Talos II - 0.6.1 - Workstation - No USB keyboard support and no terminal redirection (expected withFBwhiptail)

[tlaurion]

Dasharo version
0.6

Dasharo variant

Workstation

Affected component(s) or functionality

Brief summary
USB keyboard doesn't work and there is no fbwhiptail redirection to bmc terminal (normal).

User has to use external laptop to control remotely over BMC yo control and see what is on connected over VGA port until final OS boots.

How reproducible
100%

How to reproduce

Boot workstation, type on usb keyboard to realise that nothing can be typed on keyboard to Heads.

Expected behavior
Have USB keyboard working to control workstation from boot.

Actual behavior
Input can only be done through bmc emulated usb to control workstation.

Screenshots

Additional context
USB_KEYBOARD (HID driver) should probably be defined under board config and compiled as module inside of linux configuration.

Solutions you've tried
Using server variant to test 0.6.1 as of now

[tlaurion]

@SergiiDmytruk : The following should fix the current issue linuxboot/heads@master...tlaurion:heads:talos2_cryptsetup2_usb_keyboard_for_workstation#diff-621bfa30b71e6d738181d2efc0cb94da0922a89dfc6831656518b44a17d62a1aR40-R42

Which enables usb as early as possible in init: https://github.com/osresearch/heads/blob/master/initrd/init#L82-L85
And which loads usb_hid (insmod wrapper) when enabling usb: https://github.com/osresearch/heads/blob/master/initrd/etc/functions#L126-L131

And where insmod wrapper measures and extends PCR prior of actually loading the module: https://github.com/osresearch/heads/blob/master/initrd/sbin/insmod

I did not test USB keyboard on Talos II Workstation with those changes yet. Please reuse proposed changes on first link as needed.

[SergiiDmytruk]

The following should fix the current issue osresearch/heads@master...tlaurion:heads:talos2_cryptsetup2_usb_keyboard_for_workstation#diff-621bfa30b71e6d738181d2efc0cb94da0922a89dfc6831656518b44a17d62a1aR40-R42

I thought there was some other option and only now noticed that it's the same CONFIG_USB_KEYBOARD=y (lines 37 and 41 now set it twice), hence no change in behaviour.

[tlaurion]

No, as said over matrix off-channel discussion, even recompiling with usbhid in-kernel doesn't change the behavior for workstation.

This is why it was said that behavior seems to be a kernel bad behavior.

What is weird is that the server boad configuration receives input with usbhid compiled as module, as expected, where workstation doesn't. I thought workstation didn't load usbhid module and was wrong. It does. But still doesn't interact with USB keyboard on my side. It does on yours?

So the insight is that its not the kernel module nor heads added logic, but something along framebuffer (the difference between server and workstation boards) where kernel options which made kgpe-d16 server and workstation different cannot be passed in coreboot config and defined in skiboot. Kgpe-d16 workstation board with USB keyboard works.

Any update on testing corresponding options from skiboot? If that fix the behavior, then coreboot needs to be able to accept those so that a different coreboot config can be made for server and workstation, so that a dual console can be configured.

Please take a look at kgpe-d16 coreboot configuration and passed kernel options.
The idea here should be to have two console defined, the latest being the main one. This is important for Linux.

[SergiiDmytruk]

I also see:

[  145.027621] mm/pgtable-generic.c:50: bad pmd c00600c2806001be.

And the behaviour seems similar to yours: in BMC KVM keyboard doesn't work until recovery is selected via serial console. However, there is no usbhid error for the hardware keyboard:

[   90.423558] input: Logitech USB Keyboard as /devices/pci0003:00/0003:00:00.0/0003:01:00.0/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.0/0003:046D:C31C.0001/input/input0
[   90.491857] hid-generic 0003:046D:C31C.0001: input: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [Logitech USB Keyboard] on usb-0003:01:00.0-2/input0
[   90.515588] input: Logitech USB Keyboard Consumer Control as /devices/pci0003:00/0003:00:00.0/0003:01:00.0/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.1/0003:046D:C31C.0002/input/input1
[   90.581883] input: Logitech USB Keyboard System Control as /devices/pci0003:00/0003:00:00.0/0003:01:00.0/usb1/1-2/1-2:1.1/0003:046D:C31C.0002/input/input2

Any update on testing corresponding options from skiboot? If that fix the behavior, then coreboot needs to be able to accept those so that a different coreboot config can be made for server and workstation, so that a dual console can be configured.

Any option specified there can be specified in config/linux-talos-2_workstation.config, which currently says:

CONFIG_CMDLINE="console=tty0 console=hvc0 powersave=off quiet"

I did try making coreboot's CONFIG_LINUX_COMMAND_LINE work, but something in Kconfig prevents it from appearing in .config.

[SergiiDmytruk]

With console=hvc0 console=tty0 nothing gets displayed anywhere. console=tty0 console=hvc0 console=fb0 works as console=tty0 console=hvc0.

Linux v5.10.5 shows no difference compared to v5.5. Linux v6.0.1 behaves the same in my tests, but bad pmd error is gone. Maybe give this build a try (zImage.bundled-v6.0.1.gz) to see if it behaves differently.

[tlaurion]

Last console specified has impact for input https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/configure-kernel.html
(hint from @miczyg1 from community call)

Will re-read, had to deal with that with kgpe-d16/qemu boards)

[miczyg1]

@SergiiDmytruk

I did try making coreboot's CONFIG_LINUX_COMMAND_LINE work, but something in Kconfig prevents it from appearing in .config

What might be happening here is that you try to set this manually while none of Linux payload nor LinuxBoot payload is selected first in the configuration. What we have is CONFIG_PAYLOAD_SKIBOOT=y so it definitely won't work.

[miczyg1]

Are we sure tty0 is created on POWER systems? Kernel documentation says hvc0 is for POWER machines:
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt#L738

[tlaurion]

dmesg console output from Heads

~ # dmesg | grep console
[    0.000000] printk: bootconsole [udbg0] enabled
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: console=tty0 console=hvc0 powersave=off quiet
[    0.000082] printk: console [tty0] enabled
[    0.000084] printk: console [hvc0] enabled
[    0.000086] printk: bootconsole [udbg0] disabled
[    4.413394] hvc0: raw protocol on /ibm,opal/consoles/serial@0 (boot console)

[SergiiDmytruk]

What might be happening here is that you try to set this manually while none of Linux payload nor LinuxBoot payload is selected first in the configuration. What we have is CONFIG_PAYLOAD_SKIBOOT=y so it definitely won't work.

I've also added

config LINUX_COMMAND_LINE
    string

to src/mainboard/raptor-cs/talos-2/Kconfig and thought it should work like this, but something is missing or reusing the same name is wrong.

[miczyg1]

Resuing it will not work IIRC.

[SergiiDmytruk]

Saw that it's already defined by two payloads and definitions are identical, copy&pasting that option made it work. I guess two lines above just don't constitute a proper definition. Image with CONFIG_LINUX_COMMAND_LINE= working: coreboot.rom.signed.ecc.gz.