Msi dasharo upstream #1995

Tonux599 · 2025-08-27T00:04:08Z

Replaces #1962

This is based on Dasharo's coreboot instead of coreboot 25.03.

This is draft for the moment, I'll be testing MSI Pro Z790-P DDR5 on Thursday 28th. I'll un-draft post testing.

It should work, as I have been using my custom fork https://github.com/Tonux599/heads/tree/my-custom-msi_z790p_ddr5 for awhile now without issue. However, that fork is not suitable for most as I've customised it for my own uses (like forcing XMP, disabling hyperthreading, etc).

@mblanqui @Hexdigest123 can you test on your boards?

Need to do some commit cleanup pre-merge also.

TODO:

Maybe upgrade to Dasharo v1.1.5/v0.9.3

Signed-off-by: Michał Żygowski <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Signed-off-by: Michał Kopeć <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Signed-off-by: Matthew Drobnak <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 · 2025-08-28T12:54:45Z

See table below for artefacts ready to be tested.

Board	Artefacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/146/workflows/e5e32e13-c5f3-41e8-b965-49accd44880f/jobs/1666/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/146/workflows/e5e32e13-c5f3-41e8-b965-49accd44880f/jobs/1676/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z790p_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/146/workflows/e5e32e13-c5f3-41e8-b965-49accd44880f/jobs/1667/artifacts
msi_z790p_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/146/workflows/e5e32e13-c5f3-41e8-b965-49accd44880f/jobs/1679/artifacts

I have tested msi_z790p_ddr5 myself and it works without issue. A few things to note:

No USB keyboard support.
PS/2 keyboard work (this was unsupported in Dasharo's release).
No HOTP support.
There's no bootsplash right now as at one point it was causing hangs. This can be retested later if required.
This uses flashprog instead of flashrom. Dasharo's release used their own flashrom branch, but current heads flashprog works fine for my board.

In the future, we can create variants supporting USB keyboard and HOTP if the community requires.

Future issues that need addressing are:

Making sure bootsplash works.
Avoiding the workaround for >16MiB flash (4125177, bf9708f, and 9be0ce3). A fix to flashtools may help here. The current workaround adds time to boot.

@tlaurion this is good to merge IMO, msi_z790p_ddr5 works great. It's now over to others to test their variants.

tlaurion · 2025-08-28T15:45:10Z

initrd/bin/cbfs-init

+	/bin/flashprog -p internal --fmap -i COREBOOT -i FMAP -r /tmp/cbfs-init.rom \
+		&& CBFS_ARG=" -o /tmp/cbfs-init.rom" \
+		|| echo "Failed reading Heads configuration from flash! Some features may not be available."
+fi
+
 # Load individual files
-cbfsfiles=`cbfs -t 50 -l 2>/dev/null | grep "^heads/initrd/"`
+cbfsfiles=`cbfs -t 50 -l $CBFS_ARG 2>/dev/null | grep "^heads/initrd/"`


@Tonux599 what happens when calling cbfs on MSI platform? What is the issue that needs this workaround?

If my understanding is correct, the cbfs util reads the cbfs from a location in memory. If a flash is >16M then either:

Coreboot doesn't map CBFS's larger than 16M into memory. Or,

cbfs doesn't have the ability to read a region in memory larger than 16M.

Not sure what it is, but the above workaround is from dasharo's release. Effectively, it uses flashprog to read the flash chip (taking 10s of seconds), and then having the cbfs util read from the resulting file.

Edit: and calling cbfs as normal results in an invalid header magic error (presumably because it's reading garbage).

Edit: and calling cbfs as normal results in an invalid header magic error (presumably because it's reading garbage).

Yes that's why I ask because novacustom boards have spi chips of 32mb and don't need that workaround.

Edit: and calling cbfs as normal results in an invalid header magic error (presumably because it's reading garbage).

Yes that's why I ask because novacustom boards have spi chips of 32mb and don't need that workaround.

Ah yes, whilst the flash for those boards are 32M I presume the CBFS size is <=16M. These boards need a bigger CBFS so we can fit the ROMHOLE in at a specific location (which allows the rom to be flashed from a usb port on the back).

@miczyg1 am I correct?

Indeed. cbfs utility only works for cbfs size or flash size <=16MB. Otherwise you need to dump whole flash to make CBFS parsing work...

@Tonux599 that deserves a new issue to be tracked/fixed/resolved under Heads and then osresearch/flashtools. After which this thread can be resolved yes, cross-linking those for traceability. Using flashrom/flashprog is a hack here.

@miczyg1 random thought, could we not have a 16MB CBFS on the 32MB flash and just write the ROMHOLE to where it belongs on the flash? Presuming the ROMHOLE is somewhere past the the first 16MB.

@Tonux599 you can't do that. heads paylaod is ~8MB in size, it will not fit neither above nor belwo ROMHOLE if CBFS/coreboot is just 16MB. The ROMHOLE fixed address i just that unfortunate, that it cannot be workarounded. By forcefully writing the ROMHOLE you will corrupt the CBFS and make the image unbootable most likely.

@miczyg1 Thanks. Trying to wrap my brain around this but think I'm getting there. Presumably it collides with the ROMHOLE is because the CBFS (and bootblock) needs to be placed at the end of the 32MB flash chip?

Also trying to look into a fix for the cbfs utility to read the whole CBFS mapped into memory. @miczyg1 is the whole 32MB mapped into memory or just the top 16MB? Having looked at some cbmem logs it looks like FLASH with size 0x2000000 is mapped @ 0xfe000000.

Just trying to work out if this is a limitation in the cbfs utility or coreboot.

Presumably it collides with the ROMHOLE is because the CBFS (and bootblock) needs to be placed at the end of the 32MB flash chip?

Exactly.

@miczyg1 is the whole 32MB mapped into memory or just the top 16MB?

Just the top 16MB of the BIOS region.

Having looked at some cbmem logs it looks like FLASH with size 0x2000000 is mapped @ 0xfe000000.

IIRC flashrom prints that, but it is actually bogus info. The MMIO area 0xfe000000 - 0xff000000 has a lot of chipset-specific MMIO (LAPIC, IOAPIC, TXT, TPM and a lot more), so flash can't be mapped there.

The remaining part of the flash is mapped at a separate base address configured in the SPI controller. See details here: https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/blob/main/src/soc/intel/common/block/fast_spi/mmap_boot.c
(the EXT_BIOS_WIN). Here is base address the programming to the SPI controller PCI space: https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/blob/main/src/soc/intel/common/block/fast_spi/fast_spi.c#L361

So the cbfs utility would have to look at this PCI register in SPI controllers that support this feature.

BOARDS_AND_TESTERS.md

tlaurion

LGTM :)

aphick · 2025-09-17T23:52:25Z

Thanks so much for this PR! Testing it on my z790p pro DDR5 and it works great (I enabled USB keyboards)

Hexdigest123 · 2025-09-18T09:37:04Z

Thanks so much for this PR! Testing it on my z790p pro DDR5 and it works great (I enabled USB keyboards)

Did you have any issues setting the whole thing up or were there any hoops i would try it on my device but the last thing i wanna do is reflash my board with a programmer because the firmware ripped it apart

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 · 2025-09-26T23:08:38Z

Artefacts for v1.1.5 / v0.9.3.

Board	Artefacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/f4c8656d-4ead-4afe-9d51-f72c6f7cc2bd/jobs/2193/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/f4c8656d-4ead-4afe-9d51-f72c6f7cc2bd/jobs/2194/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z790p_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/f4c8656d-4ead-4afe-9d51-f72c6f7cc2bd/jobs/2196/artifacts
msi_z790p_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/f4c8656d-4ead-4afe-9d51-f72c6f7cc2bd/jobs/2195/artifacts

headsx0fng · 2025-10-29T10:24:07Z

Artefacts for v1.1.5 / v0.9.3.

Board Artefacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr4 https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/3a1a294b-3463-411e-9a66-80749393393c/jobs/1757/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr5 https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/3a1a294b-3463-411e-9a66-80749393393c/jobs/1758/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z790p_ddr4 https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/3a1a294b-3463-411e-9a66-80749393393c/jobs/1759/artifacts
msi_z790p_ddr5 https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/148/workflows/3a1a294b-3463-411e-9a66-80749393393c/jobs/1774/artifacts

hi thanks for your work I wanted to test but I can't access the files after 30 days. Can you share it again, please?

Tonux599 · 2025-10-29T16:09:13Z

hi thanks for your work I wanted to test but I can't access the files after 30 days. Can you share it again, please?

Hi @headsx0fng, I've updated that comment with re-built artefacts.

tlaurion · 2025-10-29T19:24:37Z

hi thanks for your work I wanted to test but I can't access the files after 30 days. Can you share it again, please?

Hi @headsx0fng, I've updated that comment with re-built artefacts.

@headsx0fng : please share which rom/platform was tested in your upcoming test results.

headsx0fng · 2025-10-29T20:04:54Z

hi thanks for your work I wanted to test but I can't access the files after 30 days. Can you share it again, please?

Hi @headsx0fng, I've updated that comment with re-built artefacts.

@headsx0fng : please share which rom/platform was tested in your upcoming test results.

Thank you very much for your prompt response. I wanted to test it with the MSI Z790P DDR5 motherboard. I will mention it.

tlaurion · 2025-11-03T20:38:00Z

@Tonux599 what is satisfactory point for merge here?

Tonux599 · 2025-11-03T20:55:32Z

@Tonux599 what is satisfactory point for merge here?

I'm happy with it being merged any time. We've had tests for the Z790-P DDR5 but not the others. I would like to keep them in but as UNTESTED just so others can test them quicker in the future.

I think a big one is the workaround for >32M flash. But that's beyond me currently. Not sure if you have a direct line to @osresearch to see if he could resolve in https://github.com/osresearch/flashtools

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

tlaurion · 2025-11-05T20:43:37Z

@Tonux599 what is satisfactory point for merge here?

I'm happy with it being merged any time. We've had tests for the Z790-P DDR5 but not the others. I would like to keep them in but as UNTESTED just so others can test them quicker in the future.

I think a big one is the workaround for >32M flash. But that's beyond me currently. Not sure if you have a direct line to @osresearch to see if he could resolve in https://github.com/osresearch/flashtools

@Tonux599 I don' have a direct line to @osresearch. I opened osresearch/flashtools#10 (comment)

tlaurion · 2025-11-13T20:45:59Z

I see microcode uodate PR was merged upstream.

Tonux599 · 2025-11-13T23:26:35Z

I see microcode uodate PR was merged upstream.

Yeah, apparently new Dasharo version soon for these boards. Will update then. Best hold off on this PR until then. 🙂

Hexdigest123 · 2025-11-13T23:33:50Z

I see microcode uodate PR was merged upstream.

Yeah, apparently new Dasharo version soon for these boards. Will update then. Best hold off on this PR until then. 🙂

Please hit me up if you need someone to test it really appreciate your work and until now everything works fine

note: no changes to board coreboot config's required. Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 · 2025-12-04T21:46:20Z

Artefacts for v1.1.6 / v0.9.4.

Board	Artefacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/175/workflows/45e2074e-8674-4bcb-9e1c-d1aaa210f845/jobs/3390/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/175/workflows/45e2074e-8674-4bcb-9e1c-d1aaa210f845/jobs/3392/artifacts
UNTESTED_msi_z790p_ddr4	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/175/workflows/45e2074e-8674-4bcb-9e1c-d1aaa210f845/jobs/3393/artifacts
msi_z790p_ddr5	https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/175/workflows/45e2074e-8674-4bcb-9e1c-d1aaa210f845/jobs/3391/artifacts

tlaurion · 2025-12-11T19:52:46Z

@Tonux599 as known; Dasharo+Heads had bad press on MSI.

From what I got (memory based, please correct me) from @zirblazer

HCL is important (should be stated in board configs)

CPU needs to include IGPU otherwise support request will flow.
Documentation needs to exist for external initial flashing, rom hole doc, etc

At bare minimum, expected to work HCL should point to Dasahro docs, in board configs, prior of merge.

Thanks for this work @Tonux599. Not sure how to do this politically, but current dasahro+heads users will want to know existence of these test binaries, in today's Dasahro DUG terms, being a "rapid" release.

koala0815 · 2026-01-04T21:49:52Z

@Tonux599

Thanks for your work.

I would like to test UNTESTED_msi_z690a_ddr4, but the artifacts are unfortunately gone. Just a few hours too late.

As @tlaurion said are there any plans on releasing them?

Tonux599 · 2026-01-05T00:13:06Z

@koala0815 re-running here: https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/Tonux599/heads/175

Sorry I've been really busy. @tlaurion shall we just merge and open issues after for outstanding issues?

Opened #2040

tlaurion

LGTM. @Tonux599 see todo at #2040

tlaurion · 2026-01-09T02:01:18Z

@Tonux599 please modify op to reflect current state of merge.

miczyg1 and others added 8 commits August 25, 2025 23:24

Add MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 target

b88c453

Signed-off-by: Michał Żygowski <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Add MSI PRO Z690-A (DDR5) target

8499f8b

Signed-off-by: Michał Żygowski <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Add MSI PRO Z790-P DDR4 target

80b28f2

Signed-off-by: Michał Żygowski <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Add MSI PRO Z790-P (DDR5) target

4977d10

Signed-off-by: Michał Żygowski <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

initrd/bin/cbfs-init: workaround for >16MiB flash

4125177

Signed-off-by: Michał Kopeć <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

boards/msi*: use w/a for >16MiB flash

bf9708f

Signed-off-by: Michał Kopeć <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

initrd/bin/cbfs-init: add error check for flashrom command

9be0ce3

Signed-off-by: Michał Kopeć <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

MSI Z690 / Z790 - Enable PROC_SYSCTL support for Heads init script.

13e832a

Signed-off-by: Matthew Drobnak <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 mentioned this pull request Aug 27, 2025

3mdeb/Dasharo has discontinued Heads on MSI desktops, time to upstream? #1960

Open

Tonux599 added 13 commits August 27, 2025 23:43

msi: add dasharo MSI release fork in coreboot module

f83092e

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: use dasharo_msi coreboot version

2d5cf61

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: disable dropbear, hotp, and usb keyboard

a920cc8

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: enable PS/2 keyboard in coreboot config

70bcddd

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: add vm.panic_on_oom=1 to linux cmd line

3036467

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: disable bootsplash

6643d96

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: use flashprog not flashrom

3965485

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: use flashprog on initrd/bin/cbfs-init

10be901

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: make olddefconfig on coreboot configs

f3ad8c2

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: make olddefconfig on linux config

0f93d67

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

CircleCI: add MSI boards

0bfbccb

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: mark untested boards

94fa9c5

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

BOARDS_AND_TESTERS.md: add MSI boards

7546d7b

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 force-pushed the msi-dasharo-upstream branch from 9cdd697 to 7546d7b Compare August 27, 2025 23:03

Tonux599 marked this pull request as ready for review August 28, 2025 12:54

tlaurion reviewed Aug 28, 2025

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BOARDS_AND_TESTERS.md Show resolved Hide resolved

tlaurion previously requested changes Aug 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

Tonux599 added 2 commits September 26, 2025 22:34

msi: bump to v1.1.5 / v0.9.3

7493d8d

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

msi: update coreboot configs for v1.1.5 / v0.9.3

0c2656d

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Tonux599 mentioned this pull request Oct 31, 2025

*Stalled* MSI PRO Z790-P (DDR5) - coreboot 25.03 #1962

Closed

9 tasks

Tonux599 added 2 commits November 3, 2025 21:10

msi: CONFIG_CBFS_VIA_FLASHROM -> CONFIG_CBFS_VIA_FLASHPROG

2b8d919

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master' into msi-dasharo-upstream

5b46dfd

Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

This was referenced Nov 5, 2025

> Presumably it collides with the ROMHOLE is because the CBFS (and bootblock) needs to be placed at the end of the 32MB flash chip? #2023

Closed

Support >16MB SPI chips (fast_SPI support) osresearch/flashtools#10

Open

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master' into msi-dasharo-upstream

3921196

msi: bump to v1.1.6 / v0.9.4

54373d0

note: no changes to board coreboot config's required. Signed-off-by: Thomas Clarke <[email protected]>

tlaurion mentioned this pull request Jan 5, 2026

TODO for MSI platforms (post merge needed work) #2040

Open

tlaurion self-requested a review January 5, 2026 00:27

tlaurion approved these changes Jan 5, 2026

View reviewed changes

tlaurion merged commit 8611bae into linuxboot:master Jan 5, 2026
47 of 52 checks passed

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Msi dasharo upstream #1995

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