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How can I disable or turn off my TPM chip in Ubuntu ?

I have the choice in my BIOS , but as I dual boot and use TPM on my Windows side this is not a viable option.

[ 1.751260] ima: Error communicating to TPM chip ( x8 with different numbers ) this is the error I am trying to get rid of, and tbh I don't want any TPM features on Ubuntu 20.04

EDIT

I see RedHat Linux has "ima: Error Communicating to TPM chip is printed to the screen and system log during bootup." with SOLUTION IN PROGRESS from April 28th 2020 , access.redhat.com/solutions/5026541 so maybe it will pass down to Ubuntu when it is fixed ?

Dink
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1 Answers1

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In grub.cfg you can add a line

rmmod tpm
sudodus
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    @Dink, let us know the result. My experience is from cases where TPM must be turned off in order to boot via grub and iso, 'isoboot', with grub version 2.04. See this link. – sudodus Jun 15 '20 at 12:49
  • @ sudodus I tried adding rmmod tpm to the last line of grub.cfg ,errors still appear , is the last line best place in grub.cfg or does it not matter ? – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 19:24
  • @Dink, The important thing is that it is before the 'linux' and 'initrd' lines in the menuentry. it can be before all menuentries. - I know that there can be complaints, for example if you boot in BIOS mode, but unless there is a real problem, we can live with some complaints (alias warnings). – sudodus Jun 15 '20 at 20:04
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    The problem is that it seems there is no tpm module. Even if there was one, the message comes from ima. It has some settings, but I couldn't quite get them. – Pilot6 Jun 15 '20 at 20:06
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    @Dink, please describe the computer: brand name and model – sudodus Jun 15 '20 at 20:09
  • HP 8740w Workstation Laptop , BIOS boot no UEFI , 3 Partitons , Win 7/Empty NTFS ( will be Win 10 ) /Ubuntu 20.04 . – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 20:35
  • TPM is an Infineon chip, works fine on the Win 7 side for finger print reader ,but I will never use that on Ubuntu or any TPM features so I am not worried about totally disabling it. gonna try adding rmmod tpm to start of grub.cfg and see what happens , brb. I have an image of Ubuntu so not too bothered if it screws it up. – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 20:48
  • @ sudodus adding rmmod tpm to first line of grub.cfg , gets a reaction , still have errors BUT it flashes up "no such module" top left just before GRUB menu is shown . – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 21:00
  • That computer is a powerful but rather old machine. it is possible that the TPM hardware is not quite compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. It might even be that Ubuntu can only manage TPM when running in UEFI mode and in that case it would not help much with rmmod tpm. – sudodus Jun 15 '20 at 21:23
  • @ sudodus @ Pilot6 Yes she is showing her age but was the top model back then , Nvidia 5000m , Dream color full LED screen and Intel Extreme Quad core X940 @2.2 Ghz with 16GB RAM , so she still holds her head high . I have just got her a new Samsung 1TB SSD and thats when I made the stupid mistake of upgrading the Ubuntu side from 13.1 to 20.04 as I thought it was good to bring her upto date :( it is TPM 1.2 – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 21:51
  • @Dink, is there a real problem or only a nasty complaining text about TPM? – sudodus Jun 15 '20 at 22:54
  • @ sudodus No just the error I have added to my original question , its just an annoyance really , 8 lines of the same text , it boots fine and everything works ok. Looks like I am just gonna have to live with it for the moment and hope I can find an answer in the future or someone comes across this question and knows more than us about it. Thanks for trying to help , if you think of something in the future please pop by and update , I will do the same if I get any joy . – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 23:01
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    I see RedHat Linux has "ima: Error Communicating to TPM chip is printed to the screen and system log during bootup." with SOLUTION IN PROGRESS from April , https://access.redhat.com/solutions/5026541 so maybe it will pass down to Ubuntu when it is fixed ? – Dink Jun 15 '20 at 23:09