Re: [coreboot] Owner-controlled POWER9 Talos II [was: Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented mode]

[Timothy Pearson]

On 09/06/2017 06:48 AM, Rene Shuster wrote:
> So a case of "Dig before you call"?
> Anyways I'm re-sending my questions since it appears that you didn't
> receive them yesterday...
>
> Timothy,
> Ubuntu Server is officially supporting Power8
> ( https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8
> https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8 ). Do you have insight
> if they will support Power9?

Yes, they will.
> What's the name of the chipset your board
> will be using?

There is no chipset per se; as on most OpenPOWER systems the POWER PCIe
lanes are brought directly out to the various on-board peripherals.

Also c an we get a complete overview of all the I/O ports
> with Make and Model#. I see what looks like 4 SATA ports (in 2 different
> colors) on the board
> ( https://static.rptorcs.com/TL2B01/images/boardsmall.png
> https://static.rptorcs.com/TL2B01/images/boardsmall.png ), but they
> are missing in the documentation
> ( https://raptorcs.com/content/TL2B01/intro.html
> https://raptorcs.com/content/TL2B01/intro.html ).

The ports in question are driven off of the Microsemi SAS controller, so
they work for both SAS and SATA.  USB is driven by a TI USB 3.0
controller; serial is passed through the BMC (standard OpenPOWER design).
> I would also like to
> know what make & model the SATA controller is and the model of the
> Broadcom NIC chip for example.

BCM5719.  There's some good info about the internals of the chip online
[1] that provides a starting point to write a replacement firmware if
you're interested.  Otherwise, like all other peripherals, the NIC is
behind the IOMMU and cannot access data in the CPU domain without kernel
permission.
> You might also want to add info to the site about the optional Microsemi
> SAS 3.0 RAID controller. Right now it's unclear which one of their many
> ICs will be onboard (I assume it will be
> RAID-on-Chip: https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/storage-ics/3689-raid-controller...
> https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/storage-ics/3689-raid-controllers ).

I'll bring this up internally.  It's the PM8068 controller (SmartIOC 2000).
> Else keep up the good work and t hanks for making this happen.

No problem, thanks for the encouragement!

[1]
http://esec-lab.sogeti.com/static/publications/10-hack.lu-nicreverse_slides....

Owner-controlled POWER9 Talos II [was: Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented mode]

On 09/06/2017 01:08 PM, Timothy Pearson wrote:
> BCM5719.  There's some good info about the internals of the chip online
> [1] that provides a starting point to write a replacement firmware if
> you're interested.  Otherwise, like all other peripherals, the NIC is
> behind the IOMMU and cannot access data in the CPU domain without kernel
> permission.

Hmm there aren't any open source gigabit nics out there? damn :[

Also as others have said congratulations and thank you for keeping the 
computing freedom movement alive :3

Owner-controlled POWER9 Talos II [was: Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented mode]

[Rene Shuster]

Thanks for sharing this info.

So the 4x SATA ports are optional and powered by PM8069, and they will only
be present if you checkbox the "Integrated Microsemi SAS Controller
(Proprietary)" on the purchase page, correct? Or in other words: if you
don't checkbox "Integrated Microsemi SAS Controller (Proprietary)" you will
receive a board with no SATA ports?

How is the Samsung NVMe drive physically connected (M.2/U.2 or PCIe slot)?
What model# is it?

So BCM it is. They have a pretty thorough Diagnostic for their NICs. I'm
using it on some of our servers when it's time to run diagnostics. It's DOS
based (but they have an UEFI version as well) and it does check quite a few
things ("Register Tests, Memory Tests, Miscellaneous Tests, Data Tests,
Cable Tests, APE Register Tests and APE Diagnostics Tests"). For the
BCM5719 the diag is located here:
https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/docs/eula_download/570x/B57udia...
It includes the B57Diag.pdf which might be of interest for anyone who wants
to reverse engineer the fw.

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 1:08 PM, Timothy Pearson <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> On 09/06/2017 06:48 AM, Rene Shuster wrote:
> > So a case of "Dig before you call"?
> > Anyways I'm re-sending my questions since it appears that you didn't
> > receive them yesterday...
> >
> > Timothy,
> > Ubuntu Server is officially supporting Power8
> > ( https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8
> > https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/power8 ). Do you have insight
> > if they will support Power9?
>
> Yes, they will.
> > What's the name of the chipset your board
> > will be using?
>
> There is no chipset per se; as on most OpenPOWER systems the POWER PCIe
> lanes are brought directly out to the various on-board peripherals.
>
> Also c an we get a complete overview of all the I/O ports
> > with Make and Model#. I see what looks like 4 SATA ports (in 2 different
> > colors) on the board
> > ( https://static.rptorcs.com/TL2B01/images/boardsmall.png
> > https://static.rptorcs.com/TL2B01/images/boardsmall.png ), but they
> > are missing in the documentation
> > ( https://raptorcs.com/content/TL2B01/intro.html
> > https://raptorcs.com/content/TL2B01/intro.html ).
>
> The ports in question are driven off of the Microsemi SAS controller, so
> they work for both SAS and SATA.  USB is driven by a TI USB 3.0
> controller; serial is passed through the BMC (standard OpenPOWER design).
> > I would also like to
> > know what make & model the SATA controller is and the model of the
> > Broadcom NIC chip for example.
>
> BCM5719.  There's some good info about the internals of the chip online
> [1] that provides a starting point to write a replacement firmware if
> you're interested.  Otherwise, like all other peripherals, the NIC is
> behind the IOMMU and cannot access data in the CPU domain without kernel
> permission.
> > You might also want to add info to the site about the optional Microsemi
> > SAS 3.0 RAID controller. Right now it's unclear which one of their many
> > ICs will be onboard (I assume it will be
> > RAID-on-Chip: https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/storage-ics/
>
> 3689-raid-controllers
> > <https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/storage-ics/
>
> 3689-raid-controllers> ).
>
> I'll bring this up internally.  It's the PM8068 controller (SmartIOC 2000).
> > Else keep up the good work and t hanks for making this happen.
>
> No problem, thanks for the encouragement!
>
> [1]
> http://esec-lab.sogeti.com/static/publications/10-hack.
> lu-nicreverse_slides.pdf