From ba90e0f367aa052ff02cc34e8ad0ce22fd809aab Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Valentin Haudiquet <valentin.haudiquet@canonical.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:24:11 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix(qemu): select the rva23s64 CPU for riscv64 under TCG

Ubuntu builds its riscv64 port against the RVA23 profile (since
25.10), and QEMU's default rv64 CPU does not implement all profile
extensions: Ubuntu binaries die with SIGILL during init and the
kernel panics with 'Attempted to kill init'. Select the rva23s64
profile CPU (QEMU 10.1+) for riscv64 under TCG; profiles are
supersets, so baseline rv64gc rootfses run unchanged on it.

KVM mode keeps -cpu host.
---
 crates/ecr/src/qemu_vm.rs | 31 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+)

diff --git a/crates/ecr/src/qemu_vm.rs b/crates/ecr/src/qemu_vm.rs
index 9ee4816..66a39bf 100644
--- a/crates/ecr/src/qemu_vm.rs
+++ b/crates/ecr/src/qemu_vm.rs
@@ -159,6 +159,9 @@ pub fn launch_qemu(config: QemuConfig) -> Result<()> {
         args.push("-enable-kvm".to_string());
         args.push("-cpu".to_string());
         args.push("host".to_string());
+    } else if let Some(cpu) = cpu_for_arch(&config.arch) {
+        args.push("-cpu".to_string());
+        args.push(cpu.to_string());
     }
 
     // Execute QEMU
@@ -201,6 +204,22 @@ fn machine_for_arch(arch: &str) -> Option<&'static str> {
     }
 }
 
+/// Get the QEMU TCG CPU model to select for the target architecture, when
+/// the emulator default is not sufficient.
+///
+/// Ubuntu builds its riscv64 port against the RVA23 profile (since 25.10),
+/// so its binaries execute instructions QEMU's default `rv64` CPU does not
+/// implement and die with SIGILL early in boot. `rva23s64` implements the
+/// full supervisor profile; baseline rv64gc rootfses (Alpine, older
+/// Ubuntu) run unchanged on it because profiles are supersets. The named
+/// profile CPU needs QEMU 10.1+.
+fn cpu_for_arch(arch: &str) -> Option<&'static str> {
+    match crate::utils::Arch::from_str(arch) {
+        crate::utils::Arch::Riscv64 => Some("rva23s64"),
+        _ => None,
+    }
+}
+
 /// Get architecture suffix for package names
 fn get_arch_package_suffix(arch: &str) -> &'static str {
     crate::utils::Arch::from_str(arch).qemu_package_suffix()
@@ -635,6 +654,18 @@ mod tests {
         assert_eq!(machine_for_arch("s390x"), None);
     }
 
+    #[test]
+    fn test_cpu_for_arch() {
+        // Ubuntu's riscv64 userland needs the RVA23 profile CPU; QEMU's
+        // default `rv64` CPU SIGILLs on it early in boot
+        assert_eq!(cpu_for_arch("riscv64"), Some("rva23s64"));
+        // Other architectures keep their emulator's default CPU
+        assert_eq!(cpu_for_arch("amd64"), None);
+        assert_eq!(cpu_for_arch("x86_64"), None);
+        assert_eq!(cpu_for_arch("arm64"), None);
+        assert_eq!(cpu_for_arch("aarch64"), None);
+    }
+
     /// Parse a newc cpio archive into (name, ino, mode, nlink, file_size, data) tuples
     fn parse_cpio(archive: Vec<u8>) -> Vec<(String, u32, u32, u32, u32, Vec<u8>)> {
         let mut cursor = std::io::Cursor::new(archive);