Introduction

This plugin updates BCM57xx wired network adaptors from Broadcom using a reverse-engineered flashing protocol. It is designed to be used with the clean-room reimplementation of the BCM5719 firmware found here: https://github.com/meklort/bcm5719-fw

Protocol

BCM57xx devices support a custom com.broadcom.bcm57xx protocol which is implemented as ioctls like ethtool does.

GUID Generation

These devices use the standard PCI instance IDs, for example:

• PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1657
• PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1657&SUBSYS_17AA222E

Update Behavior

The device usually presents in runtime mode, and the firmware is written to the device without disconnecting the working kernel driver. Once complete the APE is reset which may cause a brief link reconnection.

On flash failure the device is nonfunctional, but is recoverable using direct BAR writes, which is typically much slower than updating the device using the kernel driver and the ethtool API.

Vendor ID Security

The vendor ID is set from the PCI vendor, in this instance set to PCI:0x14E4

External Interface Access

This plugin requires the SIOCETHTOOL ioctl interface.

Version Considerations

This plugin has been available since fwupd version 1.5.0.

Owners

Anyone can submit a pull request to modify this plugin, but the following people should be consulted before making major or functional changes:

• Evan Lojewski: meklort