diff options
author | Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com> | 2012-12-21 02:44:21 -0500 |
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committer | H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com> | 2013-01-31 16:18:47 -0500 |
commit | 0d91ea86a895b911fd7d999acb3f600706d9c8cd (patch) | |
tree | 1c0f94f2b5bf4faba0ab3f1525bcf3f80a0f5454 /Documentation | |
parent | ac2cbab21f318e19bc176a7f38a120cec835220f (diff) |
x86, doc: Documentation for early microcode loading
Documenation for early loading microcode methodology.
Signed-off-by: Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1356075872-3054-2-git-send-email-fenghua.yu@intel.com
Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/x86/early-microcode.txt | 43 |
1 files changed, 43 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/early-microcode.txt b/Documentation/x86/early-microcode.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..4aaf0dfb0cb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/x86/early-microcode.txt | |||
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1 | Early load microcode | ||
2 | ==================== | ||
3 | By Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com> | ||
4 | |||
5 | Kernel can update microcode in early phase of boot time. Loading microcode early | ||
6 | can fix CPU issues before they are observed during kernel boot time. | ||
7 | |||
8 | Microcode is stored in an initrd file. The microcode is read from the initrd | ||
9 | file and loaded to CPUs during boot time. | ||
10 | |||
11 | The format of the combined initrd image is microcode in cpio format followed by | ||
12 | the initrd image (maybe compressed). Kernel parses the combined initrd image | ||
13 | during boot time. The microcode file in cpio name space is: | ||
14 | kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel.bin | ||
15 | |||
16 | During BSP boot (before SMP starts), if the kernel finds the microcode file in | ||
17 | the initrd file, it parses the microcode and saves matching microcode in memory. | ||
18 | If matching microcode is found, it will be uploaded in BSP and later on in all | ||
19 | APs. | ||
20 | |||
21 | The cached microcode patch is applied when CPUs resume from a sleep state. | ||
22 | |||
23 | There are two legacy user space interfaces to load microcode, either through | ||
24 | /dev/cpu/microcode or through /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload file | ||
25 | in sysfs. | ||
26 | |||
27 | In addition to these two legacy methods, the early loading method described | ||
28 | here is the third method with which microcode can be uploaded to a system's | ||
29 | CPUs. | ||
30 | |||
31 | The following example script shows how to generate a new combined initrd file in | ||
32 | /boot/initrd-3.5.0.ucode.img with original microcode microcode.bin and | ||
33 | original initrd image /boot/initrd-3.5.0.img. | ||
34 | |||
35 | mkdir initrd | ||
36 | cd initrd | ||
37 | mkdir kernel | ||
38 | mkdir kernel/x86 | ||
39 | mkdir kernel/x86/microcode | ||
40 | cp ../microcode.bin kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel.bin | ||
41 | find .|cpio -oc >../ucode.cpio | ||
42 | cd .. | ||
43 | cat ucode.cpio /boot/initrd-3.5.0.img >/boot/initrd-3.5.0.ucode.img | ||