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authorAbhay Salunke <Abhay_Salunke@dell.com>2005-09-16 19:28:04 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org>2005-09-17 11:50:02 -0700
commite61c0e336f3931842f09e6709d76146bfd81184e (patch)
treec5f1083fcf162f80080874b3934bcd7a48893f9f /Documentation/dell_rbu.txt
parent3013449243adc3421b507696e5d247a3d292ee0c (diff)
[PATCH] dell_rbu: enhancements and fixes
BUG fixes: The driver used to allocate memory with spinlock held which has been fixed in this patch. The driver was printing the entire buffer when it received a invalid entry in image_type. The fix is to only print a warning message and not the buffer. Usability enhancements: It is possible that due to user error the /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu entries might be missing, this can happen if the user does the following echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading This will make the entries in /sys/class/firmware/ to disappear and the only way get them back was bby unloading and loading the driver. This patch makes the user recreate these entries by echoing init in to image_type. This patch has been tested with Libsmbios and Dell OpenManage. Signed-off-by: Abhay Salunke <Abhay_Salunke@dell.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/dell_rbu.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/dell_rbu.txt18
1 files changed, 13 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/dell_rbu.txt b/Documentation/dell_rbu.txt
index bcfa5c35036..95d7f62e4db 100644
--- a/Documentation/dell_rbu.txt
+++ b/Documentation/dell_rbu.txt
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ 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 monilothic image and packetized
image methods. In case of moniolithic the driver allocates a contiguous chunk
@@ -22,8 +24,8 @@ 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 which will inform the BIOS to
-enable the update in the next system reboot.
+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.
@@ -42,9 +44,11 @@ In case of packet mechanism the single memory can be broken in smaller chuks
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 contiguous during the driver load time by specifying the load
+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
+Also echoing either mono ,packet or init in to image_type will free up the
+memory allocated by the driver.
Do the steps below to download the BIOS image.
1) echo 1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading
@@ -53,9 +57,13 @@ Do the steps below to download the BIOS image.
The /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries will remain till the following is
done.
-echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading
-
+echo -1 > /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/loading.
Until this step is completed the drivr cannot be unloaded.
+If an user by accident executes steps 1 and 3 above without executing step 2;
+it will make the /sys/class/firmware/dell_rbu/ entries to 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. This is useful in case of packet update