Ubuntu
lshw package

Prevent unsuitable scanning of /dev/mem and enable SMBIOS support for all UEFI platforms

Bug #1388262 reported by Leif Lindholm on 2014-10-31

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	lshw (Debian)	Fix Released	Unknown	debbugs #740034
	lshw (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

SMBIOS defines that on x86 platforms one can scan for an entry point in the physical address range 0xf0000-0xfffff - which is achieved by mmapping /dev/mem. However, this is invalid for most other architectures. Meanwhile, UEFI has alternative defined methods of discovery, so SMBIOS data can be easily found on at least IA64, ARM and AArch64.

lshw currently has a stack of ifdefs to not attempt scanning on certain listed architectures. New architectures, like AArch64, end up with the lshw command potentially reading sensitive i/o regions, causing system crashes.

The attached patch (which has been logged in upstream ticketing system, but is pending moderation there) flips the logic to only perform raw memory scanning on i386/x86_64 and also enables looking for SMBIOS tables on all UEFI platforms (in a safe manner).

Related branches

lp:ubuntu/vivid-proposed/lshw

Revision history for this message

Leif Lindholm (leif-lindholm) wrote on 2014-10-31:

smbios-noscan.patch Edit (4.9 KiB, text/x-diff)

Revision history for this message

Leif Lindholm (leif-lindholm) wrote on 2014-11-03:

Upstream ticket: http://www.ezix.org/project/ticket/666

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater) on 2015-04-04

Changed in lshw (Debian):
status:	Unknown → Fix Released

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2015-04-04:

This bug was fixed in the package lshw - 02.17-1.1ubuntu1

---------------
lshw (02.17-1.1ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  * Resynchronise with Debian (LP: #1427436), remaining changes:
    - Fix endianness issues with device-tree
    - Add DDR3 support for systems described by device-tree
    - Support multiple NICs sharing the same PCI function
  * aarch64-disable-smbios-check.patch: Superseded (LP: #1388262)

lshw (02.17-1.1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Non-maintainer upload.
  * Disable the memory scanning for all architectures other
    than i386 and x86_64. Patch from Leif Lindholm
    <email address hidden> (Closes: #740034)
  * Prevent segfault if system has FAT partition(s) Patch from
    Alban Browaeys <email address hidden> (Closes: #757689)
-- Adam Conrad <email address hidden> Fri, 03 Apr 2015 21:34:15 -0600