Fallback mechanisms on x86 with C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK

[Arthur Heymans]

      Hi

As more and more x86 platforms are moving to C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK
and therefore don't use a romcc compiled bootblock anymore a certain
question arises. With the romcc bootblock there was a normal/fallback
mechanism.

It works the following way:
It uses RTC cmos to select between the normal and the fallback
bootpaths. So depending on that bit the bootblock selected either
normal/romstage or fallback/romstage which also load postcar stage,
ramstage and payloads with the same prefix from there. There is also a
reboot counter which makes sure that it actually gets to the point it
can load the payload and depending on CONFIG_SKIP_MAX_REBOOT_CNT_CLEAR
it resets that the counter.

This mechanism is not very robust and is more intended to be used to be
able to test things without needing a hardware programmer to flash
images in the case something goes wrong. I use it for instance to test
changes on laptops which take a long time to disassemble.

Currently C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK lacks such generic mechanism on x86
platforms. On the first sight it looks like VBOOT with verstage running
after the bootblock, might be able to achieve a similar boot
scheme. VBOOT seems to lack documentation and while not that hard to get
working, it looks like it is not falling back when there is problem on a
RW_A/B boot path (I called die die(); somewhere in the ramstage to
test). Also the tools around vboot (crossystem) are quite chromeos
specific, requiring Chromeos specific ACPI code exposing the VBNV
variables and also a Linux kernel exposing those ACPI methods via
sysfs.

My understanding of VBOOT might be incorrect or incomplete, so it would
be great if someone more knowledgeable could fill in here.

So at the moment it looks like VBOOT does not fit the bill to be able to
quickly test things while having a fallback mechanism.

Now being able to run GCC compiled code in the bootblock does have the
advantage of allowing much more flexibility over romcc compiled code.
So it is possible to simply reimplement the same behavior with different
prefixes for bootpaths but it would also be possible to do something
similar to what vboot does, namely using separate FMAP regions for boot
paths. This would require a simple cbfs_locator. Upstream flashrom
master now supports using FMAP as a layout so it would be rather easy to
use.

Using FMAP requires a little bit more work (generating a proper default
FMAP, populate the CBFS FMAP regions, implementing a cbfs_locator) but
does allow for nice features like locking the fallback CBFS region to
make sure the fallback can't be erased by accident.

Any thought or suggestions?

Kind regards

Arthur Heymans

[Aaron Durbin]

      On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 6:24 PM Julius Werner <jwerner(a)chromium.org&gt; wrote:

  What does that
practically look like? Every time we have to re-walk we
 have to reverify the
integrity of the metadata.

 I mean, that is exactly what we're doing right now anyway (unless
 something significantly changed in CBFS code since the last time I
 checked). For every single CBFS file access we start at the root and
 we walk the chain until we find the file we're trying to load (and all
 of this are real SPI transfers, it's not cached anywhere). Hashing
 times are generally insignificant compared to SPI access times IIRC
 (especially since this should be a raw hash, not an RSA signature like
 we use in current vboot). Validating the hash means we have to walk
 the whole CBFS directory rather than stopping at the file when we find
 it, but since we generally don't really pay attention for CBFS file
 placement for performance right now that's presumably not a big deal
 (would only double cost on average).

 And there are certainly still ways to improve this with the right
 caching, and ways to do that in a safe way even if verification is
 involved, which we could explore if we wanted to. I'm just saying as a
 baseline that the cost of CBFS walks seems to have never bothered us
 in the past, so the comparable cost of reverifying metadata probably
 shouldn't be a major criterion to reject the per-file approach.
I wasn't considering just the perf costs. I was including the notion of
re-checking and re-visiting the boot media repeatedly wit TOCTOU in mind. I
think we're on the same page, though, with the two approaches on what both
would entail. We collectively need to align on pros/cons of both and
ultimately decide on an approach.

[Julius Werner]

  What does that practically look like? Every time we
have to re-walk we have to reverify the integrity of the metadata.
I mean, that is exactly what we're doing right now anyway (unless
something significantly changed in CBFS code since the last time I
checked). For every single CBFS file access we start at the root and
we walk the chain until we find the file we're trying to load (and all
of this are real SPI transfers, it's not cached anywhere). Hashing
times are generally insignificant compared to SPI access times IIRC
(especially since this should be a raw hash, not an RSA signature like
we use in current vboot). Validating the hash means we have to walk
the whole CBFS directory rather than stopping at the file when we find
it, but since we generally don't really pay attention for CBFS file
placement for performance right now that's presumably not a big deal
(would only double cost on average).

And there are certainly still ways to improve this with the right
caching, and ways to do that in a safe way even if verification is
involved, which we could explore if we wanted to. I'm just saying as a
baseline that the cost of CBFS walks seems to have never bothered us
in the past, so the comparable cost of reverifying metadata probably
shouldn't be a major criterion to reject the per-file approach.

[Aaron Durbin]

      On Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 11:17 PM Zeh, Werner <werner.zeh(a)siemens.com&gt; wrote:

  Currently with the one CBFS containing all files it is
easy and simple to
 access every file in every stage.
 Wouldn't this be harder if we chose to split the CBFS into several,
 stand-alone CBFSes?
 Or, on the other hand, wouldn't we end up in duplicating CBFS files just
 to have them around handy?

 I have the case in mind where we need access to data other than
 stage-code  like Siemens' HWInfo.
 We need to access this configuration data from different stages.
Such a thing would need to be loaded once and maintained in-core. But that
would be true regardless of cbfs layout. However, if one doesn't care about
protecting against physical attacks on boot media it's not really
relevant. There's also more than one way to do things. For example, if we
implemented namespacing that mapped to cbfs region then the call site would
also just work as-is with a name change. e.g. 'file1' -> 'ns/file1'
where
'ns' would map to a specific region. However that's more like a vfs
implementation, but it's not too complicated to implement if we wanted to
do such a thing.


  Werner

  -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
 Von: Julius Werner [mailto:[e-mail]]
 Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. Januar 2019 00:01
 An: Aaron Durbin
 Cc: Julius Werner; Arthur Heymans; Coreboot
 Betreff: [coreboot] Re: Fallback mechanisms on x86 with
 C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK
 
 > For 1, this is attempting to protect physical attack. Obviously this
particular problem can't be solved in isolation, but it's something to think
  about.

 But isn't this something that per-file hashing would probably make
 easier to
protect against, not harder? I mean, right now we just hash the
  whole region once and then assume it stays good
-- there is no
 protection. I doubt this would really become easier to solve if you
split
 the
  CBFS up into chunks... you'd have to somehow
built a system where a
 whole chunk is loaded into memory at once, verified there,
and then
  every file we may want to access from it is
accessed in that same stage
 from that cached version in memory.
 
 The file is the natural unit which is loaded at a time, so I'd think
 scoping
the verification to that would make it easiest to verify on load. I
  mean, on Arm we already always load whole files
at a time anyway, so
 it's really just a matter of inserting the verification
step between load
  and decompression on the buffer we already have.
(On
 x86 it may be a bit different, but it should still be easier to find
 space to load
a file at a time than to load a larger CBFS chunk at a
  time.)

 > When discussing 2 from a practical matter, we need to pass on the
 metadata
information across stages to help mitigate 1 and ensure
  integrity of the hashes are correct.

 This is true -- but isn't this the same for all solutions? No matter how
 you
scope verification, if you want to verify things at load time then
  every stage needs to be able to run verification,
and it needs some kind
 of trust anchor passed in from a previous stage for that. I
also don't
  think this should be a huge hurdle... we're
already passing vboot
 workbuffer metadata, this just means passing something more
in there.
  (For per-file hashing, I'd assume you'd
just pass the single hash
 covering all the metadata, and then all the metadata is
verified again on
  every CBFS walk.)

 > Similarly, limiting complexity is also important. If we can group the
 assets
together that are tied to the boot flow then it's conceptually
  easier to limit access to regions that
haven't been checked yet or
 shouldn't be accessed. I do think per-file
metadata hashing brings a lot of
  complications in implementation. When in limited
resource environments
 chunking cbfs into multiple regions lends itself well to
  accomplishing that while also restricting access
to data/regions that
 aren't needed yet when thinking about limiting #1.
 
 Fair enough. I agree limiting complexity is always important, I'm just
 not
ad-hoc convinced that a solution like you describe would really be
  less complex than per-file hashing. I think that
while it makes the CBFS
 access code itself a bit more complex, it would save
complexity in
  other areas (e.g. if you have arbitrary chunks
then something must
 decide which chunk to use at what time and which file to pack
into
  which chunk, all of which is extra code).
Assuming we can "get it right
 once", I think per-file hashing should be a
solution that will "just work"
  for whatever future platform ports and general
features want to put in
 CBFS (whereas a solution where everyone who wants to put
another
  file into CBFS must understand the verification
solution well enough to
 make an informed decision on which chunk to place something
into
  may end up pushing more complexity onto more
people).

 Anyway, I didn't want to derail this thread into discussing CBFS
 verification,
I just wanted to mention that I still think the per-file
 hashing is a
  good idea and worth discussing. We should have a
larger discussion about
 the pros and cons of possible approaches before we decide
what
  we're planning to do (and then someone still
needs to find time to do
 it, of course ;) ).
  _______________________________________________
 coreboot mailing list -- coreboot(a)coreboot.org To unsubscribe send an
 email to
coreboot-leave(a)coreboot.org

[Aaron Durbin]

      On Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 4:00 PM Julius Werner <jwerner(a)chromium.org&gt; wrote:

  For 1, this is
attempting to protect physical attack. Obviously this
 particular problem can't
be solved in isolation, but it's something to
 think about.

 But isn't this something that per-file hashing would probably make
 easier to protect against, not harder? I mean, right now we just hash
 the whole region once and then assume it stays good -- there is no
 protection. I doubt this would really become easier to solve if you
 split the CBFS up into chunks... you'd have to somehow built a system
 where a whole chunk is loaded into memory at once, verified there, and
 then every file we may want to access from it is accessed in that same
 stage from that cached version in memory.

 The file is the natural unit which is loaded at a time, so I'd think
 scoping the verification to that would make it easiest to verify on
 load. I mean, on Arm we already always load whole files at a time
 anyway, so it's really just a matter of inserting the verification
 step between load and decompression on the buffer we already have. (On
 x86 it may be a bit different, but it should still be easier to find
 space to load a file at a time than to load a larger CBFS chunk at a
 time.)
I don't believe the per-file approach necessarily makes things easier to
protect. In fact the re-walk with validation might make it easier to
exploit (depending on complexity of implementation). For
time-of-check-time-of-use scenarios the easier thing is to load data that
will be used in-core. i.e. not going back to boot media. Platform specifics
with resource constraints would inherently leave these attacks open. Your
suggestion on loading file, verifying, then using is valid, but my concern
is all the rewalking of cbfs (comment below).


  When
discussing 2 from a practical matter, we need to pass on the
 metadata information
across stages to help mitigate 1 and ensure integrity
 of the hashes are correct.

 This is true -- but isn't this the same for all solutions? No matter
 how you scope verification, if you want to verify things at load time
 then every stage needs to be able to run verification, and it needs
 some kind of trust anchor passed in from a previous stage for that. I
 also don't think this should be a huge hurdle... we're already passing
 vboot workbuffer metadata, this just means passing something more in
 there. (For per-file hashing, I'd assume you'd just pass the single
 hash covering all the metadata, and then all the metadata is verified
 again on every CBFS walk.)
What does that practically look like? Every time we have to re-walk we have
to reverify the integrity of the metadata. Designing on the fly, to me that
suggests we need to carry a copy of the metadata including offset & size
after verifying it and not using it again on the boot media. That way it
stays in-core. Otherwise, one has to walk all of the cbfs to only rewind
and find the file again. There's variants of how big a span is covered by
the metadata hash (i.e. how many entries), but one shouldn't rely upon
existing entries every time we walk. It should be reliant upon the previous
verified and cached metadata. Assets and access patterns very much are a
part of the puzzle. Some platforms have very little assets while others
have a quite a bit.

 
  Similarly, limiting complexity is also important.
If we can group the
 assets together that are tied to the boot flow then it's
conceptually
 easier to limit access to regions that haven't been checked yet or
 shouldn't be accessed. I do think per-file metadata hashing brings a lot of
 complications in implementation. When in limited resource environments
 chunking cbfs into multiple regions lends itself well to accomplishing that
 while also restricting access to data/regions that aren't needed yet when
 thinking about limiting #1.

 Fair enough. I agree limiting complexity is always important, I'm just
 not ad-hoc convinced that a solution like you describe would really be
 less complex than per-file hashing. I think that while it makes the
 CBFS access code itself a bit more complex, it would save complexity
 in other areas (e.g. if you have arbitrary chunks then something must
 decide which chunk to use at what time and which file to pack into
 which chunk, all of which is extra code). Assuming we can "get it
 right once", I think per-file hashing should be a solution that will
 "just work" for whatever future platform ports and general features
 want to put in CBFS (whereas a solution where everyone who wants to
 put another file into CBFS must understand the verification solution
 well enough to make an informed decision on which chunk to place
 something into may end up pushing more complexity onto more people).
The decision on where files go is a static one at build time. When the cbfs
chunks follow boot flow then the decision to switch to a new one follows
those same boundaries. I agree, though, that one needs to understand their
boot flow to make informed decisions on the asset location.


  Anyway, I didn't want to derail this thread into
discussing CBFS
 verification, I just wanted to mention that I still think the per-file
 hashing is a good idea and worth discussing. We should have a larger
 discussion about the pros and cons of possible approaches before we
 decide what we're planning to do (and then someone still needs to find
 time to do it, of course ;) ).
Agreed.

[Zeh, Werner]

      Currently with the one CBFS containing all files it is easy and simple to access every
file in every stage.
Wouldn't this be harder if we chose to split the CBFS into several, stand-alone
CBFSes?
Or, on the other hand, wouldn't we end up in duplicating CBFS files just to have them
around handy?

I have the case in mind where we need access to data other than stage-code  like
Siemens' HWInfo.
We need to access this configuration data from different stages.

Werner

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Julius Werner [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. Januar 2019 00:01
> An: Aaron Durbin
> Cc: Julius Werner; Arthur Heymans; Coreboot
> Betreff: [coreboot] Re: Fallback mechanisms on x86 with C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK
> 
> > For 1, this is attempting to protect physical attack. Obviously this particular
problem can't be solved in isolation, but it's something to think
> about.
> 
> But isn't this something that per-file hashing would probably make easier to
protect against, not harder? I mean, right now we just hash the
> whole region once and then assume it stays good -- there is no protection. I doubt
this would really become easier to solve if you split the
> CBFS up into chunks... you'd have to somehow built a system where a whole chunk
is loaded into memory at once, verified there, and then
> every file we may want to access from it is accessed in that same stage from that
cached version in memory.
> 
> The file is the natural unit which is loaded at a time, so I'd think scoping the
verification to that would make it easiest to verify on load. I
> mean, on Arm we already always load whole files at a time anyway, so it's really
just a matter of inserting the verification step between load
> and decompression on the buffer we already have. (On
> x86 it may be a bit different, but it should still be easier to find space to load a
file at a time than to load a larger CBFS chunk at a
> time.)
> 
> > When discussing 2 from a practical matter, we need to pass on the metadata
information across stages to help mitigate 1 and ensure
> integrity of the hashes are correct.
> 
> This is true -- but isn't this the same for all solutions? No matter how you
scope verification, if you want to verify things at load time then
> every stage needs to be able to run verification, and it needs some kind of trust
anchor passed in from a previous stage for that. I also don't
> think this should be a huge hurdle... we're already passing vboot workbuffer
metadata, this just means passing something more in there.
> (For per-file hashing, I'd assume you'd just pass the single hash covering
all the metadata, and then all the metadata is verified again on
> every CBFS walk.)
> 
> > Similarly, limiting complexity is also important. If we can group the assets
together that are tied to the boot flow then it's conceptually
> easier to limit access to regions that haven't been checked yet or shouldn't
be accessed. I do think per-file metadata hashing brings a lot of
> complications in implementation. When in limited resource environments chunking cbfs
into multiple regions lends itself well to
> accomplishing that while also restricting access to data/regions that aren't
needed yet when thinking about limiting #1.
> 
> Fair enough. I agree limiting complexity is always important, I'm just not ad-hoc
convinced that a solution like you describe would really be
> less complex than per-file hashing. I think that while it makes the CBFS access code
itself a bit more complex, it would save complexity in
> other areas (e.g. if you have arbitrary chunks then something must decide which chunk
to use at what time and which file to pack into
> which chunk, all of which is extra code). Assuming we can "get it right
once", I think per-file hashing should be a solution that will "just work"
> for whatever future platform ports and general features want to put in CBFS (whereas
a solution where everyone who wants to put another
> file into CBFS must understand the verification solution well enough to make an
informed decision on which chunk to place something into
> may end up pushing more complexity onto more people).
> 
> Anyway, I didn't want to derail this thread into discussing CBFS verification, I
just wanted to mention that I still think the per-file hashing is a
> good idea and worth discussing. We should have a larger discussion about the pros and
cons of possible approaches before we decide what
> we're planning to do (and then someone still needs to find time to do it, of
course ;) ).
> _______________________________________________
> coreboot mailing list -- coreboot(a)coreboot.org To unsubscribe send an email to
coreboot-leave(a)coreboot.org

[Julius Werner]

  For 1, this is attempting to protect physical attack.
Obviously this particular problem can't be solved in isolation, but it's something
to think about.
But isn't this something that per-file hashing would probably make
easier to protect against, not harder? I mean, right now we just hash
the whole region once and then assume it stays good -- there is no
protection. I doubt this would really become easier to solve if you
split the CBFS up into chunks... you'd have to somehow built a system
where a whole chunk is loaded into memory at once, verified there, and
then every file we may want to access from it is accessed in that same
stage from that cached version in memory.

The file is the natural unit which is loaded at a time, so I'd think
scoping the verification to that would make it easiest to verify on
load. I mean, on Arm we already always load whole files at a time
anyway, so it's really just a matter of inserting the verification
step between load and decompression on the buffer we already have. (On
x86 it may be a bit different, but it should still be easier to find
space to load a file at a time than to load a larger CBFS chunk at a
time.)

  When discussing 2 from a practical matter, we need to
pass on the metadata information across stages to help mitigate 1 and ensure integrity of
the hashes are correct.
This is true -- but isn't this the same for all solutions? No matter
how you scope verification, if you want to verify things at load time
then every stage needs to be able to run verification, and it needs
some kind of trust anchor passed in from a previous stage for that. I
also don't think this should be a huge hurdle... we're already passing
vboot workbuffer metadata, this just means passing something more in
there. (For per-file hashing, I'd assume you'd just pass the single
hash covering all the metadata, and then all the metadata is verified
again on every CBFS walk.)

  Similarly, limiting complexity is also important. If
we can group the assets together that are tied to the boot flow then it's conceptually
easier to limit access to regions that haven't been checked yet or shouldn't be
accessed. I do think per-file metadata hashing brings a lot of complications in
implementation. When in limited resource environments chunking cbfs into multiple regions
lends itself well to accomplishing that while also restricting access to data/regions that
aren't needed yet when thinking about limiting #1.
Fair enough. I agree limiting complexity is always important, I'm just
not ad-hoc convinced that a solution like you describe would really be
less complex than per-file hashing. I think that while it makes the
CBFS access code itself a bit more complex, it would save complexity
in other areas (e.g. if you have arbitrary chunks then something must
decide which chunk to use at what time and which file to pack into
which chunk, all of which is extra code). Assuming we can "get it
right once", I think per-file hashing should be a solution that will
"just work" for whatever future platform ports and general features
want to put in CBFS (whereas a solution where everyone who wants to
put another file into CBFS must understand the verification solution
well enough to make an informed decision on which chunk to place
something into may end up pushing more complexity onto more people).

Anyway, I didn't want to derail this thread into discussing CBFS
verification, I just wanted to mention that I still think the per-file
hashing is a good idea and worth discussing. We should have a larger
discussion about the pros and cons of possible approaches before we
decide what we're planning to do (and then someone still needs to find
time to do it, of course ;) ).

[Aaron Durbin]

      On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 6:21 PM Julius Werner <jwerner(a)chromium.org&gt; wrote:

  FWIW, it's
my opinion I think we'll need to start splitting cbfs into
 smaller ones. This
isn't specific to this situation, but splitting slots
 into multiple cbfses  (rw-a-1, rw-a-2, etc) allows one to chain/group
 resources as they are used along with more flexibility for
 signing/verification methods. What you wrote above seems sane, but I think
 you'll run into build limitations that don't allow one to target fmap
 regions for different assets. It's a lot of Make w/ some special casing
 currently which is because people didn't want another tool at the time --
 however, once you need more cbfs regions of different granularity I think
 having better tooling around targeting final destination for assets is
 required.

 Are we abandoning the idea to verify individual files instead (once
 someone has time to implement it) then? I'd still think that would be
 a nicer solution to get more flexible verification.
I'm just expressing my opinion on how I think we should move forward. I'm a
little concerned about multiple things when it comes to doing per-file
signature/hashing:

1. Time of Check and Time of Use issues.
2. Passing metadata forward for validation.
3. Complexity

For 1, this is attempting to protect physical attack. Obviously this
particular problem can't be solved in isolation, but it's something to
think about. When discussing 2 from a practical matter, we need to pass on
the metadata information across stages to help mitigate 1 and ensure
integrity of the hashes are correct. Similarly, limiting complexity is also
important. If we can group the assets together that are tied to the boot
flow then it's conceptually easier to limit access to regions that haven't
been checked yet or shouldn't be accessed. I do think per-file metadata
hashing brings a lot of complications in implementation. When in limited
resource environments chunking cbfs into multiple regions lends itself well
to accomplishing that while also restricting access to data/regions that
aren't needed yet when thinking about limiting #1.

-Aaron

[Julius Werner]

  There's a trycount that I think defaults to 10.
After 10 failing tries it should switch slots. There's also a 'set good
firmware' notion which signals to the firmware one was able to boot. This is picked up
on the next reboot and the information is passed through  vboot non volatile storage. I
can dig up specific pointers in the code, but you may not have tried enough times to see
things switch.
Try counters rely on userspace controlling them. You need to have the
crossystem utility (part of vboot) available in userspace and all
hooked up correctly so that coreboot and crossystem read and write the
same NVRAM (I think this sort of works by default with x86 CMOS, on
Arm not so much). Then you can run stuff like "crossystem
fw_try_next=B fw_try_count=1", it should boot RW_B once and boot RW_A
again on the next boot (assuming your hang happens after verstage, of
course). (If you set fw_try_count=0, it will just keep booting the
current slot forever. Note that there's no way to automatically fall
to recovery mode (RO) with this, that only happens when explicitly
triggered by code.)

However, vboot isn't really trying to solve this kind of problem and I
don't think we should try to bend it to be something else. I agree
that it would be better to implement this separately, and that
separate FMAP sections would be a cleaner implementation. (It would be
nice if we could eventually retire CONFIG_CBFS_PREFIX then, the whole
fallback/... thing in all our images is just confusing to most
people.)

  FWIW, it's my opinion I think we'll need to
start splitting cbfs into smaller ones. This isn't specific to this situation, but
splitting slots into multiple cbfses  (rw-a-1, rw-a-2, etc) allows one to chain/group
resources as they are used along with more flexibility for signing/verification methods.
What you wrote above seems sane, but I think you'll run into build limitations that
don't allow one to target fmap regions for different assets. It's a lot of Make w/
some special casing currently which is because people didn't want another tool at the
time -- however, once you need more cbfs regions of different granularity I think having
better tooling around targeting final destination for assets is required.
Are we abandoning the idea to verify individual files instead (once
someone has time to implement it) then? I'd still think that would be
a nicer solution to get more flexible verification.

[Aaron Durbin]

      On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 6:45 AM Arthur Heymans <arthur(a)aheymans.xyz&gt; wrote:

  Hi

 As more and more x86 platforms are moving to C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK
 and therefore don't use a romcc compiled bootblock anymore a certain
 question arises. With the romcc bootblock there was a normal/fallback
 mechanism.

 It works the following way:
 It uses RTC cmos to select between the normal and the fallback
 bootpaths. So depending on that bit the bootblock selected either
 normal/romstage or fallback/romstage which also load postcar stage,
 ramstage and payloads with the same prefix from there. There is also a
 reboot counter which makes sure that it actually gets to the point it
 can load the payload and depending on CONFIG_SKIP_MAX_REBOOT_CNT_CLEAR
 it resets that the counter.

 This mechanism is not very robust and is more intended to be used to be
 able to test things without needing a hardware programmer to flash
 images in the case something goes wrong. I use it for instance to test
 changes on laptops which take a long time to disassemble.

 Currently C_ENVIRONMENT_BOOTBLOCK lacks such generic mechanism on x86
 platforms. On the first sight it looks like VBOOT with verstage running
 after the bootblock, might be able to achieve a similar boot
 scheme. VBOOT seems to lack documentation and while not that hard to get
 working, it looks like it is not falling back when there is problem on a
 RW_A/B boot path (I called die die(); somewhere in the ramstage to
 test). Also the tools around vboot (crossystem) are quite chromeos
 specific, requiring Chromeos specific ACPI code exposing the VBNV
 variables and also a Linux kernel exposing those ACPI methods via
 sysfs.

 My understanding of VBOOT might be incorrect or incomplete, so it would
 be great if someone more knowledgeable could fill in here.
There's a trycount that I think defaults to 10. After 10 failing tries it
should switch slots. There's also a 'set good firmware' notion which
signals to the firmware one was able to boot. This is picked up on the next
reboot and the information is passed through  vboot non volatile storage. I
can dig up specific pointers in the code, but you may not have tried enough
times to see things switch.

That said, if you want to implement fallback stuff, it should be fairly
straight forward to do -- and not rely on vboot.


  So at the moment it looks like VBOOT does not fit the
bill to be able to
 quickly test things while having a fallback mechanism.

 Now being able to run GCC compiled code in the bootblock does have the
 advantage of allowing much more flexibility over romcc compiled code.
 So it is possible to simply reimplement the same behavior with different
 prefixes for bootpaths but it would also be possible to do something
 similar to what vboot does, namely using separate FMAP regions for boot
 paths. This would require a simple cbfs_locator. Upstream flashrom
 master now supports using FMAP as a layout so it would be rather easy to
 use.

 Using FMAP requires a little bit more work (generating a proper default
 FMAP, populate the CBFS FMAP regions, implementing a cbfs_locator) but
 does allow for nice features like locking the fallback CBFS region to
 make sure the fallback can't be erased by accident.

 Any thought or suggestions?
FWIW, it's my opinion I think we'll need to start splitting cbfs into
smaller ones. This isn't specific to this situation, but splitting slots
into multiple cbfses  (rw-a-1, rw-a-2, etc) allows one to chain/group
resources as they are used along with more flexibility for
signing/verification methods. What you wrote above seems sane, but I think
you'll run into build limitations that don't allow one to target fmap
regions for different assets. It's a lot of Make w/ some special casing
currently which is because people didn't want another tool at the time --
however, once you need more cbfs regions of different granularity I think
having better tooling around targeting final destination for assets is
required.



 
 Kind regards

 Arthur Heymans
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