[Bug 569488] Re: update-intel-microcode does not find latest available microcode update

[Fabrice Coutadeur]

** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #571408
   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=571408

** Also affects: microcode.ctl (Debian) via
   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=571408
   Importance: Unknown
       Status: Unknown

-- 
update-intel-microcode does not find latest available microcode update
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/569488
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Status in “microcode.ctl” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
Status in “microcode.ctl” package in Debian: Unknown

Bug description:
Binary package hint: microcode.ctl

When I run update-intel-microcode on this Ubuntu Karmic x86_64 system I get to see this:

$ sudo update-intel-microcode
Local version: 20090927
Remote version: 
No need to download a new microcode
$

Apparently no 'remote' (supposedly this means 'hosted on *.intel.com') microsode update is detected at all. 

However, a newer suitable microcode update is available:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=18683

The documentation (README.Debian) coming with the package also points to an older microcode update available from this website:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=14303

However, update-intel-microcode does not seem to detect this either.

This is probably because the RSS feed this script uses is not suitable / does not (or no longer) report the availability of this microcode update. I am unable to find another suitable RSS feed to provide such information. Some of the RSS feeds Intels' downloadcenter provides are listed at http://www.intel.com/intel/rss.htm?iid=ftr+rss but none of them seems suitable.

The search result at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/downloadcenter/Product_Search.aspx?Prod_nm=linux%20microcode does provide a list of available microcode updates, but results are listed per CPU family, and the output format the search generates is HTML, not RSS. 

I assume that unless Intel can provide some help here microcode update availability must be manually tracked and update-intel-microcode is of no use at this time.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Apr 24 18:43:06 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: microcode.ctl 1.17-11
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.58-generic
SourcePackage: microcode.ctl
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64