Firmware

[Jarod Wilson]

Don Zickus wrote:
>>>> I suspect that (for now) we should make the kernel binary packages
>>>> depend on kernel-firmware?
>>>>
>>>> Should the package own the /lib/firmware/ directory?
>>>>
>>>> Ideally we'll want kernel-firmware to be a .noarch.rpm, but we can't get
>>>> that until we start to build it from a separate srpm.
>>> I assume the %install would cause a rebuild of the initrd to deal with
>>> storage device firmware on bootup?
>> The kernel install already does that. Perhaps we should ensure that
>> kernel-firmware gets updated before the kernel proper, to ensure that
>> the new firmware is included. 
> 
> Or maybe always rebuild initrd when installing kernel-firmware?  It's a
> little overkill but handles scenarios when the vendor updates their
> storage blob but we have no new kernel update to go with it (that's
> probably a little long term thinking to handle the scenario when you
> actually separate the srpms..).

I'd stick to rebuilding initrds only for a new kernel. Your issue of 'what do 
I do if the new firmware is bunk' pops up if installing kernel-firmware 
triggers a new initrd for an already functioning kernel. :)

>>> We were trying to do this with RHEL (jcm was working on this).  One of the
>>> issues I brought up (which no one had a solution for) was the case for a
>>> bad firmware for storage devices.  Currently they are built into the
>>> kernel.  So if you stumble upon bad firmware, you just boot the previous
>>> working kernel.  How would this be handled with everything under
>>> /lib/firmware?  I guess a previously working initrd image might suffice.
>> Yeah, the previous kernel would have had its initrd generated when that
>> kernel was installed. That initrd should continue to work.
> 
> Yeah, not sure why I didn't think of this months ago when I was discussing
> this with folks internally.

Could still be an issue for any device that doesn't get brought up until we've 
already spun up the kernel and initrd -- i.e., system boots off internal disk, 
later during boot, brings up external storage on fibre channel adapter, which 
loads its firmware from /lib/firmware.


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jwilson at redhat.com