microcode test fails because intel-microcode.dat does not exist

[dino99]

Running fwts 0.26.05 on that RR i386 system (fully updated) and browsing the result.log details, i'm seeing:

Check if system is using latest microcode.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cannot read microcode file /usr/share/misc/intel-microcode.dat.
Aborted test, initialisation failed.

As per /usr/share/doc/intel-microcode/README.Debian.gz , that dat file should exist.
So i've purged the intel* packages, then reinstalled intel-microcode, iucode-tool from synaptic; but that dat file is not created.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: intel-microcode 1.20120606.v2.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-5.10-generic 3.8.0-rc6
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-5-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.8-0ubuntu4
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Feb 9 11:35:56 2013
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: intel-microcode
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[dino99 (9d9)]

oem@oem-desktop:~$ dmesg | grep microcode
[ 1.146534] microcode: CPU0 sig=0x10677, pf=0x10, revision=0x703
[ 1.148006] microcode: CPU0 updated to revision 0x70a, date = 2010-09-29
[ 1.153353] microcode: CPU1 sig=0x10677, pf=0x10, revision=0x703
[ 1.156840] microcode: CPU1 updated to revision 0x70a, date = 2010-09-29
[ 1.159648] microcode: CPU2 sig=0x10677, pf=0x10, revision=0x703
[ 1.163761] microcode: CPU2 updated to revision 0x70a, date = 2010-09-29
[ 1.165950] microcode: CPU3 sig=0x10677, pf=0x10, revision=0x703
[ 1.169889] microcode: CPU3 updated to revision 0x70a, date = 2010-09-29
[ 1.172245] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.00 <email address hidden>, Peter Oruba

The related packages into RR archive seem to be also outdated

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-from-scratch-13/updating-cpu-microcode-in-lfs-4175433777/

[dino99 (9d9)]

Digging around intel-microcode into recent ubuntu:

- found that /etc/firmware no more exist
- raring use /lib/firmware/intel-ucode

so i'm changing the affected package to fwts (0.26.5-0ubuntu1), as it still complaint about deprecated config, and ignore the new ones.

[dino99 (9d9)]

New test on the same system, but with Saucy i386 : get the same error.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Thanks for reporting this. I'm working on a fix for this as we speak.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Re-worked so it no longer has to load or depend on microcode loading. Patch sent to fwts-devel mailing list for review. Hopefully will make it into next fwts Saucy release.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Fix committed, 8afc65a378909b59f79b915d9e513452cd401277, will appear in version V13.06.00 of fwts

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package fwts - 13.06.00-0ubuntu1

---------------
fwts (13.06.00-0ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  [Alex Hung]
  * bios: mtrr: add uncached string for DEFAULT type
  * pci: maxreadreq: Audio device to chipset devices.
  * data: klog.json: remove a redudent line break

  [Colin Ian King]
  * debian: control: fix typo
  * lib: fwts_uefi: make vars work on recent kernels (LP: #1171617)
  * cpufreq: use qsort to sort frequencies
  * lib: fwts_uefi: cast to __SWORD_TYPE 32 bit builds
  * apic: apicedge: minor code tidy-up
  * cmos: cmosdump: remove unused commented out code
  * cmos: cmosdump: minor code tidy up, formatting
  * cpu: maxfreq: remove unused fwts_cpuinfo typedef
  * cpu: maxfreq: use number of cpus as number of items in calloc()
  * cpu: maxfreq: use doubles for cpu freqs rather than int
  * doc/fwts.1 add in names of contributors to fwts
  * copy-acpica.sh: update to use the correct ACPICA git repo
  * uefi: uefidump: don't recurse forever on zero lengths (LP: #1174947)
  * acpica: update to ACPICA version 20130418.
  * cpu: cpufreq: fix leak of file if fgets returns NULL
  * cpu: cpufreq: fix leak of dir before we return
  * cpu: maxfreq: fix leak of cpuinfo
  * lib: fwts_microcode: fix leak of allocated microcode buffer
  * lib: fwts_memorymap: free klog on error
  * lib: fwts_keymap: free keymap_list on error
  * lib: fwts_cpu: free cpu on error
  * hotkey: close fd on error
  * cpu: nx: free fwts_nx_cpuinfo on error
  * bios: mtrr: free mtrr_list on file open error
  * cpu: maxfreq: free cpufreq on error
  * acpi: dmar: free klog list on error
  * acpi: fan: fix resource leak bugs
  * acpi: lid: free gpe resources on error
  * acpi: s3: free quirks and command resources
  * acpi: s3power: free quirks and command resources
  * lib: fwts_cpu: initialize variable, stop coverity warning
  * lib: fwts_uefi: fix check of empty d_name
  * lib: fwts_uefi: only close fp if it was successfully opened
  * lib: fwts_memorymap: handle the case where str maybe NULL
  * cpu: cpufreq: avoid division by zero
  * uefi: uefidump: fix missing break in switch statement
  * uefi: uefidump: missing va_end on str == NULL return path
  * dmi: dmi_decode: remove redundant snprintf
  * acpi: cstates: set state->present[nr] if nr < MAX_CSTATE
  * utilities: kernelscan: fix memory leak
  * lib: fwts_dump: check error return on mkdir
  * lib: fwts_acpid: check fcntl return rather than assuming it works
  * hotkey: check lstat() return value rather
  * acpi: ac_adapter: initialize matching and not_matching
  * acpi: acpidump: fix overflow before widening bug
  * lib: fwts_args: free long_options on error
  * lib: fwts_framework: free resources on error
  * lib: fwts_log: free filenames on error condition
  * acpica: fwts_acpica: clear sa_mask fields
  * bios: hdaaudio: free list items and not list
  * lib: fwts_framework: free just items in list and not list descriptor
  * acpi: lid: Fix nesting bug
  * acpi: battery: Fix nesting bug
  * lib: fwts_release: check *str rather than str
  * acpica: fwts_acpica: missing unlock on error path
  * cpu: virt: correctly return true if SVM is enabled
  * lib: fwts_framework: ensure we don't trunc...

[Thomas Mayer (thomas303)]

This is still not fixed for ubuntu 12.04.4:

$sudo apt-get install intel-microcode
[...]
microcode.ctl (1.17-13.1ubuntu2) wird eingerichtet ...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/update-intel-microcode", line 41, in <module>
    tar = tarfile.open(mode='r:gz', fileobj=StringIO(src.read()))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 1678, in open
    return func(name, filemode, fileobj, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 1729, in gzopen
    raise ReadError("not a gzip file")
tarfile.ReadError: not a gzip file
update-rc.d: warning: microcode.ctl start runlevel arguments (S) do not match LSB Default-Start values (2 3 4 5)
update-rc.d: warning: microcode.ctl stop runlevel arguments (none) do not match LSB Default-Stop values (0 1 6)
Applying Intel IA32 Microcode update... done.
intel-microcode (0.20130808-p-1ubuntu1) wird eingerichtet ...
Applying Intel IA32 Microcode update... done.