PaX legal warning

Guys, this is your *last warning*. This stops *now* or I’m sending lawyers after you and the companies paying you to plagiarize our work and violate our *registered* copyright (which for the record entitles us to punitive damages which now are very easily provable). It’s time to get serious about attribution — what you are doing is completely unacceptable. I’m already in contact with lawyers to prepare for the next time this happens. If any of this plagiarized and misattributed code actually made it into the Linux kernel, you’d all be in a world of pain.

http://openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/06/03/14

http://www.openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2017/06/03/11

Linux kernel patch for ACPI HMAT support

Ross Zwisler of Intel posted a new patch to the Linux kernel, with support for the ACPI 6.2 HMAT (Heterogeneous Memory Attribute Table).

This series adds kernel support for the Heterogeneous Memory Attribute Table (HMAT) table, newly defined in ACPI 6.2. The HMAT table, in concert with the existing System Resource Affinity Table (SRAT), provides users with information about memory initiators and memory targets in the system. A “memory initiator” in this case is any device such as a CPU or a separate memory I/O device that can initiate a memory request. A “memory target” is a CPU-accessible physical address range. The HMAT provides performance information (expected latency and bandwidth, etc.) for various (initiator,target) pairs. This is mostly motivated by the need to optimally use performance-differentiated DRAM, but it also allows us to describe the performance characteristics of persistent memory. The purpose of this RFC is to gather feedback on the different options for enabling the HMAT in the kernel and in userspace.

==== Lots of details ====
[…]

See the patch, especially more details in comment documentation in part 0, on the linux-acpi mailing list posting.

Click to access ACPI_6_2.pdf

http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
http://marc.info/?l=linux-acpi&r=1&b=201706&w=2

 

Intel-SGX-SSL

The Intel Software Guard Extensions SSL (Intel SGX SSL) cryptographic library is intended to provide cryptographic services for Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) enclave applications. The Intel SGX SSL cryptographic library is based on the underlying OpenSSL Open Source project, providing a full-strength general purpose cryptography library. The API exposed by the Intel SGX SSL library is fully compliant with unmodified OpenSSL APIs.

https://github.com/01org/intel-sgx-ssl

 

Firmware Security for the Banking and Financial Sector

 

Sorry, I could not find a link to the site, these two Tweets are the closest I can find to this presentation. If you find the slides and/or A/V archives, please leave a comment.

Microsoft WinHEC Taipei 2017

Welcome to WinHEC June 2017 Registration
The Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) is where technical experts from around the world, and Microsoft, come together to make Windows great for every customer. Our next WinHEC event is June 14th and 15th in Taipei, Taiwan. The workshop will feature sessions and a lab for developers, product managers and planners to help prepare for Windows 10 S and to showcase the benefits of adopting key hardware features. Presentations will include: Introduction to Universal Drivers, Universal Developer Center for Hardware and Driver Servicing, Driver Flighting end-to-end, Windows Ink, Windows 10 Mixed Reality, Designing and Optimizing for Long Battery Life and Responsive Windows Devices, Windows Hello, and Developer Platform Updates. We will also have a guided, hands-on lab to explore and practice the concepts covered in the Introduction to Universal Driver session.

https://www.microsoftevents.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x19594336ecd

 

automated-efi-fw-update

automattically update server and adapter firmware using efi shell

This Updatepack automates and simplifies the update process of Intel Servers and Adapters. […] Supported Devices:

Intel S2600WT Server Board Family
Intel RMS3JC080 RAID Controller
Intel RMS3CC080 RAID Controller
Intel RES3TV360 SAS Expander
QLogic BR1860-2 Converged Network Adapter
Lenovo N2225 SAS Host Bus Adapter

https://github.com/thost96/automated-efi-fw-update

Careful, this Github project includes some binary-only *.EFI files, no source code included.

DMTF updates Redfish

 

New Redfish Update Adds Composability Support

Continuing its aggressive development timeline, an important update to the DMTF’s Redfish® standard is now available. The newly-released version 2017.1 of the Redfish Schema and version 1.2.0 of the Redfish Specification contain a number of additions, including support for composable infrastructures. With the ultimate goal of addressing all of the components in the data center with a consistent API, Redfish is an open industry standard that helps enable simple, modern and secure management of scalable platform hardware. DMTF continues to expand Redfish to cover customer use cases and technology, and the new Composition Service provides support for binding resources together into logical constructs. For example, disaggregated hardware – which allows for independent components, such as processors, memory, I/O controllers, and drives, to be bound together to create a composed Computer System – becomes a Computer System from an end user perspective in Redfish. Redfish composability allows clients to adjust their hardware configurations in response to their application needs, without having to touch any hardware.

Click to access DSP0266_1.2.0.pdf

https://www.dmtf.org/standards/redfish
http://redfish.dmtf.org/
http://www.dmtf.org/standards/spmf

Troll: ARM Cortex-M source-level debugger

The troll is a C-language source-level debugger for ARM Cortex-M systems, accessed with the excellent blackmagic hardware debug probe, and a customized variant of the blackmagic – the vx/blackstrike (or blackstrike for short). The troll only supports source-level debugging of source code programs written in the C programming language, compiled to executable files in the ELF format, containig DWARF debug information.[…]

https://github.com/stoyan-shopov/troll

alt text

new ACPI registry updates for 2017

Since I last looked[1], there has been one new company added to the ACPI registry (Marvell), and one new/updated ACPI spec (CSRT). There are also multiple new Plug and Play registry entries.

http://www.uefi.org/acpi_id_list (Last updated: 5/25/2017)
Coreboot Project BOOT 02/28/2017
Exar Corporation EXAR 02/28/2017
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. MRVL 05/25/2017
VR Technology Holdings Limited 3GVR 01/19/2017

http://www.uefi.org/pnp_id_list (Last updated 4/27/2016)
HOYA Corporation PENTAX Lifecare Division PNT 05/25/2017
Inlife-Handnet Co., Ltd. IVR 01/19/2017
MediCapture, Inc. MVR 05/25/2017
Pabian Embedded Systems PMS 02/28/2017
Pimax Tech. CO., LTD PVR 02/07/2017
Shanghai Chai Ming Huang Info&Tech Co, Ltd HYL 02/28/2017
Shanghai Lexiang Technology Limited DPN 02/07/2017
Techlogix Networx TLN 02/28/2017
Televic Conference TCF 02/28/2017
Total Vision LTD TVL 02/07/2017
TRAPEZE GROUP TRP 02/28/2017
VR Technology Holdings Limited DSJ 01/19/2017

http://www.uefi.org/acpi
http://uefi.org/PNP_ACPI_Registry
[1] https://firmwaresecurity.com/2017/03/02/acpi-registry-updates/

It appears the PNP_ID exported spreadsheet is not yet up-to-date with web page. By comparison, there were many more PNP IDs registered. But the ACPI exported spreadsheet is. Yet the PNP web page’s last-updated date is wrong, and the ACPI web page’s date is correct. It would be really helpful if the URL for the company would be included in the table, as well as an URL to each ACPI spec. And announce their updates. And it would be really nice if OEMs/ODMs/IHVs/IBVs/OSVs listed what ACPI version and tables they supported (yes, wishful thinking).