xref: /openbmc/phosphor-ipmi-flash/README.md (revision 2950c258)
1# Secure Flash Update Mechanism
2
3This document describes the OpenBmc software implementing the secure flash
4update mechanism.
5
6The primary details are [here](https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/designs/firmware_update_via_blobs.md).
7
8## Building and using the host-tool
9
10This repo contains a host-tool implementation for talking to the corresponding
11BMC blob handler.
12
13### Building the host-tool
14
15The host-tool depends on ipmi-blob-tool and pciutils.
16
17#### Building libpciaccess
18
19Check out the [xorg-macros source](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/util/macros).
20
21Then run these commands in the source directory.
22
23```
24./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
25make install
26```
27
28Check out the [libpciaccess source](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libpciaccess).
29
30Then run these commands in the source directory.
31
32```
33./autogen.sh
34make
35make install
36```
37
38#### Building ipmi-blob-tool
39
40Check out the [ipmi-blob-tool source](https://github.com/openbmc/ipmi-blob-tool).
41
42Then run these commands in the source directory.
43
44```
45./bootstrap.sh
46./configure
47make
48make install
49```
50
51#### Building fmtlib
52
53Check out the [fmtlib source](https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt).
54
55Then run these commands in the source directory.
56
57```
58mkdir build && cd build
59cmake ..
60make
61make install
62```
63
64#### Building stdplus
65
66Check out the [stdplus source](https://github.com/openbmc/stdplus).
67
68Then run these commands in the source directory.
69
70```
71meson setup -Dexamples=false -Dtests=disabled builddir
72ninja -C builddir
73ninja -C builddir install
74```
75
76#### Building burn_my_bmc (the host-tool)
77
78Check out the [phosphor-ipmi-flash source](https://github.com/openbmc/phosphor-ipmi-flash).
79
80Then run these commands in the source directory.
81
82```
83./bootstrap.sh
84./configure --disable-build-bmc-blob-handler
85make
86make install
87```
88
89*NOTE:* When building from the OpenBMC SDK your configuration call will be:
90
91```
92./configure --enable-oe-sdk --host "$(uname -m)" --disable-build-bmc-blob-handler AR=x86_64-openbmc-linux-gcc-ar RANLIB=x86_64-openbmc-linux-gcc-ranlib
93```
94
95### Parameters
96
97The host-tool has parameters that let the caller specify every required detail.
98
99The required parameters are:
100
101 Parameter  | Options  | Meaning
102----------- | -------- | -------
103`command`   | `update` | The tool should try to update the BMC firmware.
104`interface` | `ipmibt`, `ipmilpc`, `ipmipci`, `ipminet` | The data transport mechanism, typically `ipmilpc`
105`image`     | path     | The BMC firmware image file (or tarball)
106`sig`       | path     | The path to a signature file to send to the BMC along with the image file.
107`type`      | blob ending | The ending of the blob id.  For instance `/flash/image` becomes a type of `image`.
108
109If you're using an LPC data transfer mechanism, you'll need two additional
110parameters: `address` and `length`.  These values indicate where on the host
111you've reserved memory to be used for the transfer window.
112
113If you're using a net data transfer mechanism, you'll also need two additional
114parameters: `hostname` and `port`. These specify which address and port the tool
115should attempt to connect to the BMC using. If unspecified, the `port` option
116defaults to 623, the same port as IPMI LAN+.
117
118## Introduction
119
120This supports three methods of providing the image to stage. You can send the
121file over IPMI packets, which is a very slow process. A 32-MiB image can take
122~3 hours to send via this method.  This can be done in <1 minutes via the PCI or
123net bridge, or just a few minutes via LPC depending on the size of the mapped
124area.
125
126This is implemented as a phosphor blob handler.
127
128The image must be signed via the production or development keys, the former
129being required for production builds. The image itself and the image signature
130are separately sent to the BMC for verification. The verification package
131source is beyond the scope of this design.
132
133Basically the IPMI OEM handler receives the image in one fashion or another and
134then triggers the `verify_image` service. Then, the user polls until the result
135is reported. This is because the image verification process can exceed 10
136seconds.
137
138### Using Legacy Images
139
140The image flashing mechanism itself is the initramfs stage during reboot. It
141will check for files named "`image-*`" and flash them appropriately for each
142name to section. The IPMI command creates a file `/run/initramfs/bmc-image` and
143writes the contents there. It was found that writing it in /tmp could cause OOM
144errors moving it on low memory systems, whereas renaming a file within the same
145folder seems to only update the directory inode's contents.
146
147### Using UBI
148
149The staging file path can be controlled via software configuration.  The image
150is assumed to be the tarball contents and is written into `/tmp/{tarball_name}.gz`
151
152TODO: Flesh out the UBI approach.
153
154## Configuration
155
156To use `phosphor-ipmi-flash` a platform must provide a configuration.  A
157platform can configure multiple interfaces, such as both lpc and pci.  However,
158a platform should only configure either static layout updates, or ubi.  If
159enabling lpc, the platform must specify either aspeed or nuvoton.  The system
160also supports receiving BIOS updates.
161
162The following are the two primary configuration options, which control how the
163update is treated.
164
165Option                   | Meaning
166------------------------ | -------
167`--enable-static-layout` | Enable treating the update as a static layout update.
168`--enable-tarball-ubi`   | Enable treating the update as a tarball for UBI update.
169`--enable-host-bios`     | Enable receiving the update for a host bios update.
170
171The following are configuration options for how the host and BMC are meant to
172transfer the data.  By default, the data-in-IPMI mechanism is enabled.
173
174There are three configurable data transport mechanisms, either staging the bytes
175via the LPC memory region, the PCI-to-AHB memory region, or sending over a
176network connection.  Because there is only one `MAPPED_ADDRESS` variable at
177present, a platform should not configure LPC and P2A at the same time.  The
178platform's device-tree may have the region locked to a specific driver
179(lpc-aspeed-ctrl), preventing the region from other use.
180
181***NOTE:*** It will likely be possible to configure both LPC and P2A in the near
182future.
183
184Variable              | Default | Meaning
185--------------------- | ------- | -------
186`MAPPED_ADDRESS`      | 0       | The address used for mapping P2A or LPC into the BMC's memory-space.
187
188If a platform enables p2a as the transport mechanism, a specific vendor must be
189selected via the following configuration option.  Currently, only one is
190supported.
191
192Option                 | Meaning
193-----------------------| -------
194`--enable-aspeed-p2a`  | Use with ASPEED parts.
195
196If a platform enables lpc as the transport mechanism, a specific vendor must be
197selected via the following configuration option.  Currently, only two are
198supported.
199
200Option                 | Meaning
201---------------------- | -------
202`--enable-aspeed-lpc`  | Use with ASPEED parts.
203`--enable-nuvoton-lpc` | Use with Nuvoton parts.
204
205A platform may also enable the network transport mechanism.
206
207NOTE: This mechanism is only intended to be used in-band and not exposed
208externally, as it doesn't implement any encryption or integrity verification.
209
210Option                | Meaning
211----------------------| -------
212`--enable-net-bridge` | Enable net transport bridge
213
214There are also options to control an optional clean up mechanism.
215
216Option                    | Meaning
217------------------------- | -------
218`--enable-cleanup-delete` | Provide a simple blob id that deletes artifacts.
219
220If the update mechanism desired is simply a BMC reboot, a platform can just
221enable that directly.
222
223Option                   | Meaning
224------------------------ | -------
225`--enable-reboot-update` | Enable use of reboot update mechanism.
226
227If you would like the update status to be tracked with a status file, this
228option can be enabled. Note that `--enable-update-status` option and the above
229`--enable-reboot-update` option cannot be enabled at the same time.
230
231Option                   | Meaning
232------------------------ | -------
233`--enable-update-status` | Enable use of update status file.
234
235If you would like to use host memory access to update on a PPC platform, this configuration option needs to be enabled.
236
237Option          | Meaning
238--------------- | -------
239`--enable-ppc`  | Enable PPC host memory access.
240
241### Internal Configuration Details
242
243The following variables can be set to whatever you wish, however they have
244usable default values.
245
246Variable                      | Default                    | Meaning
247----------------------------- | -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------
248`STATIC_HANDLER_STAGED_NAME`  | `/run/initramfs/bmc-image` | The filename where to write the staged firmware image for static updates.
249`TARBALL_STAGED_NAME`         | `/tmp/image-update.tar`    | The filename where to write the UBI update tarball.
250`HASH_FILENAME`               | `/tmp/bmc.sig`             | The file to use for the hash provided.
251`PREPARATION_DBUS_SERVICE`    | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bmc-prepare.target` | The systemd target started when the host starts to send an update.
252`VERIFY_STATUS_FILENAME`      | `/tmp/bmc.verify`          | The file checked for the verification status.
253`VERIFY_DBUS_SERVICE`         | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bmc-verify.target`  | The systemd target started for verification.
254`UPDATE_DBUS_SERVICE`         | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bmc-update.target`  | The systemd target started for updating the BMC.
255`UPDATE_STATUS_FILENAME`      | `/tmp/bmc.update`  | The file checked for the update status.
256`BIOS_STAGED_NAME`            | `/tmp/bios-image`  | The file to use for staging the bios firmware update.
257`BIOS_VERIFY_STATUS_FILENAME` | `/tmp/bios.verify` | The file checked for the verification status.
258`PREPARATION_BIOS_TARGET`     | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bios-prepare.target` | The systemd target when the host starts to send an update.
259`VERIFY_BIOS_TARGET`          | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bios-verify.target`  | The systemd target started for verification.
260`UPDATE_BIOS_TARGET`          | `phosphor-ipmi-flash-bios-update.target`  | The systemd target started for updating the BIOS.
261
262## JSON Configuration
263
264Read the [details](bmc_json_config.md) of the json configuration.  The json configurations are used to configure the BMC's flash handler behaviors.
265
266## Flash State Machine Details
267
268[This document](ipmi_flash.md) describes the details of the state machine
269implemented and how different interactions with it will respond.  This also
270describes how a host-side tool is expected to talk to it (triggering different
271states and actions).
272