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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/driver-api')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/driver-api/dell_rbu.rst | 128 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/driver-api/index.rst | 1 |
2 files changed, 0 insertions, 129 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/dell_rbu.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/dell_rbu.rst deleted file mode 100644 index 5d1ce7bcd04d..000000000000 --- a/Documentation/driver-api/dell_rbu.rst +++ /dev/null @@ -1,128 +0,0 @@ -============================================================= -Usage of the new open sourced rbu (Remote BIOS Update) driver -============================================================= - -Purpose -======= - -Document demonstrating the use of the Dell Remote BIOS Update driver. -for updating BIOS images on Dell servers and desktops. - -Scope -===== - -This document discusses the functionality of the rbu driver only. -It does not cover the support needed from applications to enable the BIOS to -update itself with the image downloaded in to the memory. - -Overview -======== - -This driver works with Dell OpenManage or Dell Update Packages for updating -the BIOS on Dell servers (starting from servers sold since 1999), desktops -and notebooks (starting from those sold in 2005). - -Please go to http://support.dell.com register and you can find info on -OpenManage and Dell Update packages (DUP). - -Libsmbios can also be used to update BIOS on Dell systems go to -http://linux.dell.com/libsmbios/ for details. - -Dell_RBU driver supports BIOS update using the monolithic image and packetized -image methods. In case of monolithic the driver allocates a contiguous chunk -of physical pages having the BIOS image. In case of packetized the app -using the driver breaks the image in to packets of fixed sizes and the driver -would place each packet in contiguous physical memory. The driver also -maintains a link list of packets for reading them back. - -If the dell_rbu driver is unloaded all the allocated memory is freed. - -The rbu driver needs to have an application (as mentioned above)which will -inform the BIOS to enable the update in the next system reboot. - -The user should not unload the rbu driver after downloading the BIOS image -or updating. - -The driver load creates the following directories under the /sys file system:: - - /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading - /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data - /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type - /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data - /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/packet_size - -The driver supports two types of update mechanism; monolithic and packetized. -These update mechanism depends upon the BIOS currently running on the system. -Most of the Dell systems support a monolithic update where the BIOS image is -copied to a single contiguous block of physical memory. - -In case of packet mechanism the single memory can be broken in smaller chunks -of contiguous memory and the BIOS image is scattered in these packets. - -By default the driver uses monolithic memory for the update type. This can be -changed to packets during the driver load time by specifying the load -parameter image_type=packet. This can also be changed later as below:: - - echo packet > /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type - -In packet update mode the packet size has to be given before any packets can -be downloaded. It is done as below:: - - echo XXXX > /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/packet_size - -In the packet update mechanism, the user needs to create a new file having -packets of data arranged back to back. It can be done as follows -The user creates packets header, gets the chunk of the BIOS image and -places it next to the packetheader; now, the packetheader + BIOS image chunk -added together should match the specified packet_size. This makes one -packet, the user needs to create more such packets out of the entire BIOS -image file and then arrange all these packets back to back in to one single -file. - -This file is then copied to /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data. -Once this file gets to the driver, the driver extracts packet_size data from -the file and spreads it across the physical memory in contiguous packet_sized -space. - -This method makes sure that all the packets get to the driver in a single operation. - -In monolithic update the user simply get the BIOS image (.hdr file) and copies -to the data file as is without any change to the BIOS image itself. - -Do the steps below to download the BIOS image. - -1) echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading -2) cp bios_image.hdr /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/data -3) echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading - -The /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries will remain till the following is -done. - -:: - - echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading - -Until this step is completed the driver cannot be unloaded. - -Also echoing either mono, packet or init in to image_type will free up the -memory allocated by the driver. - -If a user by accident executes steps 1 and 3 above without executing step 2; -it will make the /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries disappear. - -The entries can be recreated by doing the following:: - - echo init > /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/image_type - -.. note:: echoing init in image_type does not change it original value. - -Also the driver provides /sys/devices/platform/dell_rbu/data readonly file to -read back the image downloaded. - -.. note:: - - After updating the BIOS image a user mode application needs to execute - code which sends the BIOS update request to the BIOS. So on the next reboot - the BIOS knows about the new image downloaded and it updates itself. - Also don't unload the rbu driver if the image has to be updated. - diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/index.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/index.rst index 38e638abe3eb..c1e1b3f6d419 100644 --- a/Documentation/driver-api/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/driver-api/index.rst @@ -73,7 +73,6 @@ available subsections can be seen below. connector console dcdbas - dell_rbu edid eisa ipmb |