efi / ACPI: load SSTDs from EFI variables

This patch allows SSDTs to be loaded from EFI variables. It works by
specifying the EFI variable name containing the SSDT to be loaded. All
variables with the same name (regardless of the vendor GUID) will be
loaded.

Note that we can't use acpi_install_table and we must rely on the
dynamic ACPI table loading and bus re-scanning mechanisms. That is
because I2C/SPI controllers are initialized earlier then the EFI
subsystems and all I2C/SPI ACPI devices are enumerated when the
I2C/SPI controllers are initialized.

Signed-off-by: Octavian Purdila <octavian.purdila@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Matt Fleming <matt@codeblueprint.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>

1 files changed, 67 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt b/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
index 8050259402486..c4b57badd0b77 100644
--- a/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
+++ b/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
@@ -89,3 +89,70 @@ cp ssdt.aml kernel/firmware/acpi
 # 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