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1 | Purpose: | ||
2 | Demonstrate the usage of the new open sourced rbu (Remote BIOS Update) driver | ||
3 | for updating BIOS images on Dell servers and desktops. | ||
4 | |||
5 | Scope: | ||
6 | This document discusses the functionality of the rbu driver only. | ||
7 | It does not cover the support needed from aplications to enable the BIOS to | ||
8 | update itself with the image downloaded in to the memory. | ||
9 | |||
10 | Overview: | ||
11 | This driver works with Dell OpenManage or Dell Update Packages for updating | ||
12 | the BIOS on Dell servers (starting from servers sold since 1999), desktops | ||
13 | and notebooks (starting from those sold in 2005). | ||
14 | Please go to http://support.dell.com register and you can find info on | ||
15 | OpenManage and Dell Update packages (DUP). | ||
16 | |||
17 | Dell_RBU driver supports BIOS update using the monilothic image and packetized | ||
18 | image methods. In case of moniolithic the driver allocates a contiguous chunk | ||
19 | of physical pages having the BIOS image. In case of packetized the app | ||
20 | using the driver breaks the image in to packets of fixed sizes and the driver | ||
21 | would place each packet in contiguous physical memory. The driver also | ||
22 | maintains a link list of packets for reading them back. | ||
23 | If the dell_rbu driver is unloaded all the allocated memory is freed. | ||
24 | |||
25 | The rbu driver needs to have an application which will inform the BIOS to | ||
26 | enable the update in the next system reboot. | ||
27 | |||
28 | The user should not unload the rbu driver after downloading the BIOS image | ||
29 | or updating. | ||
30 | |||
31 | The driver load creates the following directories under the /sys file system. | ||
32 | /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
33 | /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data | ||
34 | /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type | ||
35 | /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data | ||
36 | |||
37 | The driver supports two types of update mechanism; monolithic and packetized. | ||
38 | These update mechanism depends upon the BIOS currently running on the system. | ||
39 | Most of the Dell systems support a monolithic update where the BIOS image is | ||
40 | copied to a single contiguous block of physical memory. | ||
41 | In case of packet mechanism the single memory can be broken in smaller chuks | ||
42 | of contiguous memory and the BIOS image is scattered in these packets. | ||
43 | |||
44 | By default the driver uses monolithic memory for the update type. This can be | ||
45 | changed to contiguous during the driver load time by specifying the load | ||
46 | parameter image_type=packet. This can also be changed later as below | ||
47 | echo packet > /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type | ||
48 | |||
49 | Do the steps below to download the BIOS image. | ||
50 | 1) echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
51 | 2) cp bios_image.hdr /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data | ||
52 | 3) echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
53 | |||
54 | The /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries will remain till the following is | ||
55 | done. | ||
56 | echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading | ||
57 | |||
58 | Until this step is completed the drivr cannot be unloaded. | ||
59 | |||
60 | Also the driver provides /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data readonly file to | ||
61 | read back the image downloaded. This is useful in case of packet update | ||
62 | mechanism where the above steps 1,2,3 will repeated for every packet. | ||
63 | By reading the /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data file all packet data | ||
64 | downloaded can be verified in a single file. | ||
65 | The packets are arranged in this file one after the other in a FIFO order. | ||
66 | |||
67 | NOTE: | ||
68 | This driver requires a patch for firmware_class.c which has the addition | ||
69 | of request_firmware_nowait_nohotplug function to wortk | ||
70 | Also after updating the BIOS image an user mdoe application neeeds to execute | ||
71 | code which message the BIOS update request to the BIOS. So on the next reboot | ||
72 | the BIOS knows about the new image downloaded and it updates it self. | ||
73 | Also don't unload the rbu drive if the image has to be updated. | ||
74 | |||