[flashrom] My first question...

[David Hendricks]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Bernd Blaauw <bblaauw at home.nl> wrote:

> Op 30-9-2011 19:09, Marcos Felipe Rasia de Mello schreef:
>
>
>  I get differences with the previous one. I haven't enter in the bios or
>>> change
>>> anything... I was expecting no differences between them. Am I missing
>>> anything?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Jorge
>>>
>>
>> http://flashrom.org/Random_**notes#Bios_content_changes_**between_reboots<http://flashrom.org/Random_notes#Bios_content_changes_between_reboots>
>>
>
> It might be usefull if Flashrom gets a percentage counter:
>
> 'file savebios.bin is 99.3% identical to EEPROM contents, continue at your
> own risk. It's also 50.0 % identical to file asusbios.bin'
>
> instead of something along the lines of 'verification failed, file is
> corrupt'.
>

I disagree. If the ROM images do not match, then Flashrom can make no
guarantee or ascertain as to whether it is corrupt or not. This is entirely
dependent on the implementation of your BIOS.

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Bernd Blaauw <bblaauw at home.nl> wrote:

> Above example would also require a way to reference a 2nd file to verify
> against. Let's say that 2nd file is an internet-downloaded original
> motherboard vendor's BIOS instead of a flashrom dumped file.
>

Unfortunately, those are unlikely to match because many vendors place
board-specific information such as serial numbers, MAC addresses, etc. in
the firmware ROM.

For example, try running "dmidecode -t 1" on a machine which has never had
its firmware updated. Then change the firmware using Flashrom, reboot, and
run "dmidecode -t 1" again. You will likely see serial numbers, UUIDs, etc.
reset to a "default" value.
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