1FLASHROM(8) System Manager's Manual FLASHROM(8)
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6 flashrom - detect, read, write, verify and erase flash chips
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9 flashrom [-n] [-V] [-f] [-h|-R|-L|-z|-E|-r <file>|-w <file>|-v <file>]
10 [-c <chipname>] [-m [<vendor>:]<board>] [-l <file>]
11 [-i <image>] [-p <programmername>[:<parameters>]]
12
14 flashrom is a utility for detecting, reading, writing, verifying and
15 erasing flash chips. It's often used to flash BIOS/EFI/core‐
16 boot/firmware images in-system using a supported mainboard. However, it
17 also supports various external PCI/USB/parallel-port/serial-port based
18 devices which can program flash chips, including some network cards
19 (NICs), SATA/IDE controller cards, graphics cards, the Bus Pirate
20 device, various FTDI FT2232/FT4232H based USB devices, and more.
21 It supports a wide range of DIP32, PLCC32, DIP8, SO8/SOIC8, TSOP32,
23 TSOP40, TSOP48, and BGA chips, which use various protocols such as LPC,
24 FWH, parallel flash, or SPI.
25
27 IMPORTANT: Please note that the command line interface for flashrom
28 will change before flashrom 1.0. Do not use flashrom in scripts or
29 other automated tools without checking that your flashrom version won't
30 interpret options in a different way.
31 You can specify one of -h, -R, -L, -z, -E, -r, -w, -v or no operation.
33 If no operation is specified, flashrom will only probe for flash chips.
34 It is recommended that if you try flashrom the first time on a system,
35 you run it in probe-only mode and check the output. Also you are
36 advised to make a backup of your current ROM contents with -r before
37 you try to write a new image.
38 -r, --read <file>
40 Read flash ROM contents and save them into the given <file>. If
41 the file already exists, it will be overwritten.
42 -w, --write <file>
44 Write <file> into flash ROM. This will first automatically erase
45 the chip, then write to it.
46 In the process the chip is also read several times. First an in-
48 memory backup is made for disaster recovery and to be able to
49 skip regions that are already equal to the image file. This copy
50 is updated along with the write operation. In case of erase
51 errors it is even re-read completely. After writing has finished
52 and if verification is enabled, the whole flash chip is read out
53 and compared with the input image.
54 -n, --noverify
56 Skip the automatic verification of flash ROM contents after
57 writing. Using this option is not recommended, you should only
58 use it if you know what you are doing and if you feel that the
59 time for verification takes too long.
60 Typical usage is: flashrom -n -w <file>
62 This option is only useful in combination with --write.
64 -v, --verify <file>
66 Verify the flash ROM contents against the given <file>.
67 -E, --erase
69 Erase the flash ROM chip.
70 -V, --verbose
72 More verbose output. This option can be supplied multiple times
73 (max. 3 times, i.e. -VVV) for even more debug output.
74 -c, --chip <chipname>
76 Probe only for the specified flash ROM chip. This option takes
77 the chip name as printed by flashrom -L without the vendor name
78 as parameter. Please note that the chip name is case sensitive.
79 -m, --mainboard [<vendor>:]<board>
81 Override mainboard settings.
82 flashrom reads the coreboot table to determine the current main‐
84 board. If no coreboot table could be read or if you want to
85 override these values, you can specify -m, e.g.:
86 flashrom --mainboard AGAMI:ARUMA -w agami_aruma.rom
88 See the 'Known boards' or 'Known laptops' section in the output
90 of 'flashrom -L' for a list of boards which require the specifi‐
91 cation of the board name, if no coreboot table is found.
92 -f, --force
94 Force one or more of the following actions:
95 * Force chip read and pretend the chip is there.
97 * Force chip access even if the chip is bigger than the maximum
99 supported size for the flash bus.
100 * Force erase even if erase is known bad.
102 * Force write even if write is known bad.
104 -l, --layout <file>
106 Read ROM layout from <file>.
107 flashrom supports ROM layouts. This allows you to flash certain
109 parts of the flash chip only. A ROM layout file looks like fol‐
110 lows:
111 00000000:00008fff gfxrom
113 00009000:0003ffff normal
114 00040000:0007ffff fallback
115 i.e.:
117 startaddr:endaddr name
118 All addresses are offsets within the file, not absolute
120 addresses! If you only want to update the normal image in a ROM
121 you can say:
122 flashrom --layout rom.layout --image normal -w agami_aruma.rom
124 To update normal and fallback but leave the VGA BIOS alone, say:
126 flashrom -l rom.layout -i normal
128 -i fallback -w agami_aruma.rom
129 Currently overlapping sections are not supported.
131 -i, --image <name>
133 Only flash image <name> from flash layout.
134 -L, --list-supported
136 List the flash chips, chipsets, mainboards, and external pro‐
137 grammers (including PCI, USB, parallel port, and serial port
138 based devices) supported by flashrom.
139 There are many unlisted boards which will work out of the box,
141 without special support in flashrom. Please let us know if you
142 can verify that other boards work or do not work out of the box.
143 IMPORTANT: For verification you have to test an ERASE and/or
145 WRITE operation, so make sure you only do that if you have
146 proper means to recover from failure!
147 -z, --list-supported-wiki
149 Same as --list-supported, but outputs the supported hardware in
150 MediaWiki syntax, so that it can be easily pasted into the wiki
151 page at http://www.flashrom.org/. Please note that MediaWiki
152 output is not compiled in by default.
153 -p, --programmer <name>[:parameter[,parameter[,parameter]]]
155 Specify the programmer device. Currently supported are:
156 * internal (default, for in-system flashing in the mainboard)
158 * dummy (virtual programmer for testing flashrom)
160 * nic3com (for flash ROMs on 3COM network cards)
162 * nicrealtek (for flash ROMs on Realtek network cards)
164 * nicsmc1211 (for flash ROMs on RTL8139-compatible SMC2 network
166 cards)
167 * nicnatsemi (for flash ROMs on National Semiconductor DP838*
169 network cards)
170 * nicintel (for parallel flash ROMs on Intel 10/100Mbit network
172 cards)
173 * gfxnvidia (for flash ROMs on NVIDIA graphics cards)
175 * drkaiser (for flash ROMs on Dr. Kaiser PC-Waechter PCI cards)
177 * satasii (for flash ROMs on Silicon Image SATA/IDE controllers)
179 * satamv (for flash ROMs on Marvell SATA controllers)
181 * atahpt (for flash ROMs on Highpoint ATA/RAID controllers)
183 * ft2232_spi (for SPI flash ROMs attached to an FT2232/FT4232H
185 family based USB SPI programmer), including the DLP Design DLP-
186 USB1232H, FTDI FT2232H Mini-Module, FTDI FT4232H Mini-Module,
187 openbiosprog-spi, Amontec JTAGkey/JTAGkey-tiny/JTAGkey-2, Dan‐
188 gerous Prototypes Bus Blaster, Olimex ARM-USB-TINY/-H, Olimex
189 ARM-USB-OCD/-H, TIAO/DIYGADGET USB Multi-Protocol Adapter
190 (TUMPA), and GOEPEL PicoTAP.
191 * serprog (for flash ROMs attached to a programmer speaking ser‐
193 prog), including AVR flasher by Urja Rannikko, AVR flasher by
194 eightdot, Arduino Mega flasher by fritz, InSystemFlasher by
195 Juhana Helovuo, and atmegaXXu2-flasher by Stefan Tauner.
196 * buspirate_spi (for SPI flash ROMs attached to a Bus Pirate)
198 * dediprog (for SPI flash ROMs attached to a Dediprog SF100)
200 * rayer_spi (for SPI flash ROMs attached to a RayeR parport or
202 Xilinx DLC5 compatible cable)
203 * nicintel_spi (for SPI flash ROMs on Intel Gigabit network
205 cards)
206 * ogp_spi (for SPI flash ROMs on Open Graphics Project graphics
208 card)
209 Some programmers have optional or mandatory parameters which are
211 described in detail in the PROGRAMMER SPECIFIC INFO section.
212 Support for some programmers can be disabled at compile time.
213 flashrom -h lists all supported programmers.
214 -h, --help
216 Show a help text and exit.
217 -R, --version
219 Show version information and exit.
220
222 Some programmer drivers accept further parameters to set programmer-
223 specific parameters. These parameters are separated from the programmer
224 name by a colon. While some programmers take arguments at fixed posi‐
225 tions, other programmers use a key/value interface in which the key and
226 value is separated by an equal sign and different pairs are separated
227 by a comma or a colon.
228 internal programmer
230 Some mainboards require to run mainboard specific code to enable
231 flash erase and write support (and probe support on old systems
232 with parallel flash). The mainboard brand and model (if it
233 requires specific code) is usually autodetected using one of the
234 following mechanisms: If your system is running coreboot, the
235 mainboard type is determined from the coreboot table. Other‐
236 wise, the mainboard is detected by examining the onboard PCI
237 devices and possibly DMI info. If PCI and DMI do not contain
238 information to uniquely identify the mainboard (which is the
239 exception), it might be necessary to specify the mainboard using
240 the -m switch (see above).
241 Some of these board-specific flash enabling functions (called
243 board enables) in flashrom have not yet been tested. If your
244 mainboard is detected needing an untested board enable function,
245 a warning message is printed and the board enable is not exe‐
246 cuted, because a wrong board enable function might cause the
247 system to behave erratically, as board enable functions touch
248 the low-level internals of a mainboard. Not executing a board
249 enable function (if one is needed) might cause detection or
250 erasing failure. If your board protects only part of the flash
251 (commonly the top end, called boot block), flashrom might
252 encounter an error only after erasing the unprotected part, so
253 running without the board-enable function might be dangerous for
254 erase and write (which includes erase).
255 The suggested procedure for a mainboard with untested board spe‐
257 cific code is to first try to probe the ROM (just invoke
258 flashrom and check that it detects your flash chip type) without
259 running the board enable code (i.e. without any parameters). If
260 it finds your chip, fine. Otherwise, retry probing your chip
261 with the board-enable code running, using
262 flashrom -p internal:boardenable=force
264 If your chip is still not detected, the board enable code seems
266 to be broken or the flash chip unsupported. Otherwise, make a
267 backup of your current ROM contents (using -r) and store it to a
268 medium outside of your computer, like a USB drive or a network
269 share. If you needed to run the board enable code already for
270 probing, use it for reading too. Now you can try to write the
271 new image. You should enable the board enable code in any case
272 now, as it has been written because it is known that writ‐
273 ing/erasing without the board enable is going to fail. In any
274 case (success or failure), please report to the flashrom mailing
275 list, see below.
276 On systems running coreboot, flashrom checks whether the desired
278 image matches your mainboard. This needs some special board ID
279 to be present in the image. If flashrom detects that the image
280 you want to write and the current board do not match, it will
281 refuse to write the image unless you specify
282 flashrom -p internal:boardmismatch=force
284 If your mainboard uses an ITE IT87 series Super I/O for
286 LPC<->SPI flash bus translation, flashrom should autodetect that
287 configuration. If you want to set the I/O base port of the IT87
288 series SPI controller manually instead of using the value pro‐
289 vided by the BIOS, use the
290 flashrom -p internal:it87spiport=portnum
292 syntax where portnum is the I/O port number (must be a multiple
294 of 8). In the unlikely case flashrom doesn't detect an active
295 IT87 LPC<->SPI bridge, please send a bug report so we can diag‐
296 nose the problem.
297 If you have an Intel chipset with an ICH6 or later southbridge
299 and if you want to set specific IDSEL values for a non-default
300 flash chip or an embedded controller (EC), you can use the
301 flashrom -p internal:fwh_idsel=value
303 syntax where value is the 48-bit hexadecimal raw value to be
305 written in the IDSEL registers of the Intel southbridge. The
306 upper 32 bits use one hex digit each per 512 kB range between
307 0xffc00000 and 0xffffffff, and the lower 16 bits use one hex
308 digit each per 1024 kB range between 0xff400000 and 0xff7fffff.
309 The rightmost hex digit corresponds with the lowest address
310 range. All address ranges have a corresponding sister range 4 MB
311 below with identical IDSEL settings. The default value for ICH7
312 is given in the example below.
313 Example: flashrom -p internal:fwh_idsel=0x001122334567
315 Using flashrom on laptops is dangerous and may easily make your
317 hardware unusable (see also the BUGS section). The embedded con‐
318 troller (EC) in these machines often interacts badly with flash‐
319 ing. http://www.flashrom.org/Laptops has more information. If
320 flash is shared with the EC, erase is guaranteed to brick your
321 laptop and write is very likely to brick your laptop. Chip read
322 and probe may irritate your EC and cause fan failure, backlight
323 failure, sudden poweroff, and other nasty effects. flashrom
324 will attempt to detect laptops and abort immediately for safety
325 reasons. If you want to proceed anyway at your own risk, use
326 flashrom -p internal:laptop=force_I_want_a_brick
328 You have been warned.
330 We will not help you if you force flashing on a laptop because
332 this is a really dumb idea.
333 dummy programmer
335 The dummy programmer operates on a buffer in memory only. It
336 provides a safe and fast way to test various aspects of flashrom
337 and is mainly used in development and while debugging.
338 It is able to emulate some chips to a certain degree (basic
340 identify/read/erase/write operations work).
341 An optional parameter specifies the bus types it should support.
343 For that you have to use the
344 flashrom -p dummy:bus=[type[+type[+type]]]
346 syntax where type can be parallel, lpc, fwh, spi in any order.
348 If you specify bus without type, all buses will be disabled. If
349 you do not specify bus, all buses will be enabled.
350 Example: flashrom -p dummy:bus=lpc+fwh
352 The dummy programmer supports flash chip emulation for automated
354 self-tests without hardware access. If you want to emulate a
355 flash chip, use the
356 flashrom -p dummy:emulate=chip
358 syntax where chip is one of the following chips (please specify
360 only the chip name, not the vendor):
361 * ST M25P10.RES SPI flash chip (RES, page write)
363 * SST SST25VF040.REMS SPI flash chip (REMS, byte write)
365 * SST SST25VF032B SPI flash chip (RDID, AAI write)
367 Example: flashrom -p dummy:emulate=SST25VF040.REMS
369 If you use flash chip emulation, flash image persistence is
371 available as well by using the
372 flashrom -p dummy:emulate=chip,image=image.rom
374 syntax where image.rom is the file where the simulated chip con‐
376 tents are read on flashrom startup and where the chip contents
377 on flashrom shutdown are written to.
378 Example: flashrom -p dummy:emulate=M25P10.RES,image=dummy.bin
380 If you use SPI flash chip emulation for a chip which supports
382 SPI page write with the default opcode, you can set the maximum
383 allowed write chunk size with the
384 flashrom -p dummy:emulate=chip,spi_write_256_chunksize=size
386 syntax where size is the number of bytes (min. 1, max. 256).
388 Example:
390 flashrom -p dummy:emulate=M25P10.RES,spi_write_256_chunksize=5
392 nic3com, nicrealtek, nicsmc1211, nicnatsemi, nicintel, nicintel_spi,
394 gfxnvidia, ogp_spi, drkaiser, satasii, satamv, and atahpt programmers
395 These programmers have an option to specify the PCI address of
396 the card your want to use, which must be specified if more than
397 one card supported by the selected programmer is installed in
398 your system. The syntax is
399 flashrom -p xxxx:pci=bb:dd.f,
401 where xxxx is the name of the programmer bb is the PCI bus num‐
403 ber, dd is the PCI device number, and f is the PCI function num‐
404 ber of the desired device.
405 Example: flashrom -p nic3com:pci=05:04.0
407 ft2232_spi programmer
409 An optional parameter specifies the controller type and inter‐
410 face/port it should support. For that you have to use the
411 flashrom -p ft2232_spi:type=model,port=interface
413 syntax where model can be 2232H, 4232H, jtagkey, busblaster,
415 openmoko, arm-usb-tiny, arm-usb-tiny-h, arm-usb-ocd, arm-usb-
416 ocd-h, tumpa, or picotap and interface can be A, or B. The
417 default model is 4232H and the default interface is B.
418 serprog programmer
420 A mandatory parameter specifies either a serial device/baud com‐
421 bination or an IP/port combination for communication with the
422 programmer. In the device/baud combination, the device has to
423 start with a slash. For serial, you have to use the
424 flashrom -p serprog:dev=/dev/device:baud
426 syntax and for IP, you have to use
428 flashrom -p serprog:ip=ipaddr:port
430 instead. More information about serprog is available in serprog-
432 protocol.txt in the source distribution.
433 buspirate_spi programmer
435 A required dev parameter specifies the Bus Pirate device node
436 and an optional spispeed parameter specifies the frequency of
437 the SPI bus. The parameter delimiter is a comma. Syntax is
438 flashrom -p buspirate_spi:dev=/dev/device,spispeed=frequency
440 where frequency can be 30k, 125k, 250k, 1M, 2M, 2.6M, 4M or 8M
442 (in Hz). The default is the maximum frequency of 8 MHz.
443 dediprog programmer
445 An optional voltage parameter specifies the voltage the Dediprog
446 should use. The default unit is Volt if no unit is specified.
447 You can use mV, milliVolt, V or Volt as unit specifier. Syntax
448 is
449 flashrom -p dediprog:voltage=value
451 where value can be 0V, 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.5V or the equivalent in mV.
453 rayer_spi programmer
455 The default I/O base address used for the parallel port is 0x378
456 and you can use the optional iobase parameter to specify an
457 alternate base I/O address with the
458 flashrom -p rayer_spi:iobase=baseaddr
460 syntax where baseaddr is base I/O port address of the parallel
462 port, which must be a multiple of four. Make sure to not forget
463 the "0x" prefix for hexadecimal port addresses.
464 The default cable type is the RayeR cable. You can use the
466 optional type parameter to specify the cable type with the
467 flashrom -p rayer_spi:type=model
469 syntax where model can be rayer for the RayeR cable or xilinx
471 for the Xilinx Parallel Cable III (DLC 5).
472 More information about the RayeR hardware is available at
474 http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/spipgm.htm . The schematic of the
475 Xilinx DLC 5 was published at http://www.xilinx.com/itp/xil‐
476 inx4/data/docs/pac/appendixb.html .
477 ogp_spi programmer
479 The flash ROM chip to access must be specified with the rom
480 parameter.
481 flashrom -p ogp_spi:rom=name
483 Where name is either cprom or s3 for the configuration ROM and
485 bprom or bios for the BIOS ROM. If more than one card supported
486 by the ogp_spi programmer is installed in your system, you have
487 to specify the PCI address of the card you want to use with the
488 pci= parameter as explained in the nic3com section above.
489 More information about the hardware is available at
491 http://wiki.opengraphics.org.
492
494 flashrom exits with 0 on success, 1 on most failures but with 2 if
495 /dev/mem (/dev/xsvc on Solaris) can not be opened and with 3 if a call
496 to mmap() fails.
497
499 flashrom needs different access permissions for different programmers.
500 internal needs raw memory access, PCI configuration space access, raw
502 I/O port access (x86) and MSR access (x86).
503 nic3com, nicrealtek, nicsmc1211 and nicnatsemi need PCI configuration
505 space read access and raw I/O port access.
506 atahpt needs PCI configuration space access and raw I/O port access.
508 gfxnvidia and drkaiser need PCI configuration space access and raw mem‐
510 ory access.
511 rayer_spi needs raw I/O port access.
513 satasii needs PCI configuration space read access and raw memory
515 access.
516 satamv needs PCI configuration space read access, raw I/O port access
518 and raw memory access.
519 serprog needs TCP access to the network or userspace access to a serial
521 port.
522 buspirate_spi needs userspace access to a serial port.
524 dediprog and ft2232_spi need access to the USB device via libusb.
526 dummy needs no access permissions at all.
528 internal, nic3com, nicrealtek, nicsmc1211, nicnatsemi, gfxnvidia,
530 drkaiser, satasii, satamv and atahpt have to be run as superuser/root,
531 and need additional raw access permission.
532 serprog, buspirate_spi, dediprog and ft2232_spi can be run as normal
534 user on most operating systems if appropriate device permissions are
535 set.
536 ogp needs PCI configuration space read access and raw memory access.
538 On OpenBSD, you can obtain raw access permission by setting
540 securelevel=-1 in /etc/rc.securelevel and rebooting, or rebooting into
541 single user mode.
542
544 Please report any bugs at
545 http://www.flashrom.org/trac/flashrom/newticket
547 or on the flashrom mailing list at <flashrom@flashrom.org>
549 We recommend to subscribe first at
551 http://www.flashrom.org/mailman/listinfo/flashrom
553 Using flashrom on laptops is dangerous and may easily make your hard‐
555 ware unusable unless you can desolder the flash chip and have a full
556 flash chip backup. This is caused by the embedded controller (EC)
557 present in many laptops, which interacts badly with any flash attempts.
558 This is a hardware limitation and flashrom will attempt to detect it
559 and abort immediately for safety reasons.
560 More information about flashrom on laptops is available from
562 http://www.flashrom.org/Laptops
564
566 flashrom is covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2.
567 Some files are additionally available under the GPL (version 2, or any
568 later version).
569
571 Please see the individual files.
572
574 Andrew Morgan
575 Carl-Daniel Hailfinger
576 Claus Gindhart
577 David Borg
578 David Hendricks
579 Dominik Geyer
580 Eric Biederman
581 Giampiero Giancipoli
582 Helge Wagner
583 Idwer Vollering
584 Joe Bao
585 Joerg Fischer
586 Joshua Roys
587 Luc Verhaegen
588 Li-Ta Lo
589 Mark Marshall
590 Markus Boas
591 Mattias Mattsson
592 Michael Karcher
593 Nikolay Petukhov
594 Patrick Georgi
595 Peter Lemenkov
596 Peter Stuge
597 Reinder E.N. de Haan
598 Ronald G. Minnich
599 Ronald Hoogenboom
600 Sean Nelson
601 Stefan Reinauer
602 Stefan Tauner
603 Stefan Wildemann
604 Stephan Guilloux
605 Steven James
606 Uwe Hermann
607 Wang Qingpei
608 Yinghai Lu
609 some others, please see the flashrom svn changelog for details.
610 All authors can be reached via email at <flashrom@flashrom.org>.
611 This manual page was written by Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de>, Carl-
613 Daniel Hailfinger and others. It is licensed under the terms of the
614 GNU GPL (version 2 or later).
615 Jul 25, 2011 FLASHROM(8)