PlayStation 3 liberated

PlayStation 3 liberated

[Robert Millan]

Maybe you heard the recent news that the handcuffware in Sony PS3 has been
recently broken:

  http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-your-silver-platter.html

This is somewhat relevant to GRUB:  It is now possible to port free operating
systems to the PS3, but they will need a bootloader.  And GRUB already has
two key pieces:

  - PowerPC support on other platforms

  - Operation mode that starts GRUB as a userland process (grub-emu)

With the PS3 exploit, it is possible to get full access to physical memory.  My
understanding of PowerPC architecture is very limited, but I believe this would
allow grub-emu to:

  - Rise privilege level

  - Disable interrupts

  - Setup 1:1 MMU map

Thereby obtaining full control of the hardware.

I think it would be feasible to make a GSoC project for this, or at least the
beginning of it.  Let me know if you'd like to be a mentor this summer.

-- 
Robert Millan

  "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi

RE: PlayStation 3 liberated

[Gregg C Levine]

Hello!
Not quite correct.
The PS3 runs the Cell processor, who is a descendant of the PowerPC.
Currently, (as far as I know) the PS3 is the only commercial system to be
using it. IBM may be using it on their systems that get sold under one of
their many trade names.

Anyway the way he did the supposed liberation has been called into doubt by
people claiming to be familiar with this event.

Robert where did you find this bit of news? I came across it on the nearly
recent entries into the Hack A Day site, http://hackaday.com the decidedly
rude and probably not correct in most cases are doing that.
--
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon@worldnet.att.net
"The Force will be with you always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
  


> -----Original Message-----
> From: grub-devel-bounces+hansolofalcon=worldnet.att.net@gnu.org
[mailto:grub-devel-
> bounces+hansolofalcon=worldnet.att.net@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Robert Millan
> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:45 AM
> To: grub-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: PlayStation 3 liberated
> 
> 
> Maybe you heard the recent news that the handcuffware in Sony PS3 has been
> recently broken:
> 
>   http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-your-silver-platter.html
> 
> This is somewhat relevant to GRUB:  It is now possible to port free
operating
> systems to the PS3, but they will need a bootloader.  And GRUB already has
> two key pieces:
> 
>   - PowerPC support on other platforms
> 
>   - Operation mode that starts GRUB as a userland process (grub-emu)
> 
> With the PS3 exploit, it is possible to get full access to physical
memory.  My
> understanding of PowerPC architecture is very limited, but I believe this
would
> allow grub-emu to:
> 
>   - Rise privilege level
> 
>   - Disable interrupts
> 
>   - Setup 1:1 MMU map
> 
> Thereby obtaining full control of the hardware.
> 
> I think it would be feasible to make a GSoC project for this, or at least
the
> beginning of it.  Let me know if you'd like to be a mentor this summer.
> 
> --
> Robert Millan
> 
>   "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel

Re: PlayStation 3 liberated

[Christian Auby]

Running Linux on PS3 was easy already at launch, as the central CPU is a
standard PowerPC and "other OS" was officially supported. The Cell part
is not needed for operation, nor is it that useful for general purpose
computing. (Read up on SPEs if interested.)

At that time Linux had to obey the hyper visor's every whim, including
no GPU access.

The exploit is available here (linked earlier in thread):
http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/

In fact this exploit runs from Linux on the PS3.

I have not tested it as I have no PS3. It also requires hardware-poking.
(literally)

There's more info available on this wiki:

http://wiki.ps2dev.org/

The issue isn't as much as getting Grub to work, but finding an exploit
that works without hardware interaction.

Christian

On 1/28/2010 9:25 PM, Gregg C Levine wrote:
> Hello!
> Not quite correct.
> The PS3 runs the Cell processor, who is a descendant of the PowerPC.
> Currently, (as far as I know) the PS3 is the only commercial system to be
> using it. IBM may be using it on their systems that get sold under one of
> their many trade names.
> 
> Anyway the way he did the supposed liberation has been called into doubt by
> people claiming to be familiar with this event.
> 
> Robert where did you find this bit of news? I came across it on the nearly
> recent entries into the Hack A Day site, http://hackaday.com the decidedly
> rude and probably not correct in most cases are doing that.
> --
> Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon@worldnet.att.net
> "The Force will be with you always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
>   
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: grub-devel-bounces+hansolofalcon=worldnet.att.net@gnu.org
> [mailto:grub-devel-
>> bounces+hansolofalcon=worldnet.att.net@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Robert Millan
>> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:45 AM
>> To: grub-devel@gnu.org
>> Subject: PlayStation 3 liberated
>>
>>
>> Maybe you heard the recent news that the handcuffware in Sony PS3 has been
>> recently broken:
>>
>>   http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-your-silver-platter.html
>>
>> This is somewhat relevant to GRUB:  It is now possible to port free
> operating
>> systems to the PS3, but they will need a bootloader.  And GRUB already has
>> two key pieces:
>>
>>   - PowerPC support on other platforms
>>
>>   - Operation mode that starts GRUB as a userland process (grub-emu)
>>
>> With the PS3 exploit, it is possible to get full access to physical
> memory.  My
>> understanding of PowerPC architecture is very limited, but I believe this
> would
>> allow grub-emu to:
>>
>>   - Rise privilege level
>>
>>   - Disable interrupts
>>
>>   - Setup 1:1 MMU map
>>
>> Thereby obtaining full control of the hardware.
>>
>> I think it would be feasible to make a GSoC project for this, or at least
> the
>> beginning of it.  Let me know if you'd like to be a mentor this summer.
>>
>> --
>> Robert Millan
>>
>>   "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Grub-devel mailing list
>> Grub-devel@gnu.org
>> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
> 

Re: PlayStation 3 liberated

[Robert Millan]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 09:39:59PM +0100, Christian Auby wrote:
> Running Linux on PS3 was easy already at launch, as the central CPU is a
> standard PowerPC and "other OS" was officially supported.

That's not the PS3, it's a restricted environment.

> The issue isn't as much as getting Grub to work, but finding an exploit
> that works without hardware interaction.

Well that would be very interesing indeed, but in GRUB project we're generally
concerned about improving GRUB...

-- 
Robert Millan

  "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi

Re: PlayStation 3 liberated

[Robert Millan]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 03:25:49PM -0500, Gregg C Levine wrote:
> Hello!
> Not quite correct.
> The PS3 runs the Cell processor, who is a descendant of the PowerPC.

In a quite similar sense as modern x86 CPUs are descendants of the Intel 80386.
You can run standard PowerPC machine code on this Cell.

> Robert where did you find this bit of news?

IRC.

-- 
Robert Millan

  "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi