6 ms·

Upgrading a Toshiba NAS HDD Firmware on Linux

165 points by pabs3 2y ago

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
Surprised nobody has called out the insecure transport of firmware images via HTTP, especially for something as security-sensitive as NV storage.
shmerl 2y ago
Thank you, it worked like a charm! Why does Toshiba have to make it so hard for Linux users if hdparm supports it?
bebeko15 2y ago
[flagged]
mschuster91 2y ago
> The first one gives us our answer: the URL is stored in the registry. It’s actually written by the InstallShield setup. I... I mean, I get why they did this, rather than building a proper userspace application... but who the fuck thought this would be something that's acceptable to ship to consumers? And what happens in case there are multiple different disk models installed in the same system?
- echoangle 2y ago
  If I understand it correctly, the URL lets you download a file that maps every Toshiba disk model to a firmware version (???). So having different disk models doesn’t change anything, the program just gets the file, checks which drive needs which version, and then downloads these firmware binaries and installs them.
- philjohn 2y ago
  Or someone social engineers you into clicking on a .reg file which changes these URL's to something malicious that will brick your drives.
  - HHad3 2y ago
    They might just as well send any other .reg file that runs a program (e.g. by creating an autoboot entry, COM server, service, ...) that bricks devices.
dark-star 2y ago
I usually use fwupd on Linux, which also downloads (and installs) SSD firmware. At least for my SSD, it did (also a Toshiba SSD IIRC)
mkesper 2y ago
List of devices upgradable easily from Linux by using firmware released on LVFS: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/ https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/
- dijit 2y ago
  This solves such an important need, updating device firmware and bios’ was such a pain for the longest time, most manufacturers tend to give out only Windows executables- if you are lucky then some DOS compatible binary might be included, and then you could boot into FreeDOS. BIOS's got better about reading their own firmware from VFAT, but still getting the driver was a pain, because there was a strong preference for .exe's on websites. Seems much better now, I can run a small handful of commands and have my bios updated. It's still hard to know which motherboards/laptops are compatible with fwupd though.
- Thaxll 2y ago
  I was really surprised by that, I upgraded to Ubuntu 22 and magically it can upgrade firmware on my dell labptop.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    It didn't just happen. Richard Hughes works with loads of different companies and gets them to provide the updates in the right format to work with LVFS, no easy task at all. https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2023/12/06/100-million-firmware-updates-supplied-by-the-lvfs/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2023/12/06/100-million-firmw...
- shantara 2y ago
  LVFS seems to be focusing mostly on laptop hardware, isn’t it? I am currently looking into building a Linux-based gaming PC in the near future, and none of the major motherboard manufacturers appear to be posting the BIOS updates there. Am I missing anything? This is the first new PC I’m building in over a decade, so I’m not fully up to speed with all the latest developments
wannacboatmovie 2y ago
> As usual, I wanted to check if any firmware update is available Updating HDD firmware is something you do to resolve a very specific problem, not ... just because it's available. People are blind to the fact that updates can and do introduce new bugs.
- bustling-noose 2y ago
  according to the release notes 0602 fixed some SMART failures. Seems pretty important to me
- rbanffy 2y ago
  It depends on what is in the changelog. If there are performance or durability improvements, you might want to change the firmware even if you are not facing a significant issue. The downside is the risk to data on the disk - don't do that (or anything, really) on a drive that holds the only copy of something important. If the drive is being moved to a different array or machine and the data is to be lost anyway, the risk is very low and, if the process is easy (unlike this) it might be a sensible move. I agree "just because it's new" is a poor justification to risk data.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    Back in the day I'd just wing it, hey, firmware update the only harddrive I own, what could go wrong. Now if it's not on at least two drives within a few hours of something new (photo, video, work done, whatever) it seems like a terrible risk. Part getting old, part being able to afford to have redundancy, I guess. Storage feels so much cheaper now.
    - vocram 2y ago
      And in part because you remember all the times YOLO went wrong and you bricked stuff / lost data
  - miah_ 2y ago
    HP has a bootable Linux CD that updates all the firmware on their devices, since the early 00's. We used to regularly update firmware across our entire fleet of servers during maintenance cycles. Never had a failure.
fake-name 2y ago
> hdparm --fwdownload-mode3 sk060202.ftd --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing --please-destroy-my-drive /dev/sdb If nothing else, I certainly appreciate `hdparm`'s CLI flags
- 0xcde4c3db 2y ago
  Documentation of this seems to have disappeared into the ether, but I'm reminded of the time that glxgears (or a distro package of it?) briefly turned off FPS output by default, with the argument to turn it on being something like --i-acknowledge-that-this-tool-is-not-a-benchmark Basically, people were complaining about "major regressions" in glxgears frame rates that were really just minor fluctuations in how long it took to clear and swap buffers, since glxgears does almost no actual rendering (by modern standards).
- Dwedit 2y ago
  Hdparm's manual is amazing. "This is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and will very likely cause massive loss of data. DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND." "VERY DANGEROUS, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING IT." "VERY DANGEROUS, DO NOT USE!!" "This command is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and could destroy both the drive and all data on it. DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND." "EXCEPTIONALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!!" "VERY DANGEROUS." "(DANGEROUS)" There's a reason why TvTropes lists the "hdparm" command under "Schmuck Bait".
klaas- 2y ago
there is something similar for WD drives as well. https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_ssd_firmware_update/ https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_ssd_firmware_update/ https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_fw_update https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_fw_update I really hope some day there will be a big disk manufacturer that natively supports lvfs - I would pay a premium for that.
superkuh 2y ago
>What’s interesting is the checksum at the end. It’s the CRC32 of the file, minus the last 10 bytes, which can be easily checked with the slice and crc32 tools of my hacking Swiss army knife rsbkb: I want to know the story of how he realized it was the CRC of the file minus the last 10 bytes. That's gotta be an interesting thought path.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  If the last 10 bytes are used to store the checksum, then it would make sense to not include them.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    And yes, they are, semicolon then space then 8 hex.
NotYourLawyer 2y ago
What happens if you just rub the updater in Wine? It extracts fine, but it won’t run?
mischief6 2y ago
I like that the author went very in depth reverse engineering the proprietary update program, but it boiled down to what amounts to a single or few ata commands that can be manually invoked on linux. it's a shame they don't just publish these commands for linux users, and let the windows users have the fancy bespoke tools.

165 points by pabs3 2y ago

Surprised nobody has called out the insecure transport of firmware images via HTTP, especially for something as security-sensitive as NV storage.

shmerl 2y ago

Thank you, it worked like a charm! Why does Toshiba have to make it so hard for Linux users if hdparm supports it?

bebeko15 2y ago

[flagged]

mschuster91 2y ago

> The first one gives us our answer: the URL is stored in the registry. It’s actually written by the InstallShield setup. I... I mean, I get why they did this, rather than building a proper userspace application... but who the fuck thought this would be something that's acceptable to ship to consumers? And what happens in case there are multiple different disk models installed in the same system?

echoangle 2y ago
If I understand it correctly, the URL lets you download a file that maps every Toshiba disk model to a firmware version (???). So having different disk models doesn’t change anything, the program just gets the file, checks which drive needs which version, and then downloads these firmware binaries and installs them.
philjohn 2y ago
Or someone social engineers you into clicking on a .reg file which changes these URL's to something malicious that will brick your drives.
- HHad3 2y ago
  They might just as well send any other .reg file that runs a program (e.g. by creating an autoboot entry, COM server, service, ...) that bricks devices.

dark-star 2y ago

I usually use fwupd on Linux, which also downloads (and installs) SSD firmware. At least for my SSD, it did (also a Toshiba SSD IIRC)

mkesper 2y ago

List of devices upgradable easily from Linux by using firmware released on LVFS: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/ https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/

dijit 2y ago
This solves such an important need, updating device firmware and bios’ was such a pain for the longest time, most manufacturers tend to give out only Windows executables- if you are lucky then some DOS compatible binary might be included, and then you could boot into FreeDOS. BIOS's got better about reading their own firmware from VFAT, but still getting the driver was a pain, because there was a strong preference for .exe's on websites. Seems much better now, I can run a small handful of commands and have my bios updated. It's still hard to know which motherboards/laptops are compatible with fwupd though.
Thaxll 2y ago
I was really surprised by that, I upgraded to Ubuntu 22 and magically it can upgrade firmware on my dell labptop.
- rwmj 2y ago
  It didn't just happen. Richard Hughes works with loads of different companies and gets them to provide the updates in the right format to work with LVFS, no easy task at all. https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2023/12/06/100-million-firmware-updates-supplied-by-the-lvfs/ https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2023/12/06/100-million-firmw...
shantara 2y ago
LVFS seems to be focusing mostly on laptop hardware, isn’t it? I am currently looking into building a Linux-based gaming PC in the near future, and none of the major motherboard manufacturers appear to be posting the BIOS updates there. Am I missing anything? This is the first new PC I’m building in over a decade, so I’m not fully up to speed with all the latest developments

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

> As usual, I wanted to check if any firmware update is available Updating HDD firmware is something you do to resolve a very specific problem, not ... just because it's available. People are blind to the fact that updates can and do introduce new bugs.

bustling-noose 2y ago
according to the release notes 0602 fixed some SMART failures. Seems pretty important to me
rbanffy 2y ago
It depends on what is in the changelog. If there are performance or durability improvements, you might want to change the firmware even if you are not facing a significant issue. The downside is the risk to data on the disk - don't do that (or anything, really) on a drive that holds the only copy of something important. If the drive is being moved to a different array or machine and the data is to be lost anyway, the risk is very low and, if the process is easy (unlike this) it might be a sensible move. I agree "just because it's new" is a poor justification to risk data.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Back in the day I'd just wing it, hey, firmware update the only harddrive I own, what could go wrong. Now if it's not on at least two drives within a few hours of something new (photo, video, work done, whatever) it seems like a terrible risk. Part getting old, part being able to afford to have redundancy, I guess. Storage feels so much cheaper now.
  - vocram 2y ago
    And in part because you remember all the times YOLO went wrong and you bricked stuff / lost data
- miah_ 2y ago
  HP has a bootable Linux CD that updates all the firmware on their devices, since the early 00's. We used to regularly update firmware across our entire fleet of servers during maintenance cycles. Never had a failure.

fake-name 2y ago

> hdparm --fwdownload-mode3 sk060202.ftd --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing --please-destroy-my-drive /dev/sdb If nothing else, I certainly appreciate `hdparm`'s CLI flags

0xcde4c3db 2y ago
Documentation of this seems to have disappeared into the ether, but I'm reminded of the time that glxgears (or a distro package of it?) briefly turned off FPS output by default, with the argument to turn it on being something like --i-acknowledge-that-this-tool-is-not-a-benchmark Basically, people were complaining about "major regressions" in glxgears frame rates that were really just minor fluctuations in how long it took to clear and swap buffers, since glxgears does almost no actual rendering (by modern standards).
Dwedit 2y ago
Hdparm's manual is amazing. "This is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and will very likely cause massive loss of data. DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND." "VERY DANGEROUS, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING IT." "VERY DANGEROUS, DO NOT USE!!" "This command is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and could destroy both the drive and all data on it. DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND." "EXCEPTIONALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!!" "VERY DANGEROUS." "(DANGEROUS)" There's a reason why TvTropes lists the "hdparm" command under "Schmuck Bait".

klaas- 2y ago

there is something similar for WD drives as well. https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_ssd_firmware_update/ https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_ssd_firmware_update/ https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_fw_update https://github.com/not-a-feature/wd_fw_update I really hope some day there will be a big disk manufacturer that natively supports lvfs - I would pay a premium for that.

superkuh 2y ago

>What’s interesting is the checksum at the end. It’s the CRC32 of the file, minus the last 10 bytes, which can be easily checked with the slice and crc32 tools of my hacking Swiss army knife rsbkb: I want to know the story of how he realized it was the CRC of the file minus the last 10 bytes. That's gotta be an interesting thought path.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
If the last 10 bytes are used to store the checksum, then it would make sense to not include them.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  And yes, they are, semicolon then space then 8 hex.

NotYourLawyer 2y ago

What happens if you just rub the updater in Wine? It extracts fine, but it won’t run?

mischief6 2y ago

I like that the author went very in depth reverse engineering the proprietary update program, but it boiled down to what amounts to a single or few ata commands that can be manually invoked on linux. it's a shame they don't just publish these commands for linux users, and let the windows users have the fancy bespoke tools.