xref: /aosp_15_r20/external/flashrom/doc/intro.rst (revision 0d6140be3aa665ecc836e8907834fcd3e3b018fc)
1**flashrom** is a utility for identifying, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash
2chips. It is designed to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware/optionROM images on mainboards,
3network/graphics/storage controller cards, and various other programmer devices.
4
5* Supports more than 627 flash chips, 407 chipsets, 539 mainboards, 94 PCI devices,
6  30 USB devices and various parallel/serial port-based programmers.
7  For more information, see the pages under :doc:`/supported_hw/index`.
8
9* Supports parallel, LPC, FWH and SPI flash interfaces and various chip packages (DIP32,
10  PLCC32, DIP8, SO8/SOIC8, TSOP32, TSOP40, TSOP48, BGA and more), see :doc:`user_docs/overview`.
11
12* No physical access needed, root access is sufficient (not needed for some programmers).
13
14* No bootable floppy disk, bootable CD-ROM or other media needed.
15
16* No keyboard or monitor needed. Simply reflash remotely via SSH.
17
18* No instant reboot needed. Reflash your chip in a running system, verify it, be happy.
19  The new firmware will be present next time you boot.
20
21* Crossflashing and hotflashing is possible as long as the flash chips are electrically
22  and logically compatible (same protocol). Great for recovery.
23
24* Scriptability. Reflash a whole pool of identical machines at the same time from the
25  command line. It is recommended to check flashrom output and error codes.
26
27* Speed. flashrom is often much faster than most vendor flash tools.
28
29* Portability. Supports DOS, Linux, FreeBSD (including Debian/kFreeBSD), NetBSD, OpenBSD,
30  DragonFlyBSD, anything Solaris-like, Mac OS X, and other Unix-like OSes as well as GNU Hurd.
31  Partial Windows support is available (no internal programmer support at the moment, hence
32  no "BIOS flashing").
33
34.. todo:: Convert Technology page and add links here
35
36.. container:: danger, admonition
37
38   **Emergency help**
39
40   IMPORTANT: If something went wrong during flashing, do NOT turn off/reboot your computer.
41   Instead, let us help you recover. We can be contacted via `IRC <https://www.flashrom.org/contact.html#irc>`_
42   (#flashrom on `libera.chat <irc://irc.libera.chat/#flashrom>`_, `webchat <https://web.libera.chat/#flashrom>`_),
43   `Discord <https://www.flashrom.org/contact.html#discord>`_, or `email <https://www.flashrom.org/contact.html#mailing-list-1>`_.
44   Please allow some time until someone responds, we're all volunteers.
45