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+
+In order to support ACPI open-ended hardware configurations (e.g. development
+boards) we need a way to augment the ACPI configuration provided by the firmware
+image. A common example is connecting sensors on I2C / SPI buses on development
+boards.
+
+Although this can be accomplished by creating a kernel platform driver or
+recompiling the firmware image with updated ACPI tables, neither is practical:
+the former proliferates board specific kernel code while the latter requires
+access to firmware tools which are often not publicly available.
+
+Because ACPI supports external references in AML code a more practical
+way to augment firmware ACPI configuration is by dynamically loading
+user defined SSDT tables that contain the board specific information.
+
+For example, to enumerate a Bosch BMA222E accelerometer on the I2C bus of the
+Minnowboard MAX development board exposed via the LSE connector [1], the
+following ASL code can be used:
+
+DefinitionBlock ("minnowmax.aml", "SSDT", 1, "Vendor", "Accel", 0x00000003)
+{
+ External (\_SB.I2C6, DeviceObj)
+
+ Scope (\_SB.I2C6)
+ {
+ Device (STAC)
+ {
+ Name (_ADR, Zero)
+ Name (_HID, "BMA222E")
+
+ Method (_CRS, 0, Serialized)
+ {
+ Name (RBUF, ResourceTemplate ()
+ {
+ I2cSerialBus (0x0018, ControllerInitiated, 0x00061A80,
+ AddressingMode7Bit, "\\_SB.I2C6", 0x00,
+ ResourceConsumer, ,)
+ GpioInt (Edge, ActiveHigh, Exclusive, PullDown, 0x0000,
+ "\\_SB.GPO2", 0x00, ResourceConsumer, , )
+ { // Pin list
+ 0
+ }
+ })
+ Return (RBUF)
+ }
+ }
+ }
+}
+
+which can then be compiled to AML binary format:
+
+$ iasl minnowmax.asl
+
+Intel ACPI Component Architecture
+ASL Optimizing Compiler version 20140214-64 [Mar 29 2014]
+Copyright (c) 2000 - 2014 Intel Corporation
+
+ASL Input: minnomax.asl - 30 lines, 614 bytes, 7 keywords
+AML Output: minnowmax.aml - 165 bytes, 6 named objects, 1 executable opcodes
+
+[1] http://wiki.minnowboard.org/MinnowBoard_MAX#Low_Speed_Expansion_Connector_.28Top.29
+
+The resulting AML code can then be loaded by the kernel using one of the methods
+below.
+
+== Loading ACPI SSDTs from initrd ==
+
+This option allows loading of user defined SSDTs from initrd and it is useful
+when the system does not support EFI or when there is not enough EFI storage.
+
+It works in a similar way with initrd based ACPI tables override/upgrade: SSDT
+aml code must be placed in the first, uncompressed, initrd under the
+"kernel/firmware/acpi" path. Multiple files can be used and this will translate
+in loading multiple tables. Only SSDT and OEM tables are allowed. See
+initrd_table_override.txt for more details.
+
+Here is an example:
+
+# Add the raw ACPI tables to an uncompressed cpio archive.
+# They must be put into a /kernel/firmware/acpi directory inside the
+# cpio archive.
+# The uncompressed cpio archive must be the first.
+# Other, typically compressed cpio archives, must be
+# concatenated on top of the uncompressed one.
+mkdir -p kernel/firmware/acpi
+cp ssdt.aml kernel/firmware/acpi
+
+# Create the uncompressed cpio archive and concatenate the original initrd
+# on top:
+find kernel | cpio -H newc --create > /boot/instrumented_initrd
+cat /boot/initrd >>/boot/instrumented_initrd
+
+== Loading ACPI SSDTs from EFI variables ==
+
+This is the preferred method, when EFI is supported on the platform, because it
+allows a persistent, OS independent way of storing the user defined SSDTs. There
+is also work underway to implement EFI support for loading user defined SSDTs
+and using this method will make it easier to convert to the EFI loading
+mechanism when that will arrive.
+
+In order to load SSDTs from an EFI variable the efivar_ssdt kernel command line
+parameter can be used. The argument for the option is the variable name to
+use. If there are multiple variables with the same name but with different
+vendor GUIDs, all of them will be loaded.
+
+In order to store the AML code in an EFI variable the efivarfs filesystem can be
+used. It is enabled and mounted by default in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars in all
+recent distribution.
+
+Creating a new file in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars will automatically create a new
+EFI variable. Updating a file in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars will update the EFI
+variable. Please note that the file name needs to be specially formatted as
+"Name-GUID" and that the first 4 bytes in the file (little-endian format)
+represent the attributes of the EFI variable (see EFI_VARIABLE_MASK in
+include/linux/efi.h). Writing to the file must also be done with one write
+operation.
+
+For example, you can use the following bash script to create/update an EFI
+variable with the content from a given file:
+
+#!/bin/sh -e
+
+while ! [ -z "$1" ]; do
+ case "$1" in
+ "-f") filename="$2"; shift;;
+ "-g") guid="$2"; shift;;
+ *) name="$1";;
+ esac
+ shift
+done
+
+usage()
+{
+ echo "Syntax: ${0##*/} -f filename [ -g guid ] name"
+ exit 1
+}
+
+[ -n "$name" -a -f "$filename" ] || usage
+
+EFIVARFS="/sys/firmware/efi/efivars"
+
+[ -d "$EFIVARFS" ] || exit 2
+
+if stat -tf $EFIVARFS | grep -q -v de5e81e4; then
+ mount -t efivarfs none $EFIVARFS
+fi
+
+# try to pick up an existing GUID
+[ -n "$guid" ] || guid=$(find "$EFIVARFS" -name "$name-*" | head -n1 | cut -f2- -d-)
+
+# use a randomly generated GUID
+[ -n "$guid" ] || guid="$(cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid)"
+
+# efivarfs expects all of the data in one write
+tmp=$(mktemp)
+/bin/echo -ne "\007\000\000\000" | cat - $filename > $tmp
+dd if=$tmp of="$EFIVARFS/$name-$guid" bs=$(stat -c %s $tmp)
+rm $tmp
+
+== Loading ACPI SSDTs from configfs ==
+
+This option allows loading of user defined SSDTs from userspace via the configfs
+interface. The CONFIG_ACPI_CONFIGFS option must be select and configfs must be
+mounted. In the following examples, we assume that configfs has been mounted in
+/config.
+
+New tables can be loading by creating new directories in /config/acpi/table/ and
+writing the SSDT aml code in the aml attribute:
+
+cd /config/acpi/table
+mkdir my_ssdt
+cat ~/ssdt.aml > my_ssdt/aml