AMD Rolls Out New Firmware For A Number Of GPUs

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Rolls Out New Firmware For A Number Of GPUs

AMD has landed a number of updated firmware images into the linux-firmware tree for their recent generations of hardware...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-Firmware-May-2018

[dungeon]

Blah, so they finaly added CPU microcodes upstream

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...7abf19e6cbb1d8

Without descriptive clog let guess these are cos of spectre

[HarlemSquirrel]

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I flash my GPU with the new firmware?

[dungeon]

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I flash my GPU with the new firmware?

These are loadable kernel firmwares, no flashing needed aka. kernel pick them up at runtime.

When you use 4.17 kernel, use these.

[Peter Fodrek]

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I flash my GPU with the new firmware?

Two possible ways.

GPU EFI (BIOS) update
or update at boot by kernel. Just copy files on right place at file system andvuse correct kernel driver and kernel version

[cbxbiker61]

Blah, so they finaly added CPU microcodes upstream

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...7abf19e6cbb1d8

Without descriptive clog let guess these are cos of spectre

*****************************************
FX-9590 (fam 15h) before latest firmware:
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x0600084f

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
Not affected
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline

**************
FX-9590 (fam 15h) after latest firmware:
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x06000852

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
Not affected
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB

The FX chips now have spectre V2 (IBPB) mitigation.

Unfortunately the firmware update does not change Carrizo, Kabini or X4-880 (Kaveri).

[dungeon]

The FX chips now have spectre V2 (IBPB) mitigation.

Unfortunately the firmware update does not change Carrizo, Kabini or X4-880 (Kaveri).

Well, at least partial 15h FX get it. Kabini is fam 16h, that obviosly have no update.

Whatever, better than before with not upstream and just 17h

[puleglot]

Unfortunately the firmware update does not change Carrizo, Kabini or X4-880 (Kaveri).

So it seems their primary fam15h target was (Bulldozer and Piledriver-based) Opterons.

[TemplarGR]

*****************************************
FX-9590 (fam 15h) before latest firmware:
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x0600084f

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
Not affected
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline

**************
FX-9590 (fam 15h) after latest firmware:
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x06000852

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
Not affected
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB

The FX chips now have spectre V2 (IBPB) mitigation.

Unfortunately the firmware update does not change Carrizo, Kabini or X4-880 (Kaveri).

How do i disable spectre V2 mitigation? Since there is no chance in hell that it is real-world exploitable on AMD cpus and i don't have any security concerns on my desktop PC, i don't need the loss of performance.

[starshipeleven]

How do i disable spectre V2 mitigation? Since there is no chance in hell that it is real-world exploitable on AMD cpus and i don't have any security concerns on my desktop PC, i don't need the loss of performance.

delete these microcodes and make sure you are using older versions, either manually or by saving the CPU microcode package at the last version before this new microcode addition. If your distro's package manager isn't totally retarded you can usually set "taboo" packages to NEVER update/upgrade/install, assuming CPU microcodes are in a separate package from most other firmware anyway (afaik in Debian and OpenSUSE they are).