coreboot February 2024

coreboot@coreboot.org

21 participants
27 discussions

[coreboot - Feature #420] (New) Use standard format of TPM event log
by Krystian Hebel 07 Aug '24

07 Aug '24

Issue #420 has been reported by Krystian Hebel. ---------------------------------------- Feature #420: Use standard format of TPM event log https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/420 * Author: Krystian Hebel * Status: New * Priority: Normal * Target version: none * Start date: 2022-10-12 * Related links: [1] https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/wp-content/uploads/TCG_PCClientImplementa… [2] https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/wp-content/uploads/TCG_PCClient_PFP_r1p05… --------------------------------… [View More]

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[coreboot - Feature #433] (New) Unify TPM drivers in coreboot
by Michał Żygowski 24 Apr '24

24 Apr '24

Issue #433 has been reported by Michał Żygowski. ---------------------------------------- Feature #433: Unify TPM drivers in coreboot https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/433 * Author: Michał Żygowski * Status: New * Priority: Normal * Target version: none * Start date: 2022-10-24 ---------------------------------------- Add an option to compile all drivers for TPM 1.2, 2.0 TIS and CRB. The motivation is to not build multiple coreboot ROMs for each possible TPM supported by the platform. The … [View More]

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Critical bug in RTC code for a leap year
by Michał Żygowski 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

Hi folks, Another leap year, another problem with RTC in firmwares :) This time, unfortunately, this kind of bugs hit coreboot. I have issued a patch that fixes off-by-one error in the days count in month for a leap year: https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/80790 It is quite critical, because depending on build date, it may revert to some very old date, like January 2023 or even older (depending on how long you run on current firmware). That said, the consequences are enormous: from … [View More]

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Re: Are we running libpayload unit tests in the CI?
by Martin Roth 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

Hey Julius, Here's what we running: https://review.coreboot.org/plugins/gitiles/coreboot/+/refs/heads/main/util… Martin Feb 27, 2024 at 18:31 by jwerner(a)chromium.org: > Hi, > > We've had unit test support in libpayload for over two years now, but > I just noticed that it doesn't look like we're actually running them > in the CI? E.g. if I look through a test run like this > https://qa.coreboot.org/job/coreboot-gerrit/252761/testReport/(root)/ > I can't find them … [View More]

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The road towards LTO: an update and a few question
by Arthur Heymans 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

Hi community I picked up the good work done by Jacob Garber to implement link time optimization. The size gains are very substantial, with sometimes up to 15% reduction in binary size! Besides the size benefit it can make us a bit more lazy programmers: for instance we often put static inline functions in headers guarded by preprocessing depending on Kconfig options to not generate code we won't use. With LTO that can be relaxed a bit and the condition to do nothing can come from a separate … [View More]linked object (at least I presume, I haven't tested). So to do LTO, both with clang and GCC, you use the compiler as a linker frontend, rather than invoke the linker directly. Object files that are optionally generated with the -flto flag to generate LTO optimized binaries. See https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/40811 Jacob's patches dealt with GCC. I toyed around with clang. The clang linker frontend only works with LTO if using the GOLD or LLD linker. GCC can use the BFD linker we currently use, so that's an easy transition. Both those linkers, GOLD and LLD are less capable at parsing linker scripts than the BFD linker. Especially for the x86 bootblock, in which we do a lot of stuff, like ID, FIT pointer, ECFW pointer, early 16 bit code, ..., is complicated and those linkers fail on the arithmetics doing all that optimized linking. So my question would be, whether we want to support non BFD linkers and therefore not support all the magic in linker scripts we currently have. At most we are a few bytes less optimal than possible by for instance setting a good hardcoded size and offset of the early 16bit code rather than have the linker script optimize that. As a side note, LTO size gainz are bigger than what would be lost, by a large margin. https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/80724/1/src/arch/x86/bootblock.ld is a crude example of how I got lld to be happy with the script. If non BFD linkers are acceptable, how do you propose we deal with it? When not using LTO you could in principle use a different linker of your choosing. Should we just move to lld to make sure CI is happy about linker scripts? Should it be an option, but then we won?t have CI being able to test it except on a few boards put in configs/ ? Maybe have both, but then change the default once LLD is known to work well enough? Sidenote: LLD is faster than BFD but linking is not an expensive step in coreboot anyway. Other more typical linker scripts like the ones you find on ARM and ARM64 platforms work just fine. There are some subtle differences e.g. https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/80735 where the heap needs to be declared to not be loaded. There are a few issues though. LLD does not like the RISCV relocation symbols of libgcc.a... I read upstream bugreports about this issue, so maybe that will resolve itself. Same questions with LTO and CI. Should it be an option (IMO yes, as that's what both Linux and u-boot do) and which default settings do we want. For CI reasons LTO is a bit more strict and therefore useful, as the compiler frontend does throw more warnings than the plain linker when linking. What are your thoughts? Are there some caveats about linkers and LTO that are worth knowing, before moving forward? Kind regards Arthur [View Less]

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Need help from anyone at Meraki/Cisco
by David Hendricks 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

Hi folks, As discussed in the Feb. 21 coreboot leadership meeting [1][2], concerns have been raised about coreboot source code releases for certain Meraki switch products. Requests have been made to open-source(a)meraki.com (mailto:open-source@meraki.com) about this with limited success in the past (MX84, MX250), though current requests for MS350 have gone practically unanswered. Since this problem scales with the product line-up, it seems an engineering approach to get code published - … [View More]

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Are we running libpayload unit tests in the CI?
by Julius Werner 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

Hi, We've had unit test support in libpayload for over two years now, but I just noticed that it doesn't look like we're actually running them in the CI? E.g. if I look through a test run like this https://qa.coreboot.org/job/coreboot-gerrit/252761/testReport/(root)/ I can't find them anywhere (most of them have confusingly similar names with coreboot unit tests, but "fmap_locate_area-test" is a unique one). Is that intended or an oversight? Would it be easy to fix? (I'm not super familiar … [View More]

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CHIP_NAME history
by ron minnich 26 Feb '24

26 Feb '24

I notice in bfb11bec3b3fec638adf864a9b9b2cff6671fed8 that CHIP_NAME is gone. I am glad to see it go, but I figured a quick note on history would help. Back in the day, we had coreboot on systems with as little as 256 KiB of memory. That was hard. One of the build options was to have CHIP_NAME result in "", which saved the length of the string + 4 bytes (the pointer). This was, on occasion, the difference between fitting an image or overflowing. It mattered. So the comment: " It was … [View More]

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Introducing OSFF ByteTalks - Online Webinars about OSF
by Christian Walter 26 Feb '24

26 Feb '24

Hi coreboot community, The Open-Source Firmware Foundation (OSFF) is pleased to announce ByteTalks, a new series of online webinars focused on the open-source firmware community. ByteTalks aims to provide a platform for learning, sharing, and discussing the latest developments in open-source firmware. Each session features talks by experienced professionals, practical tutorials, and a chance for participants to ask questions and engage with the speakers. Whether you're deeply involved in … [View More]

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[coreboot - Bug #527] (New) Can't compile coreboot on Arch Linux
by naixin Lv 24 Feb '24

24 Feb '24

Issue #527 has been reported by naixin Lv. ---------------------------------------- Bug #527: Can't compile coreboot on Arch Linux https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/527 * Author: naixin Lv * Status: New * Priority: Normal * Assignee: naixin Lv * Category: build system * Target version: none * Start date: 2024-02-23 * Affected versions: master * Needs backport to: none * Affected hardware: GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 * Affected OS: none ---------------------------------------- I want to compile … [View More]

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coreboot February 2024