6 ms·

Librebooting the ThinkPad T480

193 points by axiologist 2y ago

axiologist 2y ago
https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html
merpkz 2y ago
I have a T480 as my main machine, but after skimming this blog post I am still not sure why would I want to flash libreboot on it, what will it improve?
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Your Thinkpad would have a free and open source BIOS/UEFI. For some, that is an improvement.
- opengears 2y ago
  It improves your machine by disabling Intel Management Engine, which is a back-door in your computer.
  - chithanh 2y ago
    It is not possible for 3rd parties to disable Intel ME. Nobody but Intel themselves can disable ME. The most you can do is drop it to some kind of reduced functionality mode some time after boot (through the HAP bit, or hackery which overwrites part of the flash memory). This is why dishonest vendors like Purism resort to confusing terminology like "neutralize". https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939058475933544448 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939058475933544448 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939064351008395264 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939064351008395264
    - mkesper 2y ago
      This model seems to be as opened as far as possible, though (https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html): One of the benefits of deguard for Intel MEv11 is that it sets the ME in such a state where you can run unsigned code in there. This is how the Intel Boot Guard was disabled, because it is the ME that enforces such restrictions; more information about deguard is available on a dedicated page. The deguard utility could also be used to enable the red-unlock hack, which would permit unsigned execution of new CPU microcode, though much more research is needed. Because of these two facts, this makes the T480/T480s the most freedom-feasible of all relatively modern x86 laptops. With deguard, you have complete control of the flash. This is unprecedented on recent Intel systems in Libreboot, so it’s certainly a very interesting port!
    - 71bw 2y ago
      >It is not possible for 3rd parties to disable Intel ME. Nobody but Intel themselves can disable ME. ...Dell? I have multiple of their machines which have been configured via their B2B panel to have ME fully disabled.
      - mjg59 2y ago
        HAP disables the ME's runtime interface, it doesn't prevent the ME from booting.
        kukrimate 2y ago
        Depends on how you define "booting". While its true that the microkernel always boots, and there is one userspace process running, it's a bit more subtle than that imo. The bringup module always boot which configures the clock controller, bootguard parameters, and releases the CPU core from reset. When in HAP mode, after that it only handles power management events and doesn't really do anything else. No other ring 3 processes are started on the ME in this mode. Stuff like even the real read-write VFS, fw updater, HECI comms handerl, AMT, PAVP, ISH server, etc are never started in HAP mode. It effectively reduces your runtime attack vector to data in SPI flash only.
        chithanh 2y ago
        > Depends on how you define "booting". As mentioned in one of the linked tweets, ME was possible to exploit through early-boot attacks before the HAP bit was even checked. So non-negligible things happen while it "boots".
        kukrimate 2y ago
        Absolutely is, one of those exact attacks is being used here to bypass BootGaurd. However all pre-boot attacks I am aware of rely on writing a malicious payload to the system's SPI flash and involve physical access. While they are genuine vulernabilties, I wouldn't consider this a worse problem than being able to inject rootkits into other parts of the firmware which is also the case here.
    - kukrimate 2y ago
      I wrote the deguard utility that made this possible. (The vulnerability being used was found by PT Research in 2017 however.) While yes you cannot strictly disable the ME, what remains of its firmware in this configuration is a bringup module that is stuck in a loop handling power management events. The network stack, HECI stack, etc are all gone here. Effectively the only way to exploit it is to put your payload into SPI flash, which we are already doing anyways :) It is also possible to take over the ME firmware and bring up the CPU using open source code, and have full control over the ME at runtime. This isn't implemented currently, but that's the direction this is aiming in.
      - amatecha 2y ago
        Just wanted to say thanks for your contribution to making this stuff possible :) fist bump
      - chithanh 2y ago
        > The network stack, HECI stack, etc are all gone here. I think there is a misunderstanding. Intel ME is a hardware feature. Yes there is some flash memory which contains more code and an operating system, but what is stored in flash memory is only part of Intel ME. Peter Stuge from Coreboot noted during his 30C3 talk that even if you completely zero out the flash, it is possible for Intel ME to send a network packet out of the ethernet interface. The cutoff point when this started happening is the 965 chipset around 2006. https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5529_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312271830_-_hardening_hardware_and_choosing_a_goodbios_-_peter_stuge https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5529_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312271... (relevant part starts at 17:19)
        kukrimate 2y ago
        It is a hardware feature, but it does basically nothing without its software in flash.... The only code that is inside the silicon is a 128K bootrom that literally just sets thing up for the real firmware to run.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    What does the Intel Management Engine do? Does it phone home? Can that port be blocked?
    - mindslight 2y ago
      The whole problem is that nobody knows for sure. If you've got a possibly-malevolent possibly-exploitable third party agent with wide access to the system, it's not really your personal computer any more, is it?
      - karolist 2y ago
        In case someone wonders, AMD has its own equivalent - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Proces...
    - tomwheeler 2y ago
      > What does the Intel Management Engine do? It runs Minix, as I recall...
- chgs 2y ago
  https://libreboot.org/ https://libreboot.org/ Has reasons why you would want a Free bios
- bubblethink 2y ago
  For this particular model, not much, other than having a partially open source bios. That can provide better security and bug fixes compared to the original bios, but that's the sort of thing that'll be mostly transparent to you. You can make this a robust system like chromebooks with verified boot or use a project like heads, but these require quite a bit of effort. For older models, there used to be more practical benefits too such as removing wifi whitelists.
- dailykoder 2y ago
  >what will it improve? it will make you (as of now) unable to use thunderbolt and therefore a dock. Maybe you see that as improvement. I kinda like my thunderbolt
solatic 2y ago
> That is about as simple as librebooting gets. I had a nice chuckle at this. Buying chip clips? A separate Raspberry Pi to wire everything together and perform the flashing process? Is there really no chance of some kind of click-and-reboot process, same as how official proprietary firmware gets updated?
- deaddodo 2y ago
  As long as Flash Write Protection is a thing and the default Lenovo BIOS enables it, yes that is how it goes.
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  There are some boards where librebooting can be done entirely via software
- rollcat 2y ago
  Hackability is always at odds with physical security. The general rule of thumb for the security-paranoid is that once you lose sight of your device, you should assume it's been owned (any imaginable variant/combination of evil maid, DMA exploit thru a physical port, etc). In recent years there has been a steady push to raise the bar (TPM, SecureBoot, etc). Whether that's effective for protecting the median user's privacy and security is a separate matter, but the side effect is of course that this is increasingly becoming a hurdle for power users, enthusiasts, OS developers, etc. ARM Macs are at a very weird spot on this spectrum. On one hand, we have a new, bespoke, and undocumented system architecture, and keeping a macOS partition is a requirement to continue receiving firmware updates; on the other, Apple has left a clearly labeled escape hatch for OS developers, and kept it from accidentally breaking. You can't have a fully libre boot chain, but it's not like Lenovo (or most other PC vendors) would endorse that either.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Personal opinion: flash chips of all kinds should be write-protected so that even a clip flash does not work... but they should have an authentication mechanism with, say, a 64 bytes passphrase that the end-user gets on a keycard. That way you'd need a literal "evil maid" in the household of the owner to do any modifications that might compromise the device.
dokyun 2y ago
Aren't people using GNUboot nowadays?
bubblethink 2y ago
Nice. Somewhat tempting to upgrade from my ivy bridge, but then I'm reminded that intel's last decade has been such a dumpster fire that everything from the last decade may be more or less the same. What does libreboot mean these days ? Does T480 do native RAM init ? Or does it still need FSP ? It may be easier to use coreboot directly. I don't think libreboot does anything more than coreboot these days. This is also exciting as T480 is the same as T25, so you may be able to use T25's keyboard with it. That's the old style keyboard that they don't make any more.
- ezntek 2y ago
  i believe that raminit isnt done via a blob anymore. you might as well read the official docs. coreboot isnt even in the main tree yet! you have to use libreboot unless if you want to hunt down mate kukri's branch and go off that. you also have to use deguard to disable intel boot guard. It is more work than ivy bridge, which is why I use libreboot; its all done for you, its reliable and updates are done by someone else (you dont have to update your own payload yourself and recompile and retinker etc).
- dTal 2y ago
  >T480 is the same as T25, so you may be able to use T25's keyboard with it The mod is complicated and very, very expensive. But possible, if you can find one in your preferred layout, which is very doubtful at this point - they've all been snapped up by people doing what you describe. I do use the T25 keyboard on my T480. Is it nice? Oh hell yes. Was it worth the time and expense? Absolutely not, unless you are a serious keyboard nerd and have more money than sense. Which I did, at the time.
  - bubblethink 2y ago
    Yeah, I looked up what people have done, and the EC alone makes it not worthwhile. And like you said, there's no availability. Ebay only shows the Japanese layout. I think the T480(s) keyboard is fine. I'm quite comfortable with the Tx30 chiclet keyboard, and 480 looks about the same. I was debating buying X1C 13, but this T480(s) may be a fun Christmas break project.
nxobject 2y ago
As an aside, I'm surprised that the author's suggesting that 16GB is a sweet spot for a configuration – I'm not sure that's true today (I don't think it is for quite a few workloads on top of heavy webengine apps), but I doubt it'll be true in five years. This is coming from an M1 MBP user with 32GB who, even with aggressive paging in and out of an uber-fast disk, manages to fill about ~20GB on a regular basis.
- ezntek 2y ago
  creator here. greetings. 32 is great for editing and such, but I do assume that one would be using linux, and in that case, I can consistenly open over 100 tabs in firefox and do programming and have electron apps open on the side on KDE plasma with no issues, no out of memory errors. Things do get squeezy and noticeably slow at those extremely heavy workloads; for heavy tasks of course get 32 but if 16 can do you that far its fine. I even won a hackathon with 16gb of ram on an X230, if I can do that and be productive even at home its enough. macOS is just very RAM heavy, theres always at least 50 weirdly names background processes active.
- daghamm 2y ago
  I assume a workload with many Docker containers will need much less memory on Linux compared to osx.
- jsndnx 2y ago
  I don't understand it either, a 16 GB DDR5 stick costs like $50 Not having enough RAM slows you work to a halt, I would always go a tier down in CPU or GPU to have enough RAM And it's also easy to expand later
  - iforgotpassword 2y ago
    Don't know what it's like today, but more ram always means more power usage, so maybe makes sense for people who work on battery frequently... Otoh, my main rig is also on 16gb today and I never run into issues. But then again I don't run electron apps and don't do webdev or microservice stuff with 30 VMs.
  - 2y ago
71bw 2y ago
Amazing to see this. One step closer to my true dream of a P-series workstation with coreboot... albeit that's not very likely due to the dGPU.
stefantalpalaru 2y ago
[dead]
morgansolis 2y ago
What are some of the most significant challenges you've encountered when transitioning an existing system to Libreboot on a T480, particularly regarding hardware compatibility and performance optimization? Additionally, how do you ensure the integrity and security of the system during and after the installation process?
markus_zhang 2y ago
The post mentioned IRC. I haven't used it for ages. Any channel I should join to meet technical greybeards?
mkasberg 2y ago
Love seeing stuff like this on old laptops! I recently built https://linuxlaptopprices.com/ https://linuxlaptopprices.com/, inspired by diskprices.com.
- morjom 2y ago
  Any chance it could have a region filter?
- tmiku 2y ago
  Hi! Big fan of linuxlaptopprices - it's exactly what I've been looking for. Have you considered adding a "ships to" filter? I live in Alaska and I'm looking to replace my T14s with bad soldered memory, but a lot of the listings don't ship to AK/HI.

193 points by axiologist 2y ago

https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html

I have a T480 as my main machine, but after skimming this blog post I am still not sure why would I want to flash libreboot on it, what will it improve?

Propelloni 2y ago
Your Thinkpad would have a free and open source BIOS/UEFI. For some, that is an improvement.
opengears 2y ago
It improves your machine by disabling Intel Management Engine, which is a back-door in your computer.
- chithanh 2y ago
  It is not possible for 3rd parties to disable Intel ME. Nobody but Intel themselves can disable ME. The most you can do is drop it to some kind of reduced functionality mode some time after boot (through the HAP bit, or hackery which overwrites part of the flash memory). This is why dishonest vendors like Purism resort to confusing terminology like "neutralize". https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939058475933544448 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939058475933544448 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939064351008395264 https://x.com/rootkovska/status/939064351008395264
  - mkesper 2y ago
    This model seems to be as opened as far as possible, though (https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t480.html): One of the benefits of deguard for Intel MEv11 is that it sets the ME in such a state where you can run unsigned code in there. This is how the Intel Boot Guard was disabled, because it is the ME that enforces such restrictions; more information about deguard is available on a dedicated page. The deguard utility could also be used to enable the red-unlock hack, which would permit unsigned execution of new CPU microcode, though much more research is needed. Because of these two facts, this makes the T480/T480s the most freedom-feasible of all relatively modern x86 laptops. With deguard, you have complete control of the flash. This is unprecedented on recent Intel systems in Libreboot, so it’s certainly a very interesting port!
  - 71bw 2y ago
    >It is not possible for 3rd parties to disable Intel ME. Nobody but Intel themselves can disable ME. ...Dell? I have multiple of their machines which have been configured via their B2B panel to have ME fully disabled.
    - mjg59 2y ago
      HAP disables the ME's runtime interface, it doesn't prevent the ME from booting.
      - kukrimate 2y ago
        Depends on how you define "booting". While its true that the microkernel always boots, and there is one userspace process running, it's a bit more subtle than that imo. The bringup module always boot which configures the clock controller, bootguard parameters, and releases the CPU core from reset. When in HAP mode, after that it only handles power management events and doesn't really do anything else. No other ring 3 processes are started on the ME in this mode. Stuff like even the real read-write VFS, fw updater, HECI comms handerl, AMT, PAVP, ISH server, etc are never started in HAP mode. It effectively reduces your runtime attack vector to data in SPI flash only.
        chithanh 2y ago
        > Depends on how you define "booting". As mentioned in one of the linked tweets, ME was possible to exploit through early-boot attacks before the HAP bit was even checked. So non-negligible things happen while it "boots".
        kukrimate 2y ago
        Absolutely is, one of those exact attacks is being used here to bypass BootGaurd. However all pre-boot attacks I am aware of rely on writing a malicious payload to the system's SPI flash and involve physical access. While they are genuine vulernabilties, I wouldn't consider this a worse problem than being able to inject rootkits into other parts of the firmware which is also the case here.
  - kukrimate 2y ago
    I wrote the deguard utility that made this possible. (The vulnerability being used was found by PT Research in 2017 however.) While yes you cannot strictly disable the ME, what remains of its firmware in this configuration is a bringup module that is stuck in a loop handling power management events. The network stack, HECI stack, etc are all gone here. Effectively the only way to exploit it is to put your payload into SPI flash, which we are already doing anyways :) It is also possible to take over the ME firmware and bring up the CPU using open source code, and have full control over the ME at runtime. This isn't implemented currently, but that's the direction this is aiming in.
    - amatecha 2y ago
      Just wanted to say thanks for your contribution to making this stuff possible :) fist bump
    - chithanh 2y ago
      > The network stack, HECI stack, etc are all gone here. I think there is a misunderstanding. Intel ME is a hardware feature. Yes there is some flash memory which contains more code and an operating system, but what is stored in flash memory is only part of Intel ME. Peter Stuge from Coreboot noted during his 30C3 talk that even if you completely zero out the flash, it is possible for Intel ME to send a network packet out of the ethernet interface. The cutoff point when this started happening is the 965 chipset around 2006. https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5529_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312271830_-_hardening_hardware_and_choosing_a_goodbios_-_peter_stuge https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5529_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312271... (relevant part starts at 17:19)
      - kukrimate 2y ago
        It is a hardware feature, but it does basically nothing without its software in flash.... The only code that is inside the silicon is a 128K bootrom that literally just sets thing up for the real firmware to run.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  What does the Intel Management Engine do? Does it phone home? Can that port be blocked?
  - mindslight 2y ago
    The whole problem is that nobody knows for sure. If you've got a possibly-malevolent possibly-exploitable third party agent with wide access to the system, it's not really your personal computer any more, is it?
    - karolist 2y ago
      In case someone wonders, AMD has its own equivalent - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Proces...
  - tomwheeler 2y ago
    > What does the Intel Management Engine do? It runs Minix, as I recall...
chgs 2y ago
https://libreboot.org/ https://libreboot.org/ Has reasons why you would want a Free bios
bubblethink 2y ago
For this particular model, not much, other than having a partially open source bios. That can provide better security and bug fixes compared to the original bios, but that's the sort of thing that'll be mostly transparent to you. You can make this a robust system like chromebooks with verified boot or use a project like heads, but these require quite a bit of effort. For older models, there used to be more practical benefits too such as removing wifi whitelists.
dailykoder 2y ago
>what will it improve? it will make you (as of now) unable to use thunderbolt and therefore a dock. Maybe you see that as improvement. I kinda like my thunderbolt

solatic 2y ago

> That is about as simple as librebooting gets. I had a nice chuckle at this. Buying chip clips? A separate Raspberry Pi to wire everything together and perform the flashing process? Is there really no chance of some kind of click-and-reboot process, same as how official proprietary firmware gets updated?

deaddodo 2y ago
As long as Flash Write Protection is a thing and the default Lenovo BIOS enables it, yes that is how it goes.
Almondsetat 2y ago
There are some boards where librebooting can be done entirely via software
rollcat 2y ago
Hackability is always at odds with physical security. The general rule of thumb for the security-paranoid is that once you lose sight of your device, you should assume it's been owned (any imaginable variant/combination of evil maid, DMA exploit thru a physical port, etc). In recent years there has been a steady push to raise the bar (TPM, SecureBoot, etc). Whether that's effective for protecting the median user's privacy and security is a separate matter, but the side effect is of course that this is increasingly becoming a hurdle for power users, enthusiasts, OS developers, etc. ARM Macs are at a very weird spot on this spectrum. On one hand, we have a new, bespoke, and undocumented system architecture, and keeping a macOS partition is a requirement to continue receiving firmware updates; on the other, Apple has left a clearly labeled escape hatch for OS developers, and kept it from accidentally breaking. You can't have a fully libre boot chain, but it's not like Lenovo (or most other PC vendors) would endorse that either.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Personal opinion: flash chips of all kinds should be write-protected so that even a clip flash does not work... but they should have an authentication mechanism with, say, a 64 bytes passphrase that the end-user gets on a keycard. That way you'd need a literal "evil maid" in the household of the owner to do any modifications that might compromise the device.

dokyun 2y ago

Aren't people using GNUboot nowadays?

bubblethink 2y ago

Nice. Somewhat tempting to upgrade from my ivy bridge, but then I'm reminded that intel's last decade has been such a dumpster fire that everything from the last decade may be more or less the same. What does libreboot mean these days ? Does T480 do native RAM init ? Or does it still need FSP ? It may be easier to use coreboot directly. I don't think libreboot does anything more than coreboot these days. This is also exciting as T480 is the same as T25, so you may be able to use T25's keyboard with it. That's the old style keyboard that they don't make any more.

ezntek 2y ago
i believe that raminit isnt done via a blob anymore. you might as well read the official docs. coreboot isnt even in the main tree yet! you have to use libreboot unless if you want to hunt down mate kukri's branch and go off that. you also have to use deguard to disable intel boot guard. It is more work than ivy bridge, which is why I use libreboot; its all done for you, its reliable and updates are done by someone else (you dont have to update your own payload yourself and recompile and retinker etc).
dTal 2y ago
>T480 is the same as T25, so you may be able to use T25's keyboard with it The mod is complicated and very, very expensive. But possible, if you can find one in your preferred layout, which is very doubtful at this point - they've all been snapped up by people doing what you describe. I do use the T25 keyboard on my T480. Is it nice? Oh hell yes. Was it worth the time and expense? Absolutely not, unless you are a serious keyboard nerd and have more money than sense. Which I did, at the time.
- bubblethink 2y ago
  Yeah, I looked up what people have done, and the EC alone makes it not worthwhile. And like you said, there's no availability. Ebay only shows the Japanese layout. I think the T480(s) keyboard is fine. I'm quite comfortable with the Tx30 chiclet keyboard, and 480 looks about the same. I was debating buying X1C 13, but this T480(s) may be a fun Christmas break project.

nxobject 2y ago

As an aside, I'm surprised that the author's suggesting that 16GB is a sweet spot for a configuration – I'm not sure that's true today (I don't think it is for quite a few workloads on top of heavy webengine apps), but I doubt it'll be true in five years. This is coming from an M1 MBP user with 32GB who, even with aggressive paging in and out of an uber-fast disk, manages to fill about ~20GB on a regular basis.

ezntek 2y ago
creator here. greetings. 32 is great for editing and such, but I do assume that one would be using linux, and in that case, I can consistenly open over 100 tabs in firefox and do programming and have electron apps open on the side on KDE plasma with no issues, no out of memory errors. Things do get squeezy and noticeably slow at those extremely heavy workloads; for heavy tasks of course get 32 but if 16 can do you that far its fine. I even won a hackathon with 16gb of ram on an X230, if I can do that and be productive even at home its enough. macOS is just very RAM heavy, theres always at least 50 weirdly names background processes active.
daghamm 2y ago
I assume a workload with many Docker containers will need much less memory on Linux compared to osx.
jsndnx 2y ago
I don't understand it either, a 16 GB DDR5 stick costs like $50 Not having enough RAM slows you work to a halt, I would always go a tier down in CPU or GPU to have enough RAM And it's also easy to expand later
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  Don't know what it's like today, but more ram always means more power usage, so maybe makes sense for people who work on battery frequently... Otoh, my main rig is also on 16gb today and I never run into issues. But then again I don't run electron apps and don't do webdev or microservice stuff with 30 VMs.
- 2y ago

71bw 2y ago

Amazing to see this. One step closer to my true dream of a P-series workstation with coreboot... albeit that's not very likely due to the dGPU.

stefantalpalaru 2y ago

[dead]

morgansolis 2y ago

What are some of the most significant challenges you've encountered when transitioning an existing system to Libreboot on a T480, particularly regarding hardware compatibility and performance optimization? Additionally, how do you ensure the integrity and security of the system during and after the installation process?

markus_zhang 2y ago

The post mentioned IRC. I haven't used it for ages. Any channel I should join to meet technical greybeards?

mkasberg 2y ago

Love seeing stuff like this on old laptops! I recently built https://linuxlaptopprices.com/ https://linuxlaptopprices.com/, inspired by diskprices.com.

morjom 2y ago
Any chance it could have a region filter?
tmiku 2y ago
Hi! Big fan of linuxlaptopprices - it's exactly what I've been looking for. Have you considered adding a "ships to" filter? I live in Alaska and I'm looking to replace my T14s with bad soldered memory, but a lot of the listings don't ship to AK/HI.