#5422 NORM Never A: Pending signed firmware update kills DRM'd machine til AC power is applied

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#5422: Pending signed firmware update kills DRM'd machine til AC power is applied
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 Reporter:  gnu                  |       Owner:  wmb at firmworks.com
     Type:  defect               |      Status:  new              
 Priority:  normal               |   Milestone:  Never Assigned   
Component:  ofw - open firmware  |     Version:                   
 Keywords:  security DRM         |    Verified:  0                
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 B4, 650, Q2D05.

 I was running a ship.1 candidate and upgraded to 650 with olpc-update.
 That worked.  Upon reboot, the machine did not upgrade its firmware,
 because it wasn't running in secure mode.

 On my next reboot, I held the X key to get a secure reboot.  The result is
 that the laptop would not boot:  It noticed the new firmware, noticed that
 the machine had no AC power, and decided to do the worst thing possible.
 It complained, left the message up for ten seconds and then powered itself
 off.

 It could have just ignored the firmware and booted up the existing OS.  It
 could have ignored the firmware and booted the backup OS.  It could have
 installed the firmware while running on batteries (the battery was >80%
 full).  No -- it bricked the machine until AC arrived.  (Perhaps this was
 the "security over usability" tradeoff desired.  If so, the tradeoff
 should be re-evaluated.)

 (People sold 9V battery power plugs for old Macintoshes, that would
 fool the computer into thinking it had AC power.  This allowed suspending
 then swapping the battery, without crashing.  I suspect the same trick
 would work on the OLPC, as a circumvention.)

 (Because my machine isn't DRM'd, I could just power it back on without
 holding the "X" key, and it booted fine.  And because I was close to my
 charger and working AC power, I was able to plug it in and power it on, at
 which point it upgraded the firmware to Q2D06.  This bug is being reported
 for the people who don't have either option handy.)

 [I suggest curing this by testing MP hardware's ability to correctly do
 firmware updates on battery power, and relaxing that restriction if
 possible.]

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5422>
One Laptop Per Child <http://dev.laptop.org>
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