Re: testing early microcode loading

On 9/10/18 8:55 PM, Pete Wright wrote:
> On 9/10/18 5:41 PM, Mark Johnston wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 10, 2018 at 12:48:56PM -0700, Pete Wright wrote:
>>> On 9/10/18 11:26 AM, Mark Johnston wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Support for boot-time loading of Intel microcode updates has landed in
>>>> the kernel in r337715, and in the sysutils/devcpu-data port as of 1.20.
>>>> I'd like to solicit some testing of the feature ahead of 12.0.
>>> Hey there Mark,
>>> So I've just tested this on a kabylake system running a kernel/world 
>>> from Sept 7th which I believe is recent enough.
>>>
>>> After updating /boot/loader.conf as per your email I am not sure if any 
>>> microcode updates are being applied.  I'm not seeing any messages 
>>> regarding firmware updates being applied in the dmesg buffer.  
>> Right, we currently print something only if an update was configured
>> but failed to apply.  We should probably print something either way,
>> perhaps only if the kernel is booted with -v.
> i could certainly as being helpful for debugging.
>>> running x86info results in the following:
>>>
>>> $ sudo kldload -n cpuctl && sudo x86info -a | grep Micro
>>> Microcode version: 0x000000000000008e
>>>
>>> this is after rebooting with the updated loader.conf as well as running 
>>> the rc script by hand.  i didn't think to compare the output of x86info 
>>> before running the rc script, i can do that later today.
>> Thanks.  If the boot-time update succeeded, the rc script should have
>> been a no-op.  Can you check for "updating cpu /dev/cpuctl..." messages
>> in /var/log/messages?  That would indicate that the rc script applied an
>> update, which would imply that the boot-time update failed somehow.
>
> when i ran the rc script after boot i saw the CPU related messages in
> dmesg on the console (CPU count, type, features, etc).  i did not see
> anything in /var/log/messages of interest either.  i'll re-test tomorrow
> when i get back into the office and let you know if i see anything of
> interest.  my plan is to:

ok had time to test during lunch:

> - boot with the /boot/loader.conf additions for applying microcode and
> save the output from x86info

Microcode version: 0x0..48


>
> - boot with loader.conf settings uncommented, view output of x86conf
Microcode version: 0x0...8e
> - then run rc script and get output of x86conf

Microcode version: 0x0..8e


great, so it looks like this is working on my kabylake workstation.  the
only time i see a log entry is when i update the microcode via rc, i do
not see anything when its updated via loader.conf.


cheers,

-pete



-- 
Pete Wright
pete_at_nomadlogic.org
310.309.9298