RE: [Regression 4.15-rc2] New messages `tpm tpm0: A TPM error (2314) occurred continue selftest`

[Alexander.Steffen]

> [Adding Rafael and Len as they, to my knowledge, also use or have a
> access to a Dell XPS 13 9360. With latest Linux master do you get TPM
> self-test errors, when cold starting the system without the power supply
> plugged in?]
> 
> Dear Mario, dear Alexander,
> 
> 
> the added line breaks to the quoted parts really mess up the citation.
> Can we please try to use MUAs avoiding that, or fixing that manually?

Sorry, I'm not sure whether my company has a way for me to avoid using Outlook ;-) But if there are any configuration changes to make it behave better, I will gladly apply them. Do you know of any documentation on this? All I found so far either is already applied or was outdated.

I'll remove some of the less relevant quoted parts, so that this is less of an issue.

> >>>>> To be clear, this issue is not reproducible during every start. (But
> >>>>> that was the same before.)
> 
> I think I found out how to reproduce the issue. Cold start the system
> without the power supply connected.
> 
> >>>> Thanks for testing. Now you are in the unlucky situation that your TPM
> was
> >>>> probably always broken, but old kernels did not detect that and used it
> anyway.
> 
> Just to clarify, I do not know if the TPM could ever be used. I believe
> the module loaded but the user space tools (tpm2_version or so) always
> returned an error in my tests.

Interesting. So maybe it is not a bug in your TPM's firmware, but really a single defective TPM? Can you try to figure that out? That is, when using an older kernel in the cold start scenario, can you execute any useful commands on your TPM successfully?

> >>> Something that Paul can consider is to upgrade the TPM firmware if it's
> not
> >>> already
> >>> upgraded.  Since the launch of XPS 9360 there was at least one TPM
> firmware
> >>> update
> >>> issued.  It has been posted to LVFS and can be upgraded using
> >>> fwupd/fwupdate.
> >>> Note: If your TPM is currently owned you will need to go into BIOS setup
> to
> >>> clear it
> >>> first before upgrading.
> >>
> >> I'm not familiar with the specific TPM in your model, but according to the
> log it is a
> >> TPM 2.0, which does not really carry over the owner concept of a TPM 1.2.
> Is
> >> clearing it still necessary for an upgrade then?
> >
> > Yes it's required for the TPM model/vendor that is used in the XPS model
> that
> > Paul has.  If you try to run the upgrade without clearing it the firmware will
> > reject the upgrade.
> 
> Mario, thank you for your quick reaction.
> 
> [â]
> 
> 1.  Can you reproduce this issue too?
> 2.  How do I find out, what TPM firmware version is installed?

If you get the driver loaded, you can ask the TPM (TPM2_GetCapability for TPM_PT_FIRMWARE_VERSION_1 and TPM_PT_FIRMWARE_VERSION_2):

python3 -c 'f=open("/dev/tpm0", "r+b", buffering=0); f.write(b"\x80\x01\x00\x00\x00\x16\x00\x00\x01z\x00\x00\x00\x06\x00\x00\x01\x0b\x00\x00\x00\x02"); print(f.readall())'

> 3.  Updating to the firmware 2.4.2 from December 17th, 2017 didnât fix
> the issue.

You've got a firmware from the future? ;-)

Alexander