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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. |