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Subject: Re: Is processor microcode advised?
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From: Andrea Venturoli <ml@netfence.it>
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:27:32 +0100
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On 11/17/15 16:10, Adam Vande More wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is it important/necessary/advisable  to install microcode for Intel CPU's?
>> If so, how do you know which CPU's have updates? Also, after doing make
>> install in /usr/ports/sysutils/devcpu-data and adding
>> microcode_update_enable="YES" to rc.conf, how can you tell if anything was
>> applied - what do you look for in dmesg output
>>
>
> man cpuctl
>
> But normally this is just handled with a bios update.

Supposing BIOS has not been updated (due to no availability, lazyness, 
impossibility over a remote link, fear of bricking the box, etc...), the 
original question would still stand: is it important/necessary/advisable 
to use devcpu-data?

Also, I see microcode_update has to load the cpuctl module. What are the 
implications of this WRT security?
Would it be advisable to unload it afterwards?

  bye & Thanks
	av.