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[PATCH] dell_rbu: new Dell BIOS update driver
Remote BIOS Update driver for updating BIOS images on Dell servers and desktops. See dell_rbu.txt for details. Signed-off-by: Abhay Salunke <[email protected]> Cc: Greg KH <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Jens Axboe <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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Abhay Salunke
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Linus Torvalds
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Sep 7, 2005
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Purpose: | ||
Demonstrate the usage of the new open sourced rbu (Remote BIOS Update) driver | ||
for updating BIOS images on Dell servers and desktops. | ||
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Scope: | ||
This document discusses the functionality of the rbu driver only. | ||
It does not cover the support needed from aplications to enable the BIOS to | ||
update itself with the image downloaded in to the memory. | ||
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Overview: | ||
This driver works with Dell OpenManage or Dell Update Packages for updating | ||
the BIOS on Dell servers (starting from servers sold since 1999), desktops | ||
and notebooks (starting from those sold in 2005). | ||
Please go to http://support.dell.com register and you can find info on | ||
OpenManage and Dell Update packages (DUP). | ||
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Dell_RBU driver supports BIOS update using the monilothic image and packetized | ||
image methods. In case of moniolithic the driver allocates a contiguous chunk | ||
of physical pages having the BIOS image. In case of packetized the app | ||
using the driver breaks the image in to packets of fixed sizes and the driver | ||
would place each packet in contiguous physical memory. The driver also | ||
maintains a link list of packets for reading them back. | ||
If the dell_rbu driver is unloaded all the allocated memory is freed. | ||
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The rbu driver needs to have an application which will inform the BIOS to | ||
enable the update in the next system reboot. | ||
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The user should not unload the rbu driver after downloading the BIOS image | ||
or updating. | ||
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The driver load creates the following directories under the /sys file system. | ||
/sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
/sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data | ||
/sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type | ||
/sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data | ||
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The driver supports two types of update mechanism; monolithic and packetized. | ||
These update mechanism depends upon the BIOS currently running on the system. | ||
Most of the Dell systems support a monolithic update where the BIOS image is | ||
copied to a single contiguous block of physical memory. | ||
In case of packet mechanism the single memory can be broken in smaller chuks | ||
of contiguous memory and the BIOS image is scattered in these packets. | ||
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By default the driver uses monolithic memory for the update type. This can be | ||
changed to contiguous during the driver load time by specifying the load | ||
parameter image_type=packet. This can also be changed later as below | ||
echo packet > /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type | ||
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Do the steps below to download the BIOS image. | ||
1) echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
2) cp bios_image.hdr /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data | ||
3) echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
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The /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries will remain till the following is | ||
done. | ||
echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
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Until this step is completed the drivr cannot be unloaded. | ||
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Also the driver provides /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data readonly file to | ||
read back the image downloaded. This is useful in case of packet update | ||
mechanism where the above steps 1,2,3 will repeated for every packet. | ||
By reading the /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data file all packet data | ||
downloaded can be verified in a single file. | ||
The packets are arranged in this file one after the other in a FIFO order. | ||
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NOTE: | ||
This driver requires a patch for firmware_class.c which has the addition | ||
of request_firmware_nowait_nohotplug function to wortk | ||
Also after updating the BIOS image an user mdoe application neeeds to execute | ||
code which message the BIOS update request to the BIOS. So on the next reboot | ||
the BIOS knows about the new image downloaded and it updates it self. | ||
Also don't unload the rbu drive if the image has to be updated. | ||
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