[External] Re: [PATCH v3 0/4] Obtain SMBIOS and ACPI entry from FFI

[Sunil V L]

On Fri, Jul 07, 2023 at 09:38:30AM +0100, Conor Dooley wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> I've tried to reformat this a bit, probably gone wrong in the process
> somewhere.
> 
> On Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 02:39:13PM -0700, ron minnich wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 6, 2023 at 8:32 AM Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at dabbelt.com<mailto:palmer at dabbelt.com>> wrote:
> > > On Thu, 06 Jul 2023 01:53:47 PDT (-0700), Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 04:04, 运辉崔 <cuiyunhui at bytedance.com<mailto:cuiyunhui at bytedance.com>> wrote:
> > > >> On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 10:17 PM Palmer Dabbelt <palmer at dabbelt.com<mailto:palmer at dabbelt.com>> wrote:
> > > >> > On Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:42:47 PDT (-0700), cuiyunhui at bytedance.com<mailto:cuiyunhui at bytedance.com> wrote:
> > > >> > > Here's version 3 of patch series.
> > > >> > >
> > > >> > > V1: The FFI (FDT FIRMWARE INTERFACE) scheme has reached a
> > > >> > > consensus with the Maintainers.
> > > >> > > Please refer to:
> > > >> > > https://patches.linaro.org/project/linux-acpi/patch/20230426034001.16-1-cuiyunhui@bytedance.com/
> > > >> >
> > > >> > From looking at that thread it seems that the consensus is this is a bad
> > > >> > idea?  Sorry if I'm just missing something...
> > > >> >
> > > >>
> > > >> First of all, Coreboot does not support EFI, Ron has expressed, as follows:
> > > >> "I am wondering if we can focus on risc-v here, and not drag in ARM,
> > > >> b/c the ARM ACPI+UEFI ship has sailed. I had that discussion in 2013
> > > >> ;-) and it's clear we don't want to redo it.
> > > >> In general, in my world, because of the many problems that come with
> > > >> UEFI (security, code quality, performance), we'd like to avoid
> > > >> requiring a dependency on UEFI just to get ACPI on RISC-V. It also
> > > >> seems, from other discussions I'm having, that there is some belief
> > > >> that ACPI will be wanted on RISC-V. It would be nice to separate those
> > > >> pieces on RISC-V; certainly they were separate for a very long time in
> > > >> the x86 world (we had ACPI+SMM on coreboot laptops without UEFI for
> > > >> example)."
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > There appears to be a bit of cargo cult going on here.
> > > >
> > > > I agree that the traditional BIOS vendors did a terrible job pivoting
> > > > to (U)EFI when it became a requirement for booting Windows on x86 PCs,
> > > > and coreboot did an excellent job providing a retrofit alternative
> > > > that was more secure and robust.
> > > >
> > > > However, it makes sense to distinguish between
> > > > a) the UEFI specification
> > > > b) the UEFI reference implementation (edk2)
> > > > c) commercial implementations created by BIOS vendors for x86 PC OEMs
> > > > that do not perform any testing beyond booting Windows.
> > > >
> > > > coreboot decided not to implement EFI at all, which on x86 means
> > > > booting in a mode that is similar to BIOS boot. Given how the ACPI and
> > > > DMTF (for SMBIOS) specifications were already under development when
> > > > UEFI was being rolled out on x86, those specs contain provisions
> > > > defining how to obtain the ACPI and SMBIOS tables by scanning regions
> > > > of memory and looking for magic strings. But this is only defined for
> > > 
> > > In theory we have that in RISC-V as well: on boot we don't actually have
> > > a DT pointer, but instead a "config string" pointer.  That's a bit of a
> > > retcon from when we were planning on adding our own firmware probing
> > > interface, but in order to appear to have never made a mistake we just
> > > said that config strings can be anything and have magic numbers to
> > > differentiate between the flavors.
> > > 
> > > IIUC we don't take advantage of that in Linux, though, so maybe let's
> > > just pretend it doesn't exist?
> > > 
> > > > x86, and only works on x86 because all x86 machines are essentially
> > > > PCs with a highly uniform system topology.
> > > >
> > > > The ARM case is very different, and while I am no expect on RISC-V,
> > > > the following probably applies to it as well:
> > > > - there is no need to work around buggy proprietary firmware that can
> > > > boot Windows but not Linux
> > > > - there is no 'prior art' when it comes to pre-EFI boot interfaces
> > > > except for embedded style bare metal boot where all initialization is
> > > > done by the kernel (e.g., PCI enumeration and resource assignment
> > > > etc), and this is fundamentally arch specific
> > > > - ACPI is a rich firmware interface, and the ACPI specification layers
> > > > it on top of UEFI so the OS can make certain assumptions about the
> > > > extent to which the platform has been initialized by the time it hands
> > > > over.
> > > >
> > > > This is why the maintainers of the arm64 and RISC-V ports appear to
> > > > agree that ACPI will only be supported when booting from firmware that
> > > 
> > > Yes, we're basically in the same spot as arm64 is here -- or at least
> > > we're aiming to be, we've yet to even release a kernel that boots with
> > > ACPI so we have no legacy compatibility yet.
> > > 
> > > > implements the EFI specification. Note that this does not impose any
> > > > requirement at all regarding which EFI implementation is going to be
> > > > used: suggestions have been made on the thread to use a) a coreboot
> > > > specific minimal EFI shim that describes the firmware tables and the
> > > > EFI memory map, b) the UPL payload for coreboot, and c) U-Boot's EFI
> > > > implementation.
> > > >
> > > > I will also note that booting according to the EFI spec is not
> > > > fundamentally  more secure or faster: I have done some experiments on
> > > > arm64 comparing bare metal boot with EFI boot using a minimal
> > > > implementation in Rust, for booting virtual machines under KVM. Due to
> > > > cache maintenance overhead and execution with the MMU disabled, bare
> > > > metal boot is actually slightly slower. And due to the fact that the
> > > > minimal EFI firmware enables the MMU and caches straight out of reset,
> > > > it is also arguably more secure, given that all memory permission
> > > > based protections and other page table based hardening measures (e.g.,
> > > > BTI) are always enabled.
> > > >
> > > > In summary, I think it may be time to stop extrapolating from bad
> > > > experiences with buggy proprietary x86 PC firmware created by
> > > > traditional BIOS vendors for booting Windows (and nothing else) 15+
> > > > years ago. The situation is very different for non-x86 Linux
> > > > architectures, where we are trying hard to beat some sense into the
> > > > fragmented embedded ecosystem, where every SoC vendor used to have its
> > > > own fork of u-boot that booted in a slightly different manner,
> > > > requiring a lot of effort on the part of the distros to track all
> > > > those moving targets.
> > > 
> > > That's roughly where we're trying to go in RISC-V land, at least for
> > > most software people.  Everyone gets their own ISA, which obviously
> > > causes a ton of fragmentation, but not really anything we can do about
> > > that.  At least we can avoid adding additional sources of fragmentation
> > > from the software side of things, though.
> > > 
> > > >> Then, a consensus was reached with Ard, that FFI can be applied to RISC-V.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > For the record, I would not characterize this as consensus. What I said was
> > > > - SMBIOS has very little significance to the kernel itself or impact
> > > > on its internal operation, and so it can be exposed via DT in a
> > > > generic manner;
> > > > - ACPI without UEFI on non-x86 is a) a bad idea, and b) fundamentally
> > > > broken on arm64. So b) is out of the question, but it is not up to me
> > > > to decide whether or not the RISC-V maintainers should entertain bad
> > > > ideas.
> > > 
> > > IMO we have enough bad ideas in RISC-V already and thus should avoid
> > > adding more.
> 
> > ACPI was not originally part of UEFI. ACPI works just fine on
> > Chromebooks, and has for 12 years, and on coreboot since 2006,
> > without UEFI. I've integrated support for ACPI into several
> > code bases, including Plan 9 on non-UEFI systems.
> > 

As per the section  5.2.5 of ACPI spec [1], there are only two ways
defined to locate the RSDP. IA-PC is not applicable to RISC-V and only
other method defined is via UEFI.

[1] - https://uefi.org/specs/ACPI/6.5/05_ACPI_Software_Programming_Model.html#root-system-description-pointer-rsdp

> > I am unable to understand the claim that ACPI on non-UEFI
> > RISC-V is a bad idea. Clearly, I am not alone.
> > 
> > But, all that said, I get the impression that the gatekeepers
> > are absolutely immovable on this question?
> 
> > Perhaps the right way
> > to move forward is to find a way to extract what we need from ACPI
> > and move forward on systems that can function without UEFI AND ACPI?
> > Would that be preferable?
> 
> Isn't this exactly the type of thing that has been proposed by this
> series, that everyone seems to be against? Or are you suggesting that we
> would, on a DT system, read some ACPI information, and then revert to
> being DT based?
> 
> > Just so we're all on the same page, I just now asked Mark Himelstein
> > of RISC-V International if there is anything in RISC-V standards that
> > requires UEFI, and the answer is a solid "no."
> 
> Huh? Firstly, running off to invoke RVI is not productive - they don't
> maintain the various operating system kernels etc.
> Secondly, that does not seem to be true. The platform spec mandates UEFI
> for the OS-A server platform, alongside ACPI:
> https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/riscv-platform-spec.adoc#32-boot-process
> and the OS-A embedded platform needs to comply with EBBR & use DT:
> https://github.com/riscv/riscv-platform-specs/blob/main/riscv-platform-spec.adoc#32-boot-process
> 
> EBBR does say that systems must not provide both ACPI and DT to the OS
> loader, but I am far from an expert on these kind of things & am not
> sure where something like this where the DT "contains" ACPI would stand.
> 
> The RISC-V ACPI spec also says "UEFI firmware is mandatory to support
> ACPI":
> https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-acpi/blob/master/riscv-acpi-guidance.adoc
> 
> Jess, Sunil or Ard on the EBBR front perhaps, please correct me here if I
> have got anything wrong.
> 
IMO, if the question is generic like "Is UEFI mandatory for RISC-V?",
the answer will be solid "no" because we can use DT without UEFI. But if
you ask whether UEFI is mandatory for ACPI support on RISC-V, then the
answer will be "yes".

Thanks,
Sunil