NAME
microcode_ctl - microcode utility for Intel IA32 processors
SYNOPSIS
microcode_ctl [-h] [-u] [-q] [-Q] [-f microcode]
DESCRIPTION
The microcode_ctl utility is a companion to the IA32 microcode driver
written by Tigran Aivazian <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>. The utility
has two uses:
a) it decodes and sends new microcode to the kernel driver to be
uploaded to Intel IA32 processors. (Pentium Pro, PII, Celeron, PIII,
Xeon, Pentium 4 etc)
b) it signals the kernel driver to release the buffers containing the
copy of microcode data actually applied to given CPU, linear array of
2048 bytes per CPU, see struct microcode in include/asm/processor.h for
information on the layout of chunks buffers may hold
The microcode update is volatile and needs to be uploaded on each
system boot i.e. it doesn’t reflash your cpu permanently, reboot and it
reverts back to the old microcode.
-h display usage and exit
-u upload microcode (from default filename)
-f upload microcode from named Intel formatted file
-q run silently when successful
-Q run silently even on failure
EXAMPLE
microcode_ctl -u
Upload microcode using defaults
FILES
/usr/share/misc/intel-microcode.dat
The default microcode location
AUTHOR
Microcode utility written by Simon Trimmer
Linux Kernel driver written by Tigran Aivazian.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to either Simon Trimmer <simon@urbanmyth.org> or Tigran
Aivazian <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2000 VERITAS Software
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is
NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
SPECIAL THANKS
Thanks to the Intel Corporation, for supplying microcode update data
and publishing the specifications that enabled us to write microcode
driver for Linux.
SEE ALSO
The brave are recommended to view the driver source code located in the
Linux Kernel source tree in arch/i386/kernel/microcode.c
Visit http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/ for more information and
microcode updates.