Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756991Ab2FWBcJ (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:32:09 -0400 Received: from out3-smtp.messagingengine.com ([66.111.4.27]:40677 "EHLO out3-smtp.messagingengine.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756894Ab2FWBcH (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:32:07 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: nYcWhebuFBs76biinjmO3k+ml0qE1dgGfJM2znDntK8l 1340415125 Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 22:32:02 -0300 From: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Nix , Borislav Petkov , Peter Zijlstra , "Yu, Fenghua" , X86-ML , Ingo Molnar , Thomas Gleixner , LKML , Andreas Herrmann Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] x86, microcode: Make reload interface per system Message-ID: <20120623013202.GA22572@khazad-dum.debian.net> References: <1340121811-4477-3-git-send-email-bp@amd64.org> <3E5A0FA7E9CA944F9D5414FEC6C7122007737623@ORSMSX105.amr.corp.intel.com> <20120619232857.GH5996@aftab.osrc.amd.com> <1340182778.21745.75.camel@twins> <20120620095616.GB10012@aftab.osrc.amd.com> <1340186931.21745.90.camel@twins> <20120620101943.GE10012@aftab.osrc.amd.com> <87d34r5n4f.fsf@spindle.srvr.nix> <4FE4B796.3050009@zytor.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4FE4B796.3050009@zytor.com> X-GPG-Fingerprint: 1024D/1CDB0FE3 5422 5C61 F6B7 06FB 7E04 3738 EE25 DE3F 1CDB 0FE3 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1626 Lines: 36 On Fri, 22 Jun 2012, H. Peter Anvin wrote: > On 06/22/2012 09:26 AM, Nix wrote: > > On 20 Jun 2012, Borislav Petkov uttered the following: > >> I know, right. Whose idea was it to do it like that I don't know. > >> AFAICT, Intel delivers ucode as a single blob too, so why split it? The > >> driver picks out the right blob anyway. > > > > Only if supplied over the old interface. Over the new interface, > > we just see > > > > microcode: error! Bad data in microcode data file > > > > in the log. So clearly the driver doesn't know how to split up the > > microcode.bin that Intel provides, and (until Henrique's iucode-tool or > > something like it becomes ubiquitous) the old interface, and > > microcode_ctl, cannot be removed. > > Even more importantly, to do early microcode updates we need to stash > away not just the current CPU's microcode but any compatible CPU's > microcode, so just loading a single one is not going to work... Well, THAT is rather difficult with Intel. You really have no choice other than packing all microcodes, or just the ones for the current system. For all microcodes, it will compresses to around 350KiB with gzip. -- "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/