summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/driver-api
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorHans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com>2020-01-15 17:35:48 +0100
committerGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>2020-03-20 14:54:04 +0100
commite4c2c0ff00ecaf8e245455a199b86ce22143becf (patch)
treefa9b9bc1bd67f40fb2dd9966f6d86fcefb58148e /Documentation/driver-api
parent4445eb6d942a4ba0e6ac07ca555dec83577289e8 (diff)
firmware: Add new platform fallback mechanism and firmware_request_platform()
In some cases the platform's main firmware (e.g. the UEFI fw) may contain an embedded copy of device firmware which needs to be (re)loaded into the peripheral. Normally such firmware would be part of linux-firmware, but in some cases this is not feasible, for 2 reasons: 1) The firmware is customized for a specific use-case of the chipset / use with a specific hardware model, so we cannot have a single firmware file for the chipset. E.g. touchscreen controller firmwares are compiled specifically for the hardware model they are used with, as they are calibrated for a specific model digitizer. 2) Despite repeated attempts we have failed to get permission to redistribute the firmware. This is especially a problem with customized firmwares, these get created by the chip vendor for a specific ODM and the copyright may partially belong with the ODM, so the chip vendor cannot give a blanket permission to distribute these. This commit adds a new platform fallback mechanism to the firmware loader which will try to lookup a device fw copy embedded in the platform's main firmware if direct filesystem lookup fails. Drivers which need such embedded fw copies can enable this fallback mechanism by using the new firmware_request_platform() function. Note that for now this is only supported on EFI platforms and even on these platforms firmware_fallback_platform() only works if CONFIG_EFI_EMBEDDED_FIRMWARE is enabled (this gets selected by drivers which need this), in all other cases firmware_fallback_platform() simply always returns -ENOENT. Reported-by: Dave Olsthoorn <dave@bewaar.me> Suggested-by: Peter Jones <pjones@redhat.com> Acked-by: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@redhat.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200115163554.101315-5-hdegoede@redhat.com Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-api')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/driver-api/firmware/fallback-mechanisms.rst103
-rw-r--r--Documentation/driver-api/firmware/lookup-order.rst2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst5
3 files changed, 110 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/fallback-mechanisms.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/fallback-mechanisms.rst
index 8b041d0ab426..036383dad6d6 100644
--- a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/fallback-mechanisms.rst
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/fallback-mechanisms.rst
@@ -202,3 +202,106 @@ the following file:
If you echo 0 into it means MAX_JIFFY_OFFSET will be used. The data type
for the timeout is an int.
+
+EFI embedded firmware fallback mechanism
+========================================
+
+On some devices the system's EFI code / ROM may contain an embedded copy
+of firmware for some of the system's integrated peripheral devices and
+the peripheral's Linux device-driver needs to access this firmware.
+
+Device drivers which need such firmware can use the
+firmware_request_platform() function for this, note that this is a
+separate fallback mechanism from the other fallback mechanisms and
+this does not use the sysfs interface.
+
+A device driver which needs this can describe the firmware it needs
+using an efi_embedded_fw_desc struct:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/efi_embedded_fw.h
+ :functions: efi_embedded_fw_desc
+
+The EFI embedded-fw code works by scanning all EFI_BOOT_SERVICES_CODE memory
+segments for an eight byte sequence matching prefix; if the prefix is found it
+then does a sha256 over length bytes and if that matches makes a copy of length
+bytes and adds that to its list with found firmwares.
+
+To avoid doing this somewhat expensive scan on all systems, dmi matching is
+used. Drivers are expected to export a dmi_system_id array, with each entries'
+driver_data pointing to an efi_embedded_fw_desc.
+
+To register this array with the efi-embedded-fw code, a driver needs to:
+
+1. Always be builtin to the kernel or store the dmi_system_id array in a
+ separate object file which always gets builtin.
+
+2. Add an extern declaration for the dmi_system_id array to
+ include/linux/efi_embedded_fw.h.
+
+3. Add the dmi_system_id array to the embedded_fw_table in
+ drivers/firmware/efi/embedded-firmware.c wrapped in a #ifdef testing that
+ the driver is being builtin.
+
+4. Add "select EFI_EMBEDDED_FIRMWARE if EFI_STUB" to its Kconfig entry.
+
+The firmware_request_platform() function will always first try to load firmware
+with the specified name directly from the disk, so the EFI embedded-fw can
+always be overridden by placing a file under /lib/firmware.
+
+Note that:
+
+1. The code scanning for EFI embedded-firmware runs near the end
+ of start_kernel(), just before calling rest_init(). For normal drivers and
+ subsystems using subsys_initcall() to register themselves this does not
+ matter. This means that code running earlier cannot use EFI
+ embedded-firmware.
+
+2. At the moment the EFI embedded-fw code assumes that firmwares always start at
+ an offset which is a multiple of 8 bytes, if this is not true for your case
+ send in a patch to fix this.
+
+3. At the moment the EFI embedded-fw code only works on x86 because other archs
+ free EFI_BOOT_SERVICES_CODE before the EFI embedded-fw code gets a chance to
+ scan it.
+
+4. The current brute-force scanning of EFI_BOOT_SERVICES_CODE is an ad-hoc
+ brute-force solution. There has been discussion to use the UEFI Platform
+ Initialization (PI) spec's Firmware Volume protocol. This has been rejected
+ because the FV Protocol relies on *internal* interfaces of the PI spec, and:
+ 1. The PI spec does not define peripheral firmware at all
+ 2. The internal interfaces of the PI spec do not guarantee any backward
+ compatibility. Any implementation details in FV may be subject to change,
+ and may vary system to system. Supporting the FV Protocol would be
+ difficult as it is purposely ambiguous.
+
+Example how to check for and extract embedded firmware
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+To check for, for example Silead touchscreen controller embedded firmware,
+do the following:
+
+1. Boot the system with efi=debug on the kernel commandline
+
+2. cp /sys/kernel/debug/efi/boot_services_code? to your home dir
+
+3. Open the boot_services_code? files in a hex-editor, search for the
+ magic prefix for Silead firmware: F0 00 00 00 02 00 00 00, this gives you
+ the beginning address of the firmware inside the boot_services_code? file.
+
+4. The firmware has a specific pattern, it starts with a 8 byte page-address,
+ typically F0 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 for the first page followed by 32-bit
+ word-address + 32-bit value pairs. With the word-address incrementing 4
+ bytes (1 word) for each pair until a page is complete. A complete page is
+ followed by a new page-address, followed by more word + value pairs. This
+ leads to a very distinct pattern. Scroll down until this pattern stops,
+ this gives you the end of the firmware inside the boot_services_code? file.
+
+5. "dd if=boot_services_code? of=firmware bs=1 skip=<begin-addr> count=<len>"
+ will extract the firmware for you. Inspect the firmware file in a
+ hexeditor to make sure you got the dd parameters correct.
+
+6. Copy it to /lib/firmware under the expected name to test it.
+
+7. If the extracted firmware works, you can use the found info to fill an
+ efi_embedded_fw_desc struct to describe it, run "sha256sum firmware"
+ to get the sha256sum to put in the sha256 field.
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/lookup-order.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/lookup-order.rst
index 88c81739683c..6064672a782e 100644
--- a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/lookup-order.rst
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/lookup-order.rst
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ a driver issues a firmware API call.
return it immediately
* The ''Direct filesystem lookup'' is performed next, if found we
return it immediately
+* The ''Platform firmware fallback'' is performed next, but only when
+ firmware_request_platform() is used, if found we return it immediately
* If no firmware has been found and the fallback mechanism was enabled
the sysfs interface is created. After this either a kobject uevent
is issued or the custom firmware loading is relied upon for firmware
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
index f62bdcbfed5b..cd076462d235 100644
--- a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
@@ -25,6 +25,11 @@ firmware_request_nowarn
.. kernel-doc:: drivers/base/firmware_loader/main.c
:functions: firmware_request_nowarn
+firmware_request_platform
+-------------------------
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/base/firmware_loader/main.c
+ :functions: firmware_request_platform
+
request_firmware_direct
-----------------------
.. kernel-doc:: drivers/base/firmware_loader/main.c