1 files changed, 67 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt b/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
index 805025940248..c4b57badd0b7 100644
--- a/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
+++ b/Documentation/acpi/ssdt-overlays.txt
@@ -89,3 +89,70 @@ cp ssdt.aml kernel/firmware/acpi
 # on top:
 find kernel | cpio -H newc --create > /boot/instrumented_initrd
 cat /boot/initrd >>/boot/instrumented_initrd
+
+== Loading ACPI SSDTs from EFI variables ==
+
+This is the preferred method, when EFI is supported on the platform, because it
+allows a persistent, OS independent way of storing the user defined SSDTs. There
+is also work underway to implement EFI support for loading user defined SSDTs
+and using this method will make it easier to convert to the EFI loading
+mechanism when that will arrive.
+
+In order to load SSDTs from an EFI variable the efivar_ssdt kernel command line
+parameter can be used. The argument for the option is the variable name to
+use. If there are multiple variables with the same name but with different
+vendor GUIDs, all of them will be loaded.
+
+In order to store the AML code in an EFI variable the efivarfs filesystem can be
+used. It is enabled and mounted by default in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars in all
+recent distribution.
+
+Creating a new file in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars will automatically create a new
+EFI variable. Updating a file in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars will update the EFI
+variable. Please note that the file name needs to be specially formatted as
+"Name-GUID" and that the first 4 bytes in the file (little-endian format)
+represent the attributes of the EFI variable (see EFI_VARIABLE_MASK in
+include/linux/efi.h). Writing to the file must also be done with one write
+operation.
+
+For example, you can use the following bash script to create/update an EFI
+variable with the content from a given file:
+
+#!/bin/sh -e
+
+while ! [ -z "$1" ]; do
+        case "$1" in
+        "-f") filename="$2"; shift;;
+        "-g") guid="$2"; shift;;
+        *) name="$1";;
+        esac
+        shift
+done
+
+usage()
+{
+        echo "Syntax: ${0##*/} -f filename [ -g guid ] name"
+        exit 1
+}
+
+[ -n "$name" -a -f "$filename" ] || usage
+
+EFIVARFS="/sys/firmware/efi/efivars"
+
+[ -d "$EFIVARFS" ] || exit 2
+
+if stat -tf $EFIVARFS | grep -q -v de5e81e4; then
+        mount -t efivarfs none $EFIVARFS
+fi
+
+# try to pick up an existing GUID
+[ -n "$guid" ] || guid=$(find "$EFIVARFS" -name "$name-*" | head -n1 | cut -f2- -d-)
+
+# use a randomly generated GUID
+[ -n "$guid" ] || guid="$(cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid)"
+
+# efivarfs expects all of the data in one write
+tmp=$(mktemp)
+/bin/echo -ne "\007\000\000\000" | cat - $filename > $tmp
+dd if=$tmp of="$EFIVARFS/$name-$guid" bs=$(stat -c %s $tmp)
+rm $tmp