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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+==========================
+The Linux Microcode Loader
+==========================
+
+:Authors: - Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@intel.com>
+ - Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
+ - Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
+
+The kernel has a x86 microcode loading facility which is supposed to
+provide microcode loading methods in the OS. Potential use cases are
+updating the microcode on platforms beyond the OEM End-Of-Life support,
+and updating the microcode on long-running systems without rebooting.
+
+The loader supports three loading methods:
+
+Early load microcode
+====================
+
+The kernel can update microcode very early during boot. Loading
+microcode early can fix CPU issues before they are observed during
+kernel boot time.
+
+The microcode is stored in an initrd file. During boot, it is read from
+it and loaded into the CPU cores.
+
+The format of the combined initrd image is microcode in (uncompressed)
+cpio format followed by the (possibly compressed) initrd image. The
+loader parses the combined initrd image during boot.
+
+The microcode files in cpio name space are:
+
+on Intel:
+ kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel.bin
+on AMD :
+ kernel/x86/microcode/AuthenticAMD.bin
+
+During BSP (BootStrapping Processor) boot (pre-SMP), the kernel
+scans the microcode file in the initrd. If microcode matching the
+CPU is found, it will be applied in the BSP and later on in all APs
+(Application Processors).
+
+The loader also saves the matching microcode for the CPU in memory.
+Thus, the cached microcode patch is applied when CPUs resume from a
+sleep state.
+
+Here's a crude example how to prepare an initrd with microcode (this is
+normally done automatically by the distribution, when recreating the
+initrd, so you don't really have to do it yourself. It is documented
+here for future reference only).
+::
+
+ #!/bin/bash
+
+ if [ -z "$1" ]; then
+ echo "You need to supply an initrd file"
+ exit 1
+ fi
+
+ INITRD="$1"
+
+ DSTDIR=kernel/x86/microcode
+ TMPDIR=/tmp/initrd
+
+ rm -rf $TMPDIR
+
+ mkdir $TMPDIR
+ cd $TMPDIR
+ mkdir -p $DSTDIR
+
+ if [ -d /lib/firmware/amd-ucode ]; then
+ cat /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/microcode_amd*.bin > $DSTDIR/AuthenticAMD.bin
+ fi
+
+ if [ -d /lib/firmware/intel-ucode ]; then
+ cat /lib/firmware/intel-ucode/* > $DSTDIR/GenuineIntel.bin
+ fi
+
+ find . | cpio -o -H newc >../ucode.cpio
+ cd ..
+ mv $INITRD $INITRD.orig
+ cat ucode.cpio $INITRD.orig > $INITRD
+
+ rm -rf $TMPDIR
+
+
+The system needs to have the microcode packages installed into
+/lib/firmware or you need to fixup the paths above if yours are
+somewhere else and/or you've downloaded them directly from the processor
+vendor's site.
+
+Late loading
+============
+
+You simply install the microcode packages your distro supplies and
+run::
+
+ # echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload
+
+as root.
+
+The loading mechanism looks for microcode blobs in
+/lib/firmware/{intel-ucode,amd-ucode}. The default distro installation
+packages already put them there.
+
+Since kernel 5.19, late loading is not enabled by default.
+
+The /dev/cpu/microcode method has been removed in 5.19.
+
+Why is late loading dangerous?
+==============================
+
+Synchronizing all CPUs
+----------------------
+
+The microcode engine which receives the microcode update is shared
+between the two logical threads in a SMT system. Therefore, when
+the update is executed on one SMT thread of the core, the sibling
+"automatically" gets the update.
+
+Since the microcode can "simulate" MSRs too, while the microcode update
+is in progress, those simulated MSRs transiently cease to exist. This
+can result in unpredictable results if the SMT sibling thread happens to
+be in the middle of an access to such an MSR. The usual observation is
+that such MSR accesses cause #GPs to be raised to signal that former are
+not present.
+
+The disappearing MSRs are just one common issue which is being observed.
+Any other instruction that's being patched and gets concurrently
+executed by the other SMT sibling, can also result in similar,
+unpredictable behavior.
+
+To eliminate this case, a stop_machine()-based CPU synchronization was
+introduced as a way to guarantee that all logical CPUs will not execute
+any code but just wait in a spin loop, polling an atomic variable.
+
+While this took care of device or external interrupts, IPIs including
+LVT ones, such as CMCI etc, it cannot address other special interrupts
+that can't be shut off. Those are Machine Check (#MC), System Management
+(#SMI) and Non-Maskable interrupts (#NMI).
+
+Machine Checks
+--------------
+
+Machine Checks (#MC) are non-maskable. There are two kinds of MCEs.
+Fatal un-recoverable MCEs and recoverable MCEs. While un-recoverable
+errors are fatal, recoverable errors can also happen in kernel context
+are also treated as fatal by the kernel.
+
+On certain Intel machines, MCEs are also broadcast to all threads in a
+system. If one thread is in the middle of executing WRMSR, a MCE will be
+taken at the end of the flow. Either way, they will wait for the thread
+performing the wrmsr(0x79) to rendezvous in the MCE handler and shutdown
+eventually if any of the threads in the system fail to check in to the
+MCE rendezvous.
+
+To be paranoid and get predictable behavior, the OS can choose to set
+MCG_STATUS.MCIP. Since MCEs can be at most one in a system, if an
+MCE was signaled, the above condition will promote to a system reset
+automatically. OS can turn off MCIP at the end of the update for that
+core.
+
+System Management Interrupt
+---------------------------
+
+SMIs are also broadcast to all CPUs in the platform. Microcode update
+requests exclusive access to the core before writing to MSR 0x79. So if
+it does happen such that, one thread is in WRMSR flow, and the 2nd got
+an SMI, that thread will be stopped in the first instruction in the SMI
+handler.
+
+Since the secondary thread is stopped in the first instruction in SMI,
+there is very little chance that it would be in the middle of executing
+an instruction being patched. Plus OS has no way to stop SMIs from
+happening.
+
+Non-Maskable Interrupts
+-----------------------
+
+When thread0 of a core is doing the microcode update, if thread1 is
+pulled into NMI, that can cause unpredictable behavior due to the
+reasons above.
+
+OS can choose a variety of methods to avoid running into this situation.
+
+
+Is the microcode suitable for late loading?
+-------------------------------------------
+
+Late loading is done when the system is fully operational and running
+real workloads. Late loading behavior depends on what the base patch on
+the CPU is before upgrading to the new patch.
+
+This is true for Intel CPUs.
+
+Consider, for example, a CPU has patch level 1 and the update is to
+patch level 3.
+
+Between patch1 and patch3, patch2 might have deprecated a software-visible
+feature.
+
+This is unacceptable if software is even potentially using that feature.
+For instance, say MSR_X is no longer available after an update,
+accessing that MSR will cause a #GP fault.
+
+Basically there is no way to declare a new microcode update suitable
+for late-loading. This is another one of the problems that caused late
+loading to be not enabled by default.
+
+Builtin microcode
+=================
+
+The loader supports also loading of a builtin microcode supplied through
+the regular builtin firmware method CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE. Only 64-bit is
+currently supported.
+
+Here's an example::
+
+ CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE="intel-ucode/06-3a-09 amd-ucode/microcode_amd_fam15h.bin"
+ CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR="/lib/firmware"
+
+This basically means, you have the following tree structure locally::
+
+ /lib/firmware/
+ |-- amd-ucode
+ ...
+ | |-- microcode_amd_fam15h.bin
+ ...
+ |-- intel-ucode
+ ...
+ | |-- 06-3a-09
+ ...
+
+so that the build system can find those files and integrate them into
+the final kernel image. The early loader finds them and applies them.
+
+Needless to say, this method is not the most flexible one because it
+requires rebuilding the kernel each time updated microcode from the CPU
+vendor is available.