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Dell OptiPlex 7010/9010 Dasharo - building manual

Please read the overview page first!

Available variants

To build Dasharo compatible with Dell OptiPlex 7010/9010, you need to decide what is your desired configuration. The available options are as follows:

  • Dasharo (coreboot + SeaBIOS)
  • Dasharo (coreboot + edk2)
  • Dasharo (coreboot + SeaBIOS) with Intel TXT support
  • Dasharo (coreboot + edk2) with Intel TXT support

Intel TXT

If your choice is to enable TXT support, be advised that there are proprietary ACM blobs required for the firmware to work properly. They are non-redistributable for the platform in question, which means you will need to obtain/extract them yourself and patch the result binary using cbfstool. The methods are covered below in the Include proprietary components section.

If in doubt, it is recommended to proceed with the non-TXT scenario.

Building steps

  1. Clone the coreboot repository:

    git clone https://github.com/dasharo/coreboot.git
cd coreboot

    Replace vX.Y.Z with a valid version, eg. v0.1.1:

    git fetch --tags
git checkout optiplex_7010_9010_vX.Y.Z

    Checkout submodules:

    git submodule update --init --recursive --checkout

  2. Start a docker container:

       docker run --rm -it \
      -v $PWD:/home/coreboot/coreboot \
      -w /home/coreboot/coreboot \
      coreboot/coreboot-sdk:2023-11-24_2731fa619b /bin/bash

  3. Inside of the container, configure and start the build process:

    make distclean
    • To build Dasharo (coreboot+SeaBIOS) v0.1.0:
       cp configs/config.dell_optiplex_9010_sff .config
    • To build Dasharo (coreboot+UEFI) v0.1.0:
       cp configs/config.dell_optiplex_9010_sff_uefi .config
    • To build Dasharo (coreboot+SeaBIOS) v0.1.0 with TXT support:
       cp configs/config.dell_optiplex_9010_sff_txt .config
    • To build Dasharo (coreboot+UEFI) v0.1.0 with TXT support:
       cp configs/config.dell_optiplex_9010_sff_uefi_txt .config

    Finally, run:

    make olddefconfig
make

    or simply:

    make distclean && cp configs/CONFIG_NAME .config && make olddefconfig && make

Result

This will produce a Dasharo binary placed in build/coreboot.rom, which can already be manually flashed (initial or as update). However for working fan control it's necessary to include the proprietary Embedded Controller firmware and TXT support also needs aforementioned binary blobs.

Fan control

Without the proprietary EC firmware the fans will always run at full speed.

TXT support

Without the proprietary ACM files firmware with built-in TXT support will potentially refuse to start.

Include proprietary components

To patch the Dasharo binary you need several tools. They are included in DTS but must usually be installed on other distributions:

  • binwalk
  • uefi-firmware version 1.9
  • cbfstool

Warning

The version of uefi-firmware included in DTS fails while extracting. More info at issue #1226.

Note

In Fedora 41 for the first two it's as easy as: 

sudo dnf install binwalk python3-pip python3-devel gcc
pip install uefi-firmware==1.9
cbfstool can be built with coreboot buildsystem: 
make -C util/cbfstool

Obtaining vendor firmware and patching Dasharo

  1. For EC and BIOS ACM file the Dell firmware is needed

    wget --user-agent='Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)'\
 https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER05066036M/1/O7010A29.exe

  2. Extract the binary

    binwalk --run-as=$(whoami) -e O7010A29.exe -C .

  3. Extract the UEFI components

    uefi-firmware-parser -e "_O7010A29.exe.extracted/65C10" -O

  4. Copy and patch the needed files:

    Copy the needed blob: 

    cp _O7010A29.exe.extracted/65C10_output/pfsobject/\
section-7ec6c2b0-3fe3-42a0-a316-22dd0517c1e8/volume-0x50000/\
file-d386beb8-4b54-4e69-94f5-06091f67e0d3/section0.raw sch5545_ecfw.bin
    Patch the Dasharo binary 
    cbfstool coreboot.rom add -f sch5545_ecfw.bin -n sch5545_ecfw.bin -t raw

    Copy the needed BIOS ACM file: 

    cp _O7010A29.exe.extracted/65C10_output/pfsobject/\
section-7ec6c2b0-3fe3-42a0-a316-22dd0517c1e8/volume-0x500000/\
file-2d27c618-7dcd-41f5-bb10-21166be7e143/object-0.raw \
IVB_BIOSAC_PRODUCTION.bin
    Get the also needed SINIT file from 3mdeb-mirror: 
    wget https://dl.3mdeb.com/mirror/intel/acm/SNB_IVB_SINIT_20190708_PW.bin
    Patch the Dasharo binary 
    cbfstool coreboot.rom add -f IVB_BIOSAC_PRODUCTION.bin -n \
txt_bios_acm.bin -t raw -a 0x20000
cbfstool coreboot.rom add -f SNB_IVB_SINIT_20190708_PW.bin -n \
txt_sinit_acm.bin -t raw -c lzma

  5. Install the prepared binary with the manual method: