fwupd/plugins/thunderbolt
Richard Hughes 56ac823af9 Set the protocol per-device not per-plugin
Some plugins have devices with more than one protocol. Logically the protocol
belongs to the device, not the plugin, and in the future we could use this to
further check firmware that's about to be deployed.

This is also not exported into libfwupd (yet?) as it's remains a debug-feature
only -- protocols are not actually required for devices to be added.
2019-11-25 18:01:54 +00:00
..
fu-plugin-thunderbolt.c Set the protocol per-device not per-plugin 2019-11-25 18:01:54 +00:00
fu-self-test.c trivial: Allow compiling without <errno.h> 2019-11-23 17:07:53 +00:00
fu-thunderbolt-image.c Fix usage of incorrect type for return value 2019-10-03 10:41:48 -05:00
fu-thunderbolt-image.h Use '#pragma once' to avoid a lot of boilerplate 2019-02-09 08:42:30 -06:00
fu-thunderbolt-tool.c trivial: stop including fu-hash.h as part of fu-plugin-vfuncs.h 2019-11-25 09:29:46 +00:00
meson.build trivial: Set the offline trigger using an environment variable 2019-11-25 09:29:46 +00:00
README.md thunderbolt: Create a unique GUID including Thunderbolt controller path 2019-10-30 14:19:36 -05:00
thunderbolt.conf thunderbolt: Add support for kernel safety checks (Fixes: #1312) 2019-08-28 11:06:18 -05:00

Thunderbolt™ Support

Introduction

Thunderbolt™ is the brand name of a hardware interface developed by Intel that allows the connection of external peripherals to a computer. Versions 1 and 2 use the same connector as Mini DisplayPort (MDP), whereas version 3 uses USB Type-C.

Firmware Format

The daemon will decompress the cabinet archive and extract a firmware blob in an unspecified binary file format, with vendor specific header.

This plugin supports the following protocol ID:

  • com.intel.thunderbolt

GUID Generation

These devices use a custom GUID generation scheme. When the device is in "safe mode" the GUID is hardcoded using:

  • TBT-safemode

... and when in runtime mode the GUID is:

  • TBT-$(vid)$(pid)-native when native, and TBT-$(vid)$(pid) otherwise.

Additionally for host system thunderbolt controllers another GUID is added containing the PCI slot designation of the controller. This is intended to be used for systems with multiple host controllers to disambiguiate between controllers.

  • TBT-$(vid)$(pid)-native-$(slot)

Runtime Power Management

Thunderbolt controllers are slightly unusual in that they power down completely when no thunderbolt devices are detected. This poses a problem for fwupd as it can't coldplug devices to see if there are firmware updates available, and also can't ensure the controller stays awake during a firmware upgrade.

On Dell hardware the Thunderbolt::CanForcePower metadata value is set as the system can force the thunderbolt controller on during coldplug or during the firmware update process. This is typically done calling a SMI or ACPI method which asserts the GPIO for the duration of the request.

On non-Dell hardware you will have to insert a Thunderbolt device (e.g. a dock) into the laptop to be able to update the controller itself.

Safe Mode

Thunderbolt hardware is also slightly unusual in that it goes into "safe mode" whenever it encounters a critical firmware error, for instance if an update failed to be completed. In this safe mode you cannot query the controller vendor or model and therefore the thunderbolt plugin cannot add the correct GUID used to match it to the correct firmware.

In this case the metadata value Thunderbolt::IsSafeMode is set which would allow a different plugin to add the correct GUID based on some out-of-band device discovery. At the moment this only happens on Dell hardware.

GUID generation for LVFS

The GUID for the controller, which must appear in the metadata when uploading an NVM to LVFS, can be generated by a tool like appstream-util (with generate-guid command) or by Python (with uuid.uuid5(uuid.NAMESPACE_DNS, 'string')).

The format of the string used as input is "TBT-vvvvdddd", where vvvvv is the vendor ID and dddd is the device ID, both in hex, as appear in the controller's DROM and exposed in the relevant sysfs attributes.

If the controller is in native enumeration mode, the string "-native" is added at the end so the format is "TBT-vvvvdddd-native".