Question about OpenBMC Remote BIOS configuration proposal

[Deepak Kodihalli]

On 23/07/20 6:29 pm, Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist) wrote:
> Thanks for the information Deepak,
> 
> I am afraid that once some code is contributed to the open source, then that code could become the standard implementation and used by BMC vendors. To support PLDM or other protocols between BIOS<->BMC result in the different implementations from BMC view point. Shall we standardize the spec and the implementation as well? If we would like to give the flexibility to support BIOS <-> BMC protocols for the remote BIOS configurations, shall we abstract some layers based on Remote BIOS configuration proposal? Thus OpenBMC can provide the generic (the base implementation) code for BIOS <-> BMC protocol and OEM provides the implementation of abstract driver/library?

Hi Abner,

I think the intent of the remote bios config app is aligned with what 
you mention above. The app isn't tied up with any of the protocols - 
IPMI, PLDM, Redfish etc. The abstraction the app relies on is D-Bus, 
which is the the abstraction for several other OpenBMC apps. This app 
will implement the following D-Bus interface - 
https://github.com/openbmc/phosphor-dbus-interfaces/blob/master/xyz/openbmc_project/BIOSConfig/Manager.interface.yaml. 
This means apps like the IPMI and PLDM daemons have to convert their own 
BIOS formats to this, and apps like webserver will convert between this 
and Redfish.

The D-Bus API I pointed to above was recently merged via this commit :
https://gerrit.openbmc-project.xyz/#/c/openbmc/phosphor-dbus-interfaces/+/18242/

Regards,
Deepak