Intel Broadwell-EP/EX (BDX-ML B/M/R0, family 6, model 79, stepping 1) has issues
with microcode update that may lead to a system hang; while some changes
to the Linux kernel have been made in an attempt to address these issues,
they were not eliminated, so a possibility of unstable system behaviour
after a microcode update performed on a running system is still present even
on a kernels that contain aforementioned changes.  As a result, microcode update
for this CPU model has been disabled by default.

For the reference, kernel versions for the respective RHEL 7 minor versions
that contain the aforementioned changes, are listed below:
 * Upstream/RHEL 8: kernel-4.17.0 or newer;
 * RHEL 7.6: kernel-3.10.0-894 or newer;
 * RHEL 7.5.z: kernel-3.10.0-862.6.1 or newer;
 * RHEL 7.4.z: kernel-3.10.0-693.35.1 or newer;
 * RHEL 7.3.z: kernel-3.10.0-514.52.1 or newer;
 * RHEL 7.2.z: kernel-3.10.0-327.70.1 or newer.

Please contact you system vendor for a BIOS/firmware update that contains
the latest microcode version. For the information regarding microcode versions
required for mitigating specific side-channel cache attacks, please refer
to the following knowledge base articles:
 * CVE-2017-5715 ("Spectre"):
   https://access.redhat.com/articles/3436091
 * CVE-2018-3639 ("Speculative Store Bypass"):
   https://access.redhat.com/articles/3540901
 * CVE-2018-3620, CVE-2018-3646 ("L1 Terminal Fault Attack"):
   https://access.redhat.com/articles/3562741

The information regarding enforcing microcode load is provided below.

For enforcing addition of this microcode to the firmware directory
for a specific kernel, where it is available for a late microcode update,
please create a file "force-late-intel-06-4f-01" inside
/lib/firmware/<kernel_version> directory and run
"/usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/update_ucode":

    touch /lib/firmware/3.10.0-862.9.1/force-late-intel-06-4f-01
    /usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/update_ucode

After that, it is possible to perform a late microcode update by executing
"/usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/reload_microcode" or by writing value "1" to
"/sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload" directly.

For enforcing addition of this microcode to firmware directories for all
kernels, please create a file
"/etc/microcode_ctl/ucode_with_caveats/force-late-intel-06-4f-01"
and run "/usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/update_ucode":

    touch /etc/microcode_ctl/ucode_with_caveats/force-late-intel-06-4f-01
    /usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/update_ucode

For enforcing early load of this microcode for a specific kernel, please
create a file "force-early-intel-06-4f-01" inside
"/lib/firmware/<kernel_version>" directory and run
"dracut -f --kver <kernel_version>":

    touch /lib/firmware/3.10.0-862.9.1/force-early-intel-06-4f-01
    dracut -f --kver 3.10.0-862.9.1

For enforcing early load of this microcode for all kernels, please
create a file "/etc/microcode_ctl/ucode_with_caveats/force-early-intel-06-4f-01"
and run dracut -f --regenerate-all:

    touch /etc/microcode_ctl/ucode_with_caveats/force-early-intel-06-4f-01
    dracut -f --regenerate-all

If you want avoid removal of the microcode file during cleanup performed by
/usr/libexec/microcode_ctl/update_ucode, please remove the corresponding readme
file (/lib/firmware/<kernel_version>/readme-intel-06-4f-01).


Please refer to /usr/share/doc/microcode_ctl/README.caveats for additional
information.