Firmware

[Jarod Wilson]

Jarod Wilson wrote:
>>>> 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.

But of course, you've still got a system that at least boots, and can back-rev 
the firmware if needed, so not a big issue vs. boot-path-dependent firmware.


-- 
Jarod Wilson
jwilson at redhat.com