Hello,
I am planning to upgrade libfdt library source files in TF-A. They haven't been updated for a while. As the project moves towards improving the fconf framework and adding more properties in device tree source files, we rely more on libfdt APIs. I have done some preliminary investigation to check if there is any performance penalty in upgrading the libfdt source files integrated into TF-A from the current version(which corresponds to commit aadd0b6 in the dtc repo [1]) to master commit (85e5d83). I have run some basics tests on both x86 and aarch64 machines and I have not seen any performance degradation. I plan to push a patch shortly to integrate the latest version of libfdt files in TF-A.
Please let me know if you are aware of any performance issues or have other concerns.
[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/dtc/dtc.git
Thanks,
Madhu
Hello Matteo,
Apologies for still using an outdated term. I have trained myself to get used to "TF-A" - looks like I am still not there.
>> The idea has also been just raised to the Trusted Firmware project Board for initial consideration and we will be all very keen to understand how much interest there is from the wider TF-A community of adopters and external (non-Arm) maintainers
That is good to hear. For the exact scope, I think we can assume the usual expectations from any LTS software stack - stability, performance, security, bug fixes along with maintenance support. We are open to discussing the cadence and any other operational commitments.
@Francois, from the description of Trusted Substrate looks like you also expect the sub-projects to provide LTS versions for the project as a whole to succeed (?)
-Varun
-----Original Message-----
From: TF-A <tf-a-bounces(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Matteo Carlini via TF-A
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2020 4:25 AM
To: tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
Subject: Re: [TF-A] ATF LTS version
External email: Use caution opening links or attachments
Hi Francois,
> I'd be happy to know more about what you see as TFA LTS: exact scope, number of versions, duration, operational commitments (zero-day...).
> Do you have other firmware LTS needs?
Agree. That’s precisely what I was hinting to Varun, when mentioning concrete requirements for the LTS scheme.
> Trusted Substrate is the aggregation of { TFA, OP-TEE, some TEE apps such as firmwareTPM, U-Boot }.
> Trusted Substrate effort is led by Linaro members and is going to be set up as a more open project.
First time I heard about it. Good to know, but I guess we'll need to discuss the intersection and collaboration with the Trusted Firmware project at some point.
Having a LTS versioning scheme for the Trusted Firmware hosted projects should be theoretically either in the scope of the Project itself or, if the Board agrees, appointed to some other project/entity.
> Our end goal is to enable unified, transactional, robust (anti-bricking, anti rollback) UEFI OTA on both U-Boot and EDK2.
Fair, but IMHO this has little to do with Arm Secure world software LTS releases (TF-A/Hafnium/OP-TEE/TAs, TF-M)...probably best to discuss aside, this is not in scope of what Varun is raising.
Thanks
Matteo
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I should also mention the Release processes we follow and the attempt to indicated the deprecation of interfaces in advance in the effort to maintain compatibility https://trustedfirmware-a.readthedocs.io/en/latest/about/release-informatio…
On 11/06/2020, 14:47, "TF-A on behalf of Joanna Farley via TF-A" <tf-a-bounces(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org on behalf of tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> wrote:
Hi Varun,
I guess this suggestion came in response to last weeks Tech Forum discussion from a question about experiences people had from migrating to different TF-A tagged releases. In general we try and keep the tip of Master at tagged release quality through an extensive CI system ran on each patch. I appreciate this CI is currently a little opaque to many contributors as this is still in the process of being transitioned to the OpenCI hosted by Trustedfirmware.org servers which will be visible to all. As mentioned in the recent "Overview of the TF-A v2.3 Release" presentation on https://www.trustedfirmware.org/meetings/tf-a-technical-forum/ the additional testing done for a 6 monthly tagged release is quite minimal and the larger work is ensuring all documentation is up to date. Additionally all new features are generally behind their own build flags but I appreciate it is some work for a tagged release to be absorbed into product offerings.
I asked at the tech forum last week what more we could do to allow releases to be integrated more easily. On the call it was requested if we could disable weak bindings to symbols so it could be more easily seen where platform decisions may need to be made and we will look into this. If there are any more adjustments to the way tagged releases are produced please let us know.
One thing that had been considered briefly was the production of a security bug only branch that was maintained only between 6 month tagged releases before being replaced by the next security bug only branch based on the next 6 month release but that has not progressed very far as a proposal as until your email here it was perceived to not be in demand. A LTS branch is a larger endeavour as it sounds like something that includes more than security fixes and I look forward to you elaborating more as Matteo requests.
Thanks
Joanna
On 11/06/2020, 12:19, "Matteo Carlini via TF-A" <tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> wrote:
Hi Varun,
Thanks for raising this topic (but please do embrace the official terminology “TF-A”…we never really promoted ATF and it's also absolutely outdated now 😉 ).
Arm has received different queries over time on supporting Trusted Firmware LTS releases, but the effort to sustain them is something that the Arm engineering team alone cannot really afford and commit to (either in the TF-A or TF-M space).
The idea has also been just raised to the Trusted Firmware project Board for initial consideration and we will be all very keen to understand how much interest there is from the wider TF-A community of adopters and external (non-Arm) maintainers, so to evaluate the possibility of a more concrete proposal to be carried on within the community Project.
I guess it will also be good to start by elaborating more concretely on the requirements that you would like to see in an hypothetical LTS versioning scheme.
Thanks
Matteo
> From: TF-A <tf-a-bounces(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Varun Wadekar via TF-A
> Sent: 10 June 2020 22:47
> To: tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
> Subject: [TF-A] ATF LTS version
>
> Hello team,
>
> To extend the discussion around version upgrades from our last call, I would like to understand if there is enough interest around generating a LTS version of the TF-A to alleviate the pain.
>
> For NVIDIA, this would be helpful as it streamlines the upgrade path for our devices in the field. The LTS version will guarantee security fixes, bug fixes, stability fixes for the longer term and we won’t have to upgrade the entire firmware to get these goodies.
>
> It would be interesting to see what OEMs and maintainers think about this? Has this been discussed at tf.org or Arm internally?
>
> -Varun
--
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--
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TF-A(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
https://lists.trustedfirmware.org/mailman/listinfo/tf-a
Hi Varun,
I guess this suggestion came in response to last weeks Tech Forum discussion from a question about experiences people had from migrating to different TF-A tagged releases. In general we try and keep the tip of Master at tagged release quality through an extensive CI system ran on each patch. I appreciate this CI is currently a little opaque to many contributors as this is still in the process of being transitioned to the OpenCI hosted by Trustedfirmware.org servers which will be visible to all. As mentioned in the recent "Overview of the TF-A v2.3 Release" presentation on https://www.trustedfirmware.org/meetings/tf-a-technical-forum/ the additional testing done for a 6 monthly tagged release is quite minimal and the larger work is ensuring all documentation is up to date. Additionally all new features are generally behind their own build flags but I appreciate it is some work for a tagged release to be absorbed into product offerings.
I asked at the tech forum last week what more we could do to allow releases to be integrated more easily. On the call it was requested if we could disable weak bindings to symbols so it could be more easily seen where platform decisions may need to be made and we will look into this. If there are any more adjustments to the way tagged releases are produced please let us know.
One thing that had been considered briefly was the production of a security bug only branch that was maintained only between 6 month tagged releases before being replaced by the next security bug only branch based on the next 6 month release but that has not progressed very far as a proposal as until your email here it was perceived to not be in demand. A LTS branch is a larger endeavour as it sounds like something that includes more than security fixes and I look forward to you elaborating more as Matteo requests.
Thanks
Joanna
On 11/06/2020, 12:19, "Matteo Carlini via TF-A" <tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> wrote:
Hi Varun,
Thanks for raising this topic (but please do embrace the official terminology “TF-A”…we never really promoted ATF and it's also absolutely outdated now 😉 ).
Arm has received different queries over time on supporting Trusted Firmware LTS releases, but the effort to sustain them is something that the Arm engineering team alone cannot really afford and commit to (either in the TF-A or TF-M space).
The idea has also been just raised to the Trusted Firmware project Board for initial consideration and we will be all very keen to understand how much interest there is from the wider TF-A community of adopters and external (non-Arm) maintainers, so to evaluate the possibility of a more concrete proposal to be carried on within the community Project.
I guess it will also be good to start by elaborating more concretely on the requirements that you would like to see in an hypothetical LTS versioning scheme.
Thanks
Matteo
> From: TF-A <tf-a-bounces(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Varun Wadekar via TF-A
> Sent: 10 June 2020 22:47
> To: tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
> Subject: [TF-A] ATF LTS version
>
> Hello team,
>
> To extend the discussion around version upgrades from our last call, I would like to understand if there is enough interest around generating a LTS version of the TF-A to alleviate the pain.
>
> For NVIDIA, this would be helpful as it streamlines the upgrade path for our devices in the field. The LTS version will guarantee security fixes, bug fixes, stability fixes for the longer term and we won’t have to upgrade the entire firmware to get these goodies.
>
> It would be interesting to see what OEMs and maintainers think about this? Has this been discussed at tf.org or Arm internally?
>
> -Varun
--
TF-A mailing list
TF-A(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
https://lists.trustedfirmware.org/mailman/listinfo/tf-a
Hi Francois,
> I'd be happy to know more about what you see as TFA LTS: exact scope, number of versions, duration, operational commitments (zero-day...).
> Do you have other firmware LTS needs?
Agree. That’s precisely what I was hinting to Varun, when mentioning concrete requirements for the LTS scheme.
> Trusted Substrate is the aggregation of { TFA, OP-TEE, some TEE apps such as firmwareTPM, U-Boot }.
> Trusted Substrate effort is led by Linaro members and is going to be set up as a more open project.
First time I heard about it. Good to know, but I guess we'll need to discuss the intersection and collaboration with the Trusted Firmware project at some point.
Having a LTS versioning scheme for the Trusted Firmware hosted projects should be theoretically either in the scope of the Project itself or, if the Board agrees, appointed to some other project/entity.
> Our end goal is to enable unified, transactional, robust (anti-bricking, anti rollback) UEFI OTA on both U-Boot and EDK2.
Fair, but IMHO this has little to do with Arm Secure world software LTS releases (TF-A/Hafnium/OP-TEE/TAs, TF-M)...probably best to discuss aside, this is not in scope of what Varun is raising.
Thanks
Matteo
Hi Varun,
Thanks for raising this topic (but please do embrace the official terminology “TF-A”…we never really promoted ATF and it's also absolutely outdated now 😉 ).
Arm has received different queries over time on supporting Trusted Firmware LTS releases, but the effort to sustain them is something that the Arm engineering team alone cannot really afford and commit to (either in the TF-A or TF-M space).
The idea has also been just raised to the Trusted Firmware project Board for initial consideration and we will be all very keen to understand how much interest there is from the wider TF-A community of adopters and external (non-Arm) maintainers, so to evaluate the possibility of a more concrete proposal to be carried on within the community Project.
I guess it will also be good to start by elaborating more concretely on the requirements that you would like to see in an hypothetical LTS versioning scheme.
Thanks
Matteo
> From: TF-A <tf-a-bounces(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Varun Wadekar via TF-A
> Sent: 10 June 2020 22:47
> To: tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
> Subject: [TF-A] ATF LTS version
>
> Hello team,
>
> To extend the discussion around version upgrades from our last call, I would like to understand if there is enough interest around generating a LTS version of the TF-A to alleviate the pain.
>
> For NVIDIA, this would be helpful as it streamlines the upgrade path for our devices in the field. The LTS version will guarantee security fixes, bug fixes, stability fixes for the longer term and we won’t have to upgrade the entire firmware to get these goodies.
>
> It would be interesting to see what OEMs and maintainers think about this? Has this been discussed at tf.org or Arm internally?
>
> -Varun
Hi Varun,
There are early discussions in Linaro on what would mean setting up
"Collaborative LTS" for what we call Trusted Substrate (see below
signature).
I'd be happy to know more about what you see as TFA LTS: exact scope,
number of versions, duration, operational commitments (zero-day...).
Do you have other firmware LTS needs?
Cheers
François-Frédéric Ozog
Linaro
Trusted Substrate is the aggregation of { TFA, OP-TEE, some TEE apps such
as firmwareTPM, U-Boot }.
Trusted Substrate effort is led by Linaro members and is going to be set up
as a more open project.
Our end goal is to enable unified, transactional, robust (anti-bricking,
anti rollback) UEFI OTA on both U-Boot and EDK2.
On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 at 23:47, Varun Wadekar via TF-A <
tf-a(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org> wrote:
> Hello team,
>
>
>
> To extend the discussion around version upgrades from our last call, I
> would like to understand if there is enough interest around generating a
> LTS version of the TF-A to alleviate the pain.
>
>
>
> For NVIDIA, this would be helpful as it streamlines the upgrade path for
> our devices in the field. The LTS version will guarantee security fixes,
> bug fixes, stability fixes for the longer term and we won’t have to upgrade
> the entire firmware to get these goodies.
>
>
>
> It would be interesting to see what OEMs and maintainers think about this?
> Has this been discussed at tf.org or Arm internally?
>
>
>
> -Varun
> --
> TF-A mailing list
> TF-A(a)lists.trustedfirmware.org
> https://lists.trustedfirmware.org/mailman/listinfo/tf-a
>
--
François-Frédéric Ozog | *Director Linaro Edge & Fog Computing Group*
T: +33.67221.6485
francois.ozog(a)linaro.org | Skype: ffozog
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