From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1759243Ab3KMOIh (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:08:37 -0500 Received: from arkanian.console-pimps.org ([212.110.184.194]:33987 "EHLO arkanian.console-pimps.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1759163Ab3KMOIc (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:08:32 -0500 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 14:08:14 +0000 From: Matt Fleming To: Madper Xie Cc: "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-efi@vger.kernel.org" , Matt Fleming Subject: Re: [BUG]: DELL XPS 8500 become a brick after fill too many entries to nvram. Message-ID: <20131113140647.GK22636@console-pimps.org> References: <87fvr3h3b9.fsf@redhat.com> <20131111110701.GE22636@console-pimps.org> <87eh6nt8oo.fsf@redhat.com> <20131113112052.GJ22636@console-pimps.org> <878uws1msy.fsf@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <878uws1msy.fsf@redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 13 Nov, at 08:57:49PM, Madper Xie wrote: > > matt@console-pimps.org writes: > > > On Mon, 11 Nov, at 08:38:31PM, Madper Xie wrote: > >> > >> matt@console-pimps.org writes: > >> > >> > On Mon, 11 Nov, at 02:15:22PM, Madper Xie wrote: > >> >> Howdy all, > >> >> For now we ensure at least ~5kb free space. But my dell xps still > >> >> become a brick after I add too many entries to my nvram. So maybe 5kb > >> >> is not safe enough. and 5kb is just aginst Samsung's laptop. > >> >> So should we enlarge EFI_MIN_RESERVE? > >> > > > > > OK, that's pretty conclusive. Thanks. > > > Ouch, Sorry. My mistake. Seems filling too much entries to nvram is not > the murderer... > For testing, I using following command to fill my nvram: > head -c20480 /dev/urandom | efibootmgr --quiet --create --append-binary-args - > > For occupy lots of nvram space, I run it many times. But when I try to > find the threshold, I find the real murderer is that command. I mean my > dell xps will bricked even if I just run the command once and have more > than 100kb free space... > > So the murderer is the new added boot entry. I don't really know if it's > still a bug. And I apologize for my mistake. :-( OK, it looks like the firmware Boot Manager gets very confused when it tries to parse the Boot Load Option you created with efibootmgr. This looks like a general firmware bug and not something we need to worry about in the kernel. -- Matt Fleming, Intel Open Source Technology Center