Re: [PATCH v9 0/5] tpm: Command duration logging and chip-specific override

[Eric W. Biederman]

Ed Swierk <eswierk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 10:36 AM, Jason Gunthorpe
> <jgunthorpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I think your bios is broken?
>
> The BIOS is broken in many ways. I already have to pass
> memmap=256M$0x80000000, otherwise PCIe extended config space
> (MMCONFIG) is inaccessible. Also I found memmap=0x7000$0x7a7d0000
> works around "APEI: Can not request [mem 0x7a7d0018-0x7a7d0067] for
> APEI ERST registers", as the BIOS seems to be mistakenly reserving
> 0x7b7d0000-7b7d7000 instead.
>
>> A working BIOS will look like this:
>>
>>  $ cat /proc/iomem  | grep -i fed400
>>  fed40000-fed44fff : pnp 00:00
>>
>> It sets aside the struct resource during pnp:
>>
>>  [    0.097318] pnp: PnP ACPI init
>>  [    0.097366] system 00:00: [mem 0xfed40000-0xfed44fff] has been reserved
>>
>> What did your system do?
>>
>> You should see prints like this:
>>
>>                 printk(KERN_DEBUG
>>                        "e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem %#010llx-%#010llx]\n",
>>                        start, end);
>>
>> Which only happen if E820_RAM is set, which is certainly not right for
>> TPM memory.
>
> On my system I see
>
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x0009b000-0x0009ffff]
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x75b02000-0x77ffffff]
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x7a1f6000-0x7bffffff]
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x7b800000-0x7bffffff]
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0xfed30000-0xffffffff]
> e820: reserve RAM buffer [mem 0x505deb000-0x507ffffff]
>
> which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as several of those areas
> overlap each other, never mind devices.
>
>> I don't know what kernel convention is to handle these sorts of
>> defects?
>>
>> Is the use of the memmap kernel command line an appropriate work
>> around?
>
> It works for me, though I would like to know if there's another
> approach.

There is always poke your BIOS vendor until they deliver code that is
not so b0rked it can not be used.

You can also add a quirk based on the BIOS's mainboard identification
string that fixes up the data provided by the BIOS.  I remember a fair
number of those dealing with reboot behavior and the like.

Eric