rameshiyyar / openpower-vpd-parser

Library and parser for OpenPower-format VPD

Overview

This repository hosts code for OpenPower and IBM IPZ format VPD parsers. Both OpenPower VPD and IPZ VPD formats are structured binaries that consist of records and keywords. A record is a collection of multiple keywords. More information about the format can be found here.

The repository consists of two distinct applications, which are:

OpenPower VPD Parser

This is a build-time YAML driven application that parses the OpenPower VPD format and uses the YAML configuration (see extra-properties-example.yaml and writefru.yaml) to determine:

• The supported records and keywords.
• How VPD data is translated into D-Bus interfaces and properties.

The application instance must be passed in the file path to the VPD (this can, for example, be a sysfs path exposed by the EEPROM device driver) and also the D-Bus object path(s) that EEPROM data needs to be published under.

IBM VPD Parser

This parser is can be built by passing in the --enable-ibm-parser configure option. This parser differs from the OpenPower VPD parser in the following ways:

• It parses all the records and keywords from the VPD, including large keywords (Keywords that begin with a # and are > 255 bytes in length).
• It relies on a runtime JSON configuration (see examples/inventory.json) to determine the D-Bus object path(s) that hold interfaces and properties representing the VPD for a given VPD file path.

Making the application runtime JSON driven allows us to support multiple systems (with different FRU configurations) to be supported in a single code image as well as making the application more flexible for future improvements.

TODOs and Future Improvements

1. The long-term goal is to completely do away with the build time YAML driven configurations and instead reconcile the OpenPower VPD parser and the IBM VPD parser applications into a single runtime JSON driven application.
2. Add details to the README on how to configure and build the application.
3. More JSON documentation.
4. Support for more IBM VPD formats.
5. VPD Write and tool documentation.