG_DRM_VIRTIO_GPU=y
+
+Hardware configuration information for bare-metal programming
+"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
+
+The ``virt`` board automatically generates a device tree blob ("dtb")
+which it passes to the guest. This provides information about the
+addresses, interrupt lines and other configuration of the various devices
+in the system. Guest code can rely on and hard-code the following
+addresses:
+
+- Flash memory starts at address 0x0000_0000
+
+- RAM starts at 0x4000_0000
+
+All other information about device locations may change between
+QEMU versions, so guest code must look in the DTB.
+
+QEMU supports two types of guest image boot for ``virt``, and
+the way for the guest code to locate the dtb binary differs:
+
+- For guests using the Linux kernel boot protocol (this means any
+ non-ELF file passed to the QEMU ``-kernel`` option) the address
+ of the DTB is passed in a register (``r2`` for 32-bit guests,
+ or ``x0`` for 64-bit guests)
+
+- For guests booting as "bare-metal" (any other kind of boot),
+ the DTB is at the start of RAM (0x4000_0000)
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