Move untested board enable documentation to manpage

This also checks the testedness of boards in all cases, not just for
PCI/DMI detection.

Corresponding to flashrom svn r926.

Signed-off-by: Michael Karcher <flashrom@mkarcher.dialup.fu-berlin.de>
Acked-by: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net>

2 files changed, 58 insertions, 24 deletions

diff --git a/board_enable.c b/board_enable.c
index 7a34eb1..4107411 100644
--- a/board_enable.c
+++ b/board_enable.c
@@ -1425,30 +1425,6 @@ static struct board_pciid_enable *board_match_pci_card_ids(void)
 			}
 		}
 
-		if (board->status == NT) {
-			if (!force_boardenable)
-			{
-				printf("WARNING: Your mainboard is %s %s, but the mainboard-specific\n"
-				       "code has not been marked as working. To help flashrom development, please\n"
-				       "test flashrom on your board. As the code to support your board is untested,\n"
-				       "we strongly recommend that as an additional safety measure you make\n"
-				       "store backup of your current ROM contents (obtained by flashrom -r) on\n"
-				       "a medium that can be accessed from a different computer (like an USB\n"
-				       "drive or a network share of another system) before you try to erase or\n"
-				       "write.\n"
-				       "The untested code does not run unless you specify the\n"
-				       " \"-p internal:boardenable=force\" command line option. Depending on your\n"
-				       "hardware environment, erasing, writing or even probing can fail without\n"
-				       "running the board specific code. Running the board-specific code might\n"
-				       "cause your computer to behave erratically if it is wrong.\n"
-				       "Please report the results of running the board enable code to\n"
-				       "flashrom@flashrom.org.\n",
-				       board->vendor_name, board->board_name);
-				continue;
-			}
-			printf("NOTE: Running an untested board enable procedure.\n"
-			       "Please report success/failure to flashrom@flashrom.org\n");
-		}
 		return board;
 	}
 
@@ -1466,6 +1442,23 @@ int board_flash_enable(const char *vendor, const char *part)
 	if (!board)
 		board = board_match_pci_card_ids();
 
+        if (board->status == NT) {
+                if (!force_boardenable)
+                {
+                        printf("WARNING: Your mainboard is %s %s, but the mainboard-specific\n"
+                               "code has not been tested, and thus will not not be executed by default.\n"
+                               "Depending on your hardware environment, erasing, writing or even probing\n"
+                               "can fail without running the board specific code.\n\n"
+                               "Please see the man page (section PROGRAMMER SPECIFIC INFO, subsection\n"
+                               "\"internal programmer\") for details\n",
+                               board->vendor_name, board->board_name);
+                        board = NULL;
+                }
+                else
+                        printf("NOTE: Running an untested board enable procedure.\n"
+                               "Please report success/failure to flashrom@flashrom.org\n");
+        }
+
 	if (board) {
 		if (board->max_rom_decode_parallel)
 			max_rom_decode.parallel =
diff --git a/flashrom.8 b/flashrom.8
index 696aba2..9c21278 100644
--- a/flashrom.8
+++ b/flashrom.8
@@ -175,6 +175,47 @@ colon. While some programmers take arguments at fixed positions, other
 programmers use a key/value interface in which the key and value is separated
 by an equal sign and different pairs are separated by a comma or a colon.
 .TP
+.BR "internal " programmer
+Some mainboards require to run mainboard specific code to enable flash erase
+and write support (and probe support on old systems with parallel flash).
+The mainboard brand and model (if it requires specific code) is usually
+autodetected using one of the following mechanisms: If your system is
+running coreboot, the mainboard type is determined from the coreboot table,
+otherwise, the mainboard is detected by examining the onboard PCI devices
+and possibly DMI info. If PCI and DMI do not contain information to uniquely
+identify the mainboard (which is the exception), it might be necessary to
+specify the mainboard using the \-m switch (see above).
+.sp
+Some of these board-specific flash enabling functions (called board enables)
+in flashrom have not yet been tested. If your mainboard is detected needing
+an untested board enable function, a warning message is printed and the
+board enable is not executed, because a wrong board enable function might
+cause the system to behave erratically, as board enable functions touch the
+low-level internals of a mainboard. Not executing a board enable function
+(if one is needed) might cause detection or erasing failure. If your board
+protects only part of the flash (commonly the top end, called boot block),
+flashrom might encounter an error only after erasing the unprotected part,
+so running without the board-enable function might be dangerous for erase
+and write (which includes erase).
+.sp
+The suggested procedure for a mainboard with untested board specific code is
+to first try to probe the ROM (just invoke flashrom and check that it
+detects your flash chip type) without running the board enable code (i.e.
+without any parameters). If it finds your chip, fine, otherwise, retry
+probing your chip with the board-enable code running, using
+.sp
+.B "flashrom -p internal:boardenable=force"
+.sp
+If your chip is still not detected, the board enable code seems to be broken
+or the flash chip unsupported. Otherwise, make a backup of your current ROM
+contents (using \-r) and store it to a medium outside of your computer, like
+an USB drive or a network share. If you needed to run the board enable code
+already for probing, use it for reading too. Now you can try to write the
+new image. You should enable the board enable code in any case now, as it
+has been written because it is known that writing/erasing without the board
+enable is going to fail. In any case (success or failure), please report to
+the flashrom mailing list, see below.
+.sp
 .BR "dummy " programmer
 An optional parameter specifies the bus types it
 should support. For that you have to use the