rauc VS relax-intel-rmrr

TIL about RAUC (https://rauc.io/) I had been wondering how valve implemented the A/B update scheme.

SteamOS 3.x is an immutable system that uses image-based OTA updates because it is made for consumer devices (like your phone). It does not use OSTree, but apparently uses https://rauc.io

Looks like SteamOS is using this project for handling updates: https://github.com/rauc/rauc

I was in a similar situation as the author: for quite a while I had to build my own Redhat kernel for a very obscure case: by pass RMRR check to pass GPU to a windows VM. (similar to https://github.com/kiler129/relax-intel-rmrr ; not my repo)

The root issue can only be addressed by ROM updates from the manufacturer but I'm running an old DL360 that's no longer supported by HPE.

The patch itself is only one line change but updating the kernel is a pain since I have to :

Good news and bad news, there is a solution: https://github.com/kiler129/relax-intel-rmrr. But it's not always easy unless you understand building kernels. I have to do this on hpe platforms that I own.

One other method I used early in my research was to build a custom kernel that had a patch to ignore the RMRR. That worked really well and everything passed through as it should without issue, but every time you need a kernel upgrade, you have that hassle to deal with. Here is that patch if you'd like to give it a try: https://github.com/kiler129/relax-intel-rmrr

So after some searching I finally found a patch. https://github.com/kiler129/relax-intel-rmrr

So basically, some servers (HP proliant G6, G7 and some more but I don't know them all, i have a g6) have issues with RMRR. In order to fix this, you need to remove the RMRR check. When I used proxmox, I used https://github.com/kiler129/relax-intel-rmrr/blob/master/README.md#proxmox---premade-packages-easy this. Premade packages because I had no clue how to do it myself. That fixed my PCIe passthrough issues. But on manjaro, there is no premade packages for this patch. I have to manually add the patch, compile the kernel and install it and then PCIe passthrough will work hopefully.