[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-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

-- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com