dmidecode support for SMBIOS SPEC 3.5 for type 9 EDSFF enumeration

[craig edwards]

For EDSFF slot type changes no longer indicate the PCIe Generation supported nor do they indicate the full formfactor. To accomodate this severa sections have been added in the spec as follows 7.10.10 System Slots — Slot Information , 7.10.11 System Slots —Slot Physical Width , 7.10.12 System Slots — Slot Pitch
, 7.10.13 System Slots — Slot Height. Currently they do no show up in the dmidecode 3.3 / Jammy
Untested on Kinetic.

This is related to a previous bug as well.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dmidecode/+bug/1986852

[Mauricio Faria de Oliveira (mfo)]

Hi. Can you please test Kinetic?

It has dmidecode 3.4 which is the latest in Ubuntu, Debian, and upstream git AFAICT.

Thanks!

[craig edwards (craig-edwards-dell)]

I don't have access to Kinetic yet. Jammy is the latest available to my team.

[craig edwards (craig-edwards-dell)]

IS ther a way to test dmidecode 3.4 on Jammy?

[Mauricio Faria de Oliveira (mfo)]

Hi Craig,

You can e.g., either download/install/remove the package from Kinetic in Jammy (its deps work on Jammy) or copy the DMI tables into a Kinetic container.

Option 1) Kinetic package on Jammy

$ wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/dmidecode_3.4-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo apt install ./dmidecode_3.4-1_amd64.deb

$ sudo dmidecode

$ sudo apt install --allow-downgrades dmidecode/jammy-updates

Option 2) Copy DMI tables to Kinetic container

$ sudo tar cf dmi-tables.tar /sys/firmware/dmi/tables/

$ lxc launch ubuntu:kinetic kinetic
$ lxc file push dmi-tables.tar kinetic/tmp/
$ lxc shell kinetic

# cd /tmp
# tar xf dmi-tables.tar
# mount --bind /tmp/sys/firmware/dmi/tables/ /sys/firmware/dmi/tables/

# dmidecode

# umount /sys/firmware/dmi/tables/

[craig edwards (craig-edwards-dell)]

HI Mauricio,

The following command did not work : sudo apt install --allow-downgrades dmidecode/jammy-updates

I was able to download and install dmidecode 3.4 to my jammy instance. I checked the version with dmidecode --v and it stated 3.4.

I uploaded my updates bios with slot information, slot pitch and slot width, and checked with the two commands below:

$sudo dmidecode -t 9 |more
$sudo dmidecode -t 9 -u |more

The "-u" command confirmed that the last 5 bytes in the Header and Data hex info were 05 0A A2 03 00 for the E3 PCIe5 drives. However, dmidecode confirmed they were x4 EDSFF E3 drives under slot type and that they were SHort under Length. However, It was missing the additional information to designate the generation and slot pitch/width of the drives.

I'll attach screenshots so that you can see what I'm talking about.

Can you add these items so that they can match the spec, please.

[craig edwards (craig-edwards-dell)]

Here are the binary dump of the smbios type 9 for one of the slots, as well as the decoded information and the appropriate section in the spec. I have also attached a copy of the spec in a previous comment.

[Mauricio Faria de Oliveira (mfo)]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for testing and the details.

> The following command did not work : sudo apt install --allow-downgrades dmidecode/jammy-updates

Alternatively, you can download/install this deb package, to revert your instance back to the version in jammy-updates [1].

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/dmidecode_3.3-3ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb

> I was able to download and install dmidecode 3.4 to my jammy instance.
> I checked the version with dmidecode --v and it stated 3.4.
...
> However, It was missing the additional information to designate the generation and slot pitch/width of the drives.
...
> Can you add these items so that they can match the spec, please.

In this case, the support is missing in the latest dmidecode (comment #2),
so this isn't a bug, but a feature request.

I checked the git repo for changes more recent than dmidecode 3.4,
and there are none related to this area/request, afaict.

So you'd have to reach out to the dmidecode maintainers/community upstream,
and ask for this to be implemented, or write and propose the patches.

Sorry, but unfortunately this issue isn't specific to/owned by Ubuntu.

Hope this helps!

[1] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dmidecode

[Mauricio Faria de Oliveira (mfo)]

$ git fetch -v
From https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/git/dmidecode
 = [up to date] master -> origin/master

$ git log --oneline dmidecode-3-4..origin/master
6ca381c1247c dmidecode: Do not let --dump-bin overwrite an existing file
d8cfbc808f38 dmidecode: Write the whole dump file at once
39b2dd7b6ab7 dmidecode: Split table fetching from decoding
11b168f206ef dmioem: Avoid intermediate buffer (HPE type 216)
9d2bbd5db427 dmioem: Decode HPE OEM Record 216
3d6835047f80 dmidecode: Drop the CPUID exception list
c1a2520433a3 dmidecode: Add a --no-quirks option
67dc0b27d50e dmidecode: Fortify entry point length checks
f80167347354 dmioem: Typo fix (Virutal -> Virtual)
90d1323a8d14 dmioem: Decode HPE OEM Record 242
f50b925c8d43 dmioem: Update HPE OEM Record 238
ac24b672dee8 dmioem: Decode HPE OEM Record 230
c3357b532941 dmioem: Fix segmentation fault in dmi_hp_240_attr()
a1a2258ffbe4 dmioem: Decode HPE OEM Record 224
fb8766a9d260 NEWS: Fix typo