revlis.nl
Stash of notes about OSS, OSes, virtualization, dev &c
March 28, 2018 — 12:50
BITS
Tool from Intel called “BIOS Implementation Test Suite” that can do several things including handling microcode:
– https://biosbits.org
– https://github.com/biosbits/bits
– https://github.com/mkorthof/bits
Linux
- load/update microcode using pkg:
- Debian
– Intel:apt install intel-microcode iucode-tool
– AMD:apt install amd64-microcode
– Doc: /usr/share/doc/{intel,amd64}-microcode/README.Debian.gz - CentOS/RH:
–microcode_ctl
– https://git.centos.org/summary/rpms!microcode_ctl.git
- Debian
- load/update intel microcode manually:
– get latest tgz from intel: see below
– backup/copy files: /lib/firmware/intel-ucode
– check kernel config:grep MICROCODE /boot/config-*
– run iucode_tool:
/usr/sbin/iucode_tool -tb -lS /lib/firmware/intel-ucode/*
– update initramfs:update-initramfs -u -k all
- reloading microcode:
echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload
or:rmmod cpuid; modprobe cpuid
- show version:
dmesg | grep microcode
or:grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo
- skip loading microde on boot:
add to grub cmdline:dis_ucode_ldr
Windows
Microsoft includes certain microcode updates in Windows CPU’s. For example: KB4090007, KB3064209, KB2970215.
- load/update microcode:
using a VMWare driver called “cpumcupdate”: https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-cpu-microcode-update-driver - show version:
– get hwinfo64 and goto “Central Processor(s)” > “Microcode Update Revision”
– or get “Read & Write Everything” (RWEverything) from http://rweverything.com
Get Microcode
Download the latest version from Intel:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27431/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File?v=t.