Re: How to use eSPI between Host and slave BMC in openbmc project

[Oskar Senft <osk@google.com>]

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Hi

Jeremy's response matches my understanding, thank you!

> 1 Are there some solutions to use eSPI interface in openbmc project?
>
> There are some platforms in development that use eSPI between the host
> and BMC, yes.
>
On platforms using Intel's C620 series PCH + AST2500 BMC,  eSPI can be used
basically exactly like LPC on both sides.


> For the BMC, we need some support in the kernel to handle eSPI
> behaviour. There is a prototype driver for the ast2500 eSPI slave
> around, but it hasn't made it upstream:
>
> https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/openbmc/2018-February/010937.html

Yes, without that, the PCH will not release the host CPU from reset.

 > 5 eSPI interface can transmit io cycle and mem cycle，

> > but in which case or applications eSPI transfer mem cycle?
>
> I haven't seen anything specific, I don't think it'd be too useful in
> our architecture.
>
I've seen platforms that load the "lower 16 MiB" from SPI flash (descriptor
region, ME, GbE FW) and load the "upper 16 MiB" (the actual BIOS) via LPC.
The same should be possible via eSPI.

Note that with eSPI it would "technically" be possible to load _ALL_ FW for
the PCH (descriptor region, ME, GbE FW, BIOS) via eSPI using the "Slave
Attached Flash Sharing" (SAFS) feature. However, there's no BMC available
today that I know of that supports that, but support is in the works on BMC
chips. Having said that, Intel's support for SAFS is unclear: some
documents claim it's supported, others state it's not POR (SAFS that is).

Happy to provide more information.

Oskar.

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