✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8

hey wanna see somethng cursed

one part of this NIC is downloading UEFI boot options from another part of this NIC over HTTP. (well, failing to do it for some reason)

you're welcome

Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark oh no. oh no that implies multiple fucking processors
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya yes it has two linuxes on it
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark why. what. what. what
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya second is AST2600
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩
@whitequark what the fuuuuck, that's a wholeass BMC
Apr 8 at 2:12amWeb
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya yup
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark that is a cursed object and I hate it
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya with 1 GB of RAM (256 MB of it is full of some crap)
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark yeah that's basically a full BMC like on a supermicro
Show threadAlexBApr 8
@whitequark @freya would not be surprised if that was (reserved for) the (host's) video framebuffer
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@vmp_ @whitequark yep, you would be exactly correct, the AST2600 is configured to prevent to be a Matrox MGA-G200 VGA chipset
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8

@freya @vmp_ what

no that's not the case at all. what the hell are you talking about

Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ the Aspeed AST2600 uses a hunk of ram to be a VGA chipset because it's used as a BMC in servers, right?
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ first, you need barely any RAM for a Matrox framebuffer (the Matrox card you're talking about came with eight megabytes of it. today you could put that in on-die SRAM if you wanted). second, i'm talking about Linux-accessible RAM, on the Linux kernel, that I have root on
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ oh!
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ nvm ok I misunderstood
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ also this thing doesn't connect the AST2600 over PCIe, it has a USB link to th main SoC
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ oh what the fuck? what is the AST2600 even doing then?
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ it lets you connect to the serial console of the main SoC. you can use minicom to configure the firmware. it does something funny with escape sequences so all of that barely works
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ oh that is so fucking..... who designed this? who designed this and why.......
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ the entire thing is like this top to bottom
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ this is like..... this is like a hardware device designed by.... I was going to say designed bny AI but no AI wouldn't be like thjis, this is a hardware devcie designed like a node.js project
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ ... this is actually kinda true yeah
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ no care for efficiency, maximal features at the cost of maximum complexity
Show threadITsec AgenturApr 8
@freya @whitequark @vmp_ I happen to know a company working exactly like this. And they still sell shit (small scale)
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@itsec_agentur @freya @vmp_ this is mellanox
Show threadITsec AgenturApr 8
@whitequark @freya @vmp_ holy s... They are huge
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8

@freya @vmp_ there's not enough storage to store one "bf-bundle" (installation media) on the BMC and bfb-install can only install from a file so i don't think you could reinstall the main SoC from it

maybe if you mounted it via nfs...?

Show threadAlexBApr 8
@whitequark @freya (also from x86 experience) the BMC can emulate USB storage forwarded from somewhere else, e.g. from a human's web browser over websockets
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@vmp_ @whitequark yep, my T340 and R720 both do this
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@vmp_ @freya this specific BMC is not configured the way you'd see it on a SuperMicro board even though it is the same chip; you just get ssh. it's running OpenBMC firmware
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@whitequark @vmp_ huh, that's..... cursed...
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@vmp_ @freya admittedly i don't fully understand how it works (i doubt anybody fully understands how it works) but this is my findings so far. the docs assume you'd install a bf-bundle from the PCIe host, and then you can use the main OS itself to upgrade via apt or yum
Show threadAlexBApr 8
@whitequark @freya that would be good BMC firmware. Bad firmware would make you host ISO images on a samba server
Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@vmp_ @whitequark my R710 did this
Show threadHoshino Lina (星乃リナ) 🩵 3D Yuri Wedding 2026!!!Apr 8

@freya @vmp_ @whitequark Yeah I was going to say, last time I had to deal with BMCs it was either cursed proprietary Java clients or getting it to stream an ISO from SMB using barely documented commands.

I think an HP something once was able to do HTTP? But not very well...

Show threadRa (Freyja) (it/its)𒀭𒈹𒍠𒊩Apr 8
@lina @vmp_ @whitequark oh no you had to use the SuperMicro java thing didn't you?
Show threadHoshino Lina (星乃リナ) 🩵 3D Yuri Wedding 2026!!!Apr 8
@freya @vmp_ @whitequark Worse, the Dell one. I still have a shell script somewhere with the jars and overrides to get it to work on a modern system...
Show threadJulianCalabyApr 8
@lina @freya @vmp_ @whitequark I believe my HP server's BMC streams ISOs over web sockets or something. It can somehow use a local file as a virtual CD without uploading it. I believe the connection gets severed when the licensing detects that the server you're bootstrapping has booted and kicks you out of the KVM.
Show threadHoshino Lina (星乃リナ) 🩵 3D Yuri Wedding 2026!!!Apr 8
@juliancalaby @freya @vmp_ @whitequark Yeah the ones with HTML5 clients can usually do that. It's wacky but it usually works.
Show threadAlexBApr 8
@whitequark @freya pfft, insufficient overkill
Show threadAlexBApr 8
@whitequark @freya ah well, just speculating. When it's bolted to an x86 as a PCIe endpoint, the AST2500 and AST2400 share a chunk of their DRAM with the PCIe host, as part of a VGA class device (the ones I've seen did declare themselves aspeed though
.. I've seen others declared as Matrox (Nuvoton?)). The aspeed side can then read it and implement "KVM over IP". This would be configured in aspeed's devicetree and, well, 256MB in not implausible.
Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFApr 8

@whitequark @freya @vmp_

Also, the G200 is a 3D GPU. If you just want to just draw a simple GUI once a fortnight, it's total overkill.

Although that does make me wonder what's the simplest and/or cheapest video chip manufactured today. Some kind of dumb RAMDAC where the CPU does all the work, I guess?

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@argv_minus_one @freya @vmp_ this will 100% depend on your definition of "video chip"
Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFApr 8

@whitequark @freya @vmp_

A device that generates a DP/HDMI/whatever video signal by reading pixel data from a block of memory, I guess.

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@argv_minus_one @freya @vmp_ how "whatever" are we talking?
Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFApr 8

@whitequark

I'm…not sure? VGA and SCART and such are fine too, I guess, but I assume those are more complex because there's DAC involved.

Must be pixel graphics, though, so vector displays and RS232 don't count.

@freya @vmp_

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@argv_minus_one @freya @vmp_ you can get LCDs where you can write the framebuffer via SPI, so probably "a shift register" could be a video card :p
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Apr 8
@argv_minus_one @freya @vmp_ there are also ones without a framebuffer (there's one on my desk that's basically SPI but you have to drive it in an exactly specific way so it refreshes at 60 Hz or something)
Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFApr 8

@whitequark

Yep, that's pretty simple.

What about actual DP/HDMI/DVI-D? What's the simplest solution there?

@freya @vmp_

Show threadJernej Simončič �Apr 8
@argv_minus_one @whitequark @freya @vmp_ Maybe whatever Dell uses on PowerEdge T160 – that thing couldn't smoothly fade in Server 2025 login screen on a 1280x1024 monitor.