7 ms·

Thunderbolt 3 Unblocker

100 points by okket 9y ago

sschueller 9y ago
Why would anyone (specifically developers) buy another apple product if they now start blocking hardware from working on PCs? Them blocking battery extenders with headphone jacks on the iPhone is already bad enough, but doing it to PCs is a whole other level of walled garden.
- orf 9y ago
  What if the hardware doesn't work on the PC though? Isn't that the point?
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." Mind you, I've seen many types of HW, some of which indeed wouldn't work "with a PC." The expected course of action was always "complain at peripheral vendor," this "we know what you want, but nope because FU that's why" has historically been reserved for vendors trying to keep out competition. So, while it is theoretically possible that an OS-enforced soft block is there to protect the user, a statistically more probable version is that it exists to protect the OS maker from competition; IMNSHO the ball is in Apple's court to prove otherwise.
    - userbinator 9y ago
      FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." I've noticed a disappointing and somewhat repulsive trend increasing over the past few years, one which not only Apple participates in (but they are one of the most notable), of moving from "not supported" meaning "we won't help you with it" (fair enough) to "we will actively stop you from doing it" (FU for even trying to do something we didn't think of/don't want/etc.). IMHO it's perfectly reasonable for a company to not offer support for literally every hardware combination out there, because that's a huge space; but to deliberately sabotage attempts at doing things outside of that boundary is incredibly hostile. I have no definitive evidence but this trend seems at least somewhat correlated with the rise of authoritarianism. As a developer myself, and also someone who has done many "unsupported" things with no ill effect, I constantly try to fight this position from others, but it's difficult.
    - abakker 9y ago
      “Statistically more probable”. Based on what statistics, exactly? Apple has a long history of blocking many things to protect users, e.g. unrecognized app developers and unsigned kexts. OTOH, blocking certain TB3 devices hardly seems like a move that puts their competitors at any disadvantage. Apple doesn’t make any TB3 peripherals.
    - 95014_refugee 9y ago
      > FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." Based on what? The comments from Plugable make a strong case that there's one or more un-fixable issues with certain combinations peripheral silicon that lead to an unacceptable customer experience. As can be clearly seen in this thread, given the opportunity a significant slice of the population will choose to blame Apple, so the only sensible response is to avoid the situation. Put yourself in their shoes; given these two scenarios: a) some set of customers' peripherals stop working with "this peripheral isn't supported" b) some set of customers suffer random hangs, crashes, freezes, data loss And given that you only get to choose one of those two, which one demonstrates a real commitment to the customer? I realise this doesn't fit the "Apple is always out to screw you" narrative, but I guess you have to ask... if it doesn't, perhaps your story's not so true?
- bastawhiz 9y ago
  > Why would anyone (specifically developers) buy another apple product if they now start blocking hardware from working on PCs? Quite frankly, it doesn't affect me. The only hardware I plug into my MBP are 1.) the charger and 2.) sometimes a monitor. They're (usually) pretty good laptops.
wslh 9y ago
That is great, I found Thunderbolt the best solution for using notebooks at home and work (multiple monitors, USB ports). I only hope in the future you can connect external GPUs in some way. I have tried via PCIe with an external board but it is not the best solution (performance, unsupported), it is just a hack.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphics/ https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphic...
  - orliesaurus 9y ago
    599 USD - ok that's crazy
    - dahauns 9y ago
      Considering current GPU prices and the fact that a RX580 is included, it's actually a steal. :) (No wonder it's unavailable...)
      - orliesaurus 9y ago
        Oh I didnt see the were including an rx580. The razer core, that looks like this kind of system, costs 499 without a GPU...
- n1000 9y ago
  I've been using eGPUs for gaming (on Windows though) on my MacBook Pro for a few years now. macOS introduced official eGPU support and now there seem to be numerous compatible enclosures: https://egpu.io/macos-high-sierra-official-external-gpu/ https://egpu.io/macos-high-sierra-official-external-gpu/
  - mixedbit 9y ago
    A laptop with powerful external GPU is also a nice way to have quite portable VR setup
Filligree 9y ago
From the TB3 enabler GitHub: "For unknown reasons, Apple decided to block the support for some categories of Thunderbolt 3 peripherals under macOS and when you connect those Thunderbolt 3 peripheral, you simply get an "Unsupported" message under Thunderbolt Device Tree. After digging around, it turns out the block is implemented in software level and it is possible to bypass the block by patching the related kext. This patch modifies IOThunderboltFamily and allows "Unsupported" Thunderbolt 3 peripherals to work under macOS Sierra." I wonder why they did that. Stability, probably?
- nerdwaller 9y ago
  I originally thought blocking access could be due to a licensing thing, given that Apple and Intel collaborated on it [0]. However I found [1] stating that the licensing fees and royalties were waved in order to ensure larger market adoption. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface) [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/24/intel-making-thunderbolt-3-royalty-free-for-manufacturers-before-end-of-2017 http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/24/intel-making-thund...
- willvarfar 9y ago
  It could possibly be because of security issues?
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  Security? DMA is notorious.
- txcwpalpha 9y ago
  Security issues, most likely. Like Firewire, Thunderbolt suffers from the same security issue in that to achieve its high speeds, it gives connected devices direct memory access. In other words, any connected device can read and write directly from your RAM, bypassing any kind of access control built into the OS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Vulnerability_to_DMA_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Vulner...
  - 9y ago
dmitrygr 9y ago
The code for xnu_override (the library the author wrote to patch functions in the kernel) is wrong for a number of serious reasons. It assumes (with no verification) that the first twelve bytes of any kernel function you could want to patch are all one basic block and do not contain a jump target or a relative branch. These reasons ARE why live patching is hard and why proper support for it is basically required in original code (making sure each func starts with a basic block at least twelve bytes long). Without that, it's quite a dangerous game to play in kernel space. Furthermore, it assumes RAX is safe to clobber. This may not be so. Compilers are generally free to ignore standard ABI when calling provably-static provably-leaf functions. Who said RAX doesn't have a useful value on entry to patched function? Additionally, it edits cr0 and cr3 with interrupts enabled, allowing it to be preempted during this action. If said preemption happens, another edit to those registers could happen in between. Scary, since what's being done is a non-atomic read-modify-write on CPU control registers. Strongly advise anyone from running this on any system.
- munin 9y ago
  > Strongly advise anyone from running this on any system. Oh come on. Your para 2-4 are serious conceptual defects with xnu_override in general, but this is the kind of hacker shit you'd expect to find in something that will live patch your kernel code. At the point in time you find yourself turning off SIP to load some code to hot patch your kernel, you've long since crossed the Rubicon of caring about running particularly good code. The odds are good that the functions this thing is set up patch do hold with your first two invariants (RAX is scratch, there's 12 bytes in the entry BB). The third is the race, and you'll probably win this race most of the time. "You'll probably win this race most of the time" shouldn't be in any serious engineering design document and is probably grounds for demotion or firing if you bring it up as a defense during a design or code review, but that isn't what's going on here. This is some hacker shit posted to github.
  - dmitrygr 9y ago
    And if this project was one monolithic thing, I'd agree. But the page sells this xnu_override as a "reusable library" which might lead someone to try to reuse it in another place. This is scary and hence my warning. Hell, tomorrow's apple 10.13.0.0.0.0.0.0.minor.insignificant.0.1 patch could change these "invariants"
DRW_ 9y ago
FYI, this block was found back at the launch of the first Thunderbolt 3 Macs to be because Apple (for whatever reason) didn't wish to support the older Thunderbolt 3 chipset, according to peripheral manufacturer, Plugable: The version of OS X on the new MacBook Pros (late 2016) will not work with existing Thunderbolt 3 docks and adapters that were certified for Windows prior to the release of the MacBook Pro. These existing devices use first generation of TI USB-C chipset (TPS65982) in combination with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 chipset (Alpine Ridge). Apple requires the 2nd generation TPS65983 chipset for peripherals to be compatible. Certification of solutions across different device types is still in-progress for this 2nd generation chipset. From the Plugable product line, our dual display graphics adapters for DisplayPort and HDMI (TBT3-DP2X and TBT3-HDMI2X) are affected… We’ve also postponed our TBT3-UD1 Docking Station to update to the TPS65983 chipset and re-certify to make this docking station MacBook-compatible. Our Flagship TBT3-UDV dock with Power Delivery/Charging was already planned to use the next generation controller chip from TI, and will be compatible with the 2016 Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks. I still don't think we exactly know why, but the allegations that they're doing it for profit or for some attempt to control the ecosystem don't seem to hold up, especially since most of these peripheral manufacturers since updated their devices with the new chipset to work with macOS just fine.

100 points by okket 9y ago

Why would anyone (specifically developers) buy another apple product if they now start blocking hardware from working on PCs? Them blocking battery extenders with headphone jacks on the iPhone is already bad enough, but doing it to PCs is a whole other level of walled garden.

orf 9y ago
What if the hardware doesn't work on the PC though? Isn't that the point?
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." Mind you, I've seen many types of HW, some of which indeed wouldn't work "with a PC." The expected course of action was always "complain at peripheral vendor," this "we know what you want, but nope because FU that's why" has historically been reserved for vendors trying to keep out competition. So, while it is theoretically possible that an OS-enforced soft block is there to protect the user, a statistically more probable version is that it exists to protect the OS maker from competition; IMNSHO the ball is in Apple's court to prove otherwise.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." I've noticed a disappointing and somewhat repulsive trend increasing over the past few years, one which not only Apple participates in (but they are one of the most notable), of moving from "not supported" meaning "we won't help you with it" (fair enough) to "we will actively stop you from doing it" (FU for even trying to do something we didn't think of/don't want/etc.). IMHO it's perfectly reasonable for a company to not offer support for literally every hardware combination out there, because that's a huge space; but to deliberately sabotage attempts at doing things outside of that boundary is incredibly hostile. I have no definitive evidence but this trend seems at least somewhat correlated with the rise of authoritarianism. As a developer myself, and also someone who has done many "unsupported" things with no ill effect, I constantly try to fight this position from others, but it's difficult.
  - abakker 9y ago
    “Statistically more probable”. Based on what statistics, exactly? Apple has a long history of blocking many things to protect users, e.g. unrecognized app developers and unsigned kexts. OTOH, blocking certain TB3 devices hardly seems like a move that puts their competitors at any disadvantage. Apple doesn’t make any TB3 peripherals.
  - 95014_refugee 9y ago
    > FWIW, the current case seems to be "hardware works just as the spec says, OS blocks in anyway." Based on what? The comments from Plugable make a strong case that there's one or more un-fixable issues with certain combinations peripheral silicon that lead to an unacceptable customer experience. As can be clearly seen in this thread, given the opportunity a significant slice of the population will choose to blame Apple, so the only sensible response is to avoid the situation. Put yourself in their shoes; given these two scenarios: a) some set of customers' peripherals stop working with "this peripheral isn't supported" b) some set of customers suffer random hangs, crashes, freezes, data loss And given that you only get to choose one of those two, which one demonstrates a real commitment to the customer? I realise this doesn't fit the "Apple is always out to screw you" narrative, but I guess you have to ask... if it doesn't, perhaps your story's not so true?
bastawhiz 9y ago
> Why would anyone (specifically developers) buy another apple product if they now start blocking hardware from working on PCs? Quite frankly, it doesn't affect me. The only hardware I plug into my MBP are 1.) the charger and 2.) sometimes a monitor. They're (usually) pretty good laptops.

wslh 9y ago

That is great, I found Thunderbolt the best solution for using notebooks at home and work (multiple monitors, USB ports). I only hope in the future you can connect external GPUs in some way. I have tried via PCIe with an external board but it is not the best solution (performance, unsupported), it is just a hack.

wlesieutre 9y ago
https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphics/ https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphic...
- orliesaurus 9y ago
  599 USD - ok that's crazy
  - dahauns 9y ago
    Considering current GPU prices and the fact that a RX580 is included, it's actually a steal. :) (No wonder it's unavailable...)
    - orliesaurus 9y ago
      Oh I didnt see the were including an rx580. The razer core, that looks like this kind of system, costs 499 without a GPU...
n1000 9y ago
I've been using eGPUs for gaming (on Windows though) on my MacBook Pro for a few years now. macOS introduced official eGPU support and now there seem to be numerous compatible enclosures: https://egpu.io/macos-high-sierra-official-external-gpu/ https://egpu.io/macos-high-sierra-official-external-gpu/
- mixedbit 9y ago
  A laptop with powerful external GPU is also a nice way to have quite portable VR setup

Filligree 9y ago

From the TB3 enabler GitHub: "For unknown reasons, Apple decided to block the support for some categories of Thunderbolt 3 peripherals under macOS and when you connect those Thunderbolt 3 peripheral, you simply get an "Unsupported" message under Thunderbolt Device Tree. After digging around, it turns out the block is implemented in software level and it is possible to bypass the block by patching the related kext. This patch modifies IOThunderboltFamily and allows "Unsupported" Thunderbolt 3 peripherals to work under macOS Sierra." I wonder why they did that. Stability, probably?

nerdwaller 9y ago
I originally thought blocking access could be due to a licensing thing, given that Apple and Intel collaborated on it [0]. However I found [1] stating that the licensing fees and royalties were waved in order to ensure larger market adoption. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface) [1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/24/intel-making-thunderbolt-3-royalty-free-for-manufacturers-before-end-of-2017 http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/24/intel-making-thund...
willvarfar 9y ago
It could possibly be because of security issues?
jjoonathan 9y ago
Security? DMA is notorious.
txcwpalpha 9y ago
Security issues, most likely. Like Firewire, Thunderbolt suffers from the same security issue in that to achieve its high speeds, it gives connected devices direct memory access. In other words, any connected device can read and write directly from your RAM, bypassing any kind of access control built into the OS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Vulnerability_to_DMA_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Vulner...
- 9y ago

dmitrygr 9y ago

The code for xnu_override (the library the author wrote to patch functions in the kernel) is wrong for a number of serious reasons. It assumes (with no verification) that the first twelve bytes of any kernel function you could want to patch are all one basic block and do not contain a jump target or a relative branch. These reasons ARE why live patching is hard and why proper support for it is basically required in original code (making sure each func starts with a basic block at least twelve bytes long). Without that, it's quite a dangerous game to play in kernel space. Furthermore, it assumes RAX is safe to clobber. This may not be so. Compilers are generally free to ignore standard ABI when calling provably-static provably-leaf functions. Who said RAX doesn't have a useful value on entry to patched function? Additionally, it edits cr0 and cr3 with interrupts enabled, allowing it to be preempted during this action. If said preemption happens, another edit to those registers could happen in between. Scary, since what's being done is a non-atomic read-modify-write on CPU control registers. Strongly advise anyone from running this on any system.

munin 9y ago
> Strongly advise anyone from running this on any system. Oh come on. Your para 2-4 are serious conceptual defects with xnu_override in general, but this is the kind of hacker shit you'd expect to find in something that will live patch your kernel code. At the point in time you find yourself turning off SIP to load some code to hot patch your kernel, you've long since crossed the Rubicon of caring about running particularly good code. The odds are good that the functions this thing is set up patch do hold with your first two invariants (RAX is scratch, there's 12 bytes in the entry BB). The third is the race, and you'll probably win this race most of the time. "You'll probably win this race most of the time" shouldn't be in any serious engineering design document and is probably grounds for demotion or firing if you bring it up as a defense during a design or code review, but that isn't what's going on here. This is some hacker shit posted to github.
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  And if this project was one monolithic thing, I'd agree. But the page sells this xnu_override as a "reusable library" which might lead someone to try to reuse it in another place. This is scary and hence my warning. Hell, tomorrow's apple 10.13.0.0.0.0.0.0.minor.insignificant.0.1 patch could change these "invariants"

DRW_ 9y ago

FYI, this block was found back at the launch of the first Thunderbolt 3 Macs to be because Apple (for whatever reason) didn't wish to support the older Thunderbolt 3 chipset, according to peripheral manufacturer, Plugable: The version of OS X on the new MacBook Pros (late 2016) will not work with existing Thunderbolt 3 docks and adapters that were certified for Windows prior to the release of the MacBook Pro. These existing devices use first generation of TI USB-C chipset (TPS65982) in combination with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 chipset (Alpine Ridge). Apple requires the 2nd generation TPS65983 chipset for peripherals to be compatible. Certification of solutions across different device types is still in-progress for this 2nd generation chipset. From the Plugable product line, our dual display graphics adapters for DisplayPort and HDMI (TBT3-DP2X and TBT3-HDMI2X) are affected… We’ve also postponed our TBT3-UD1 Docking Station to update to the TPS65983 chipset and re-certify to make this docking station MacBook-compatible. Our Flagship TBT3-UDV dock with Power Delivery/Charging was already planned to use the next generation controller chip from TI, and will be compatible with the 2016 Thunderbolt 3 MacBooks. I still don't think we exactly know why, but the allegations that they're doing it for profit or for some attempt to control the ecosystem don't seem to hold up, especially since most of these peripheral manufacturers since updated their devices with the new chipset to work with macOS just fine.