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10 commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Artem Bityutskiy
33789fb9d4 UBI: introduce eraseblock counter variables
This is just a preparation patch which introduces several
'struct ubi_scan_info' fields which count eraseblocks of different
types. This will be used later on to decide whether it is safe to
format the flash or not. No functional changes so far.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
Reviewed-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
Tested-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <sebastian@breakpoint.cc>
2010-06-04 11:30:43 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
2eadaad67b UBI: fix backward compatibility
Commit 32bc482028 did not fully fix
the backward compatibility issues. We still fail to properly handle
situations when the first PEB contains non-zero image sequence
number, but one of the following PEBs contains zero image sequence
number. For example, this may happen if we mount a new image with
an old kernel, and then try to mount it in the new kernel.

This patch should fix the issue.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2009-10-20 10:13:04 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
4a406856ea UBI: print a warning if too many PEBs are corrupted
There was a bug report recently where UBI prints:

UBI error: ubi_attach_mtd_dev: failed to attach by scanning, error -22

error messages and refuses to attach a PEB. It turned out to be a
buggy flash driver which returned garbage to almost every UBI read.
This patch makes UBI print a better message in such cases. Namely,
if UBI finds 8 or more corrupted PEBs, it prints a warning and
lists the corrupted PEBs.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2009-08-14 20:01:36 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
fe96efc1a3 UBI: nicify image sequence number handling
Move the image seq. number handling from I/O level to the scanning
lever, where it really belongs to. Move the @image_seq_set variable
to the @struct ubi_scan_info structure, which exists only during
scanning.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2009-07-05 18:47:08 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
9869cd801c UBI: remove pre-sqnum images support
Before UBI got into mainline, there was a slight flash format
change - we did not have sequence number support, then added it.

We have carried full support of those ancient images till this
moment. Now the support is removed, well, not fully removed.

Now UBI will support only _clean_ old images, which were cleanly
detached last time (just before kernel upgrade). This is most
likely the case.

But we will not support unclean ancient images. Surprisingly,
this allows us to remove a big chunk of legacy code.

And the same should be true for downgrading: clean images should
downgrade fine, but unclean ones will not.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2008-07-24 13:36:09 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
85c6e6e282 UBI: amend commentaries
Hch asked not to use "unit" for sub-systems, let it be so.
Also some other commentaries modifications.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2008-07-24 13:32:56 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
4bc1dca4b0 UBI: fix mean EC calculation
(a + b) / (c + d) != a / c + b / d. The old code errornously
assumed this incorrect formuld. Instead, just sum all erase
counters in a 64-bit variable and divide to the number of EBs
at the end.

Thanks to Adrian Hunter for pointing this out.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2008-04-19 20:49:41 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
e88d6e10e5 UBI: do not use vmalloc on I/O path
Similar reason as in case of the previous patch: it causes
deadlocks if a filesystem with writeback support works on top
of UBI. So pre-allocate needed buffers when attaching MTD device.
We also need mutexes to protect the buffers, but they do not
cause much contantion because they are used in recovery, torture,
and WL copy routines, which are called seldom.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2007-10-14 13:10:21 +03:00
Artem Bityutskiy
78d87c95b8 UBI: fix error path in create_vtbl()
There were several bugs in volume table creation error path. Thanks to
Satyam Sharma <satyam.sharma@gmail.com> and Florin Malita <fmalita@gmail.com>
for finding and analysing them: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/3/274

This patch makes ubi_scan_add_to_list() static and renames it to
add_to_list(), just because it is not needed outside scan.c anymore.

Signed-off-by: Artem Bityutskiy <Artem.Bityutskiy@nokia.com>
2007-07-18 16:52:32 +03:00
Artem B. Bityutskiy
801c135ce7 UBI: Unsorted Block Images
UBI (Latin: "where?") manages multiple logical volumes on a single
flash device, specifically supporting NAND flash devices. UBI provides
a flexible partitioning concept which still allows for wear-levelling
across the whole flash device.

In a sense, UBI may be compared to the Logical Volume Manager
(LVM). Whereas LVM maps logical sector numbers to physical HDD sector
numbers, UBI maps logical eraseblocks to physical eraseblocks.

More information may be found at
http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/ubi.html

Partitioning/Re-partitioning

  An UBI volume occupies a certain number of erase blocks. This is
  limited by a configured maximum volume size, which could also be
  viewed as the partition size. Each individual UBI volume's size can
  be changed independently of the other UBI volumes, provided that the
  sum of all volume sizes doesn't exceed a certain limit.

  UBI supports dynamic volumes and static volumes. Static volumes are
  read-only and their contents are protected by CRC check sums.

Bad eraseblocks handling

  UBI transparently handles bad eraseblocks. When a physical
  eraseblock becomes bad, it is substituted by a good physical
  eraseblock, and the user does not even notice this.

Scrubbing

  On a NAND flash bit flips can occur on any write operation,
  sometimes also on read. If bit flips persist on the device, at first
  they can still be corrected by ECC, but once they accumulate,
  correction will become impossible. Thus it is best to actively scrub
  the affected eraseblock, by first copying it to a free eraseblock
  and then erasing the original. The UBI layer performs this type of
  scrubbing under the covers, transparently to the UBI volume users.

Erase Counts

  UBI maintains an erase count header per eraseblock. This frees
  higher-level layers (like file systems) from doing this and allows
  for centralized erase count management instead. The erase counts are
  used by the wear-levelling algorithm in the UBI layer. The algorithm
  itself is exchangeable.

Booting from NAND

  For booting directly from NAND flash the hardware must at least be
  capable of fetching and executing a small portion of the NAND
  flash. Some NAND flash controllers have this kind of support. They
  usually limit the window to a few kilobytes in erase block 0. This
  "initial program loader" (IPL) must then contain sufficient logic to
  load and execute the next boot phase.

  Due to bad eraseblocks, which may be randomly scattered over the
  flash device, it is problematic to store the "secondary program
  loader" (SPL) statically. Also, due to bit-flips it may become
  corrupted over time. UBI allows to solve this problem gracefully by
  storing the SPL in a small static UBI volume.

UBI volumes vs. static partitions

  UBI volumes are still very similar to static MTD partitions:

    * both consist of eraseblocks (logical eraseblocks in case of UBI
      volumes, and physical eraseblocks in case of static partitions;
    * both support three basic operations - read, write, erase.

  But UBI volumes have the following advantages over traditional
  static MTD partitions:

    * there are no eraseblock wear-leveling constraints in case of UBI
      volumes, so the user should not care about this;
    * there are no bit-flips and bad eraseblocks in case of UBI volumes.

  So, UBI volumes may be considered as flash devices with relaxed
  restrictions.

Where can it be found?

  Documentation, kernel code and applications can be found in the MTD
  gits.

What are the applications for?

  The applications help to create binary flash images for two purposes: pfi
  files (partial flash images) for in-system update of UBI volumes, and plain
  binary images, with or without OOB data in case of NAND, for a manufacturing
  step. Furthermore some tools are/and will be created that allow flash content
  analysis after a system has crashed..

Who did UBI?

  The original ideas, where UBI is based on, were developed by Andreas
  Arnez, Frank Haverkamp and Thomas Gleixner. Josh W. Boyer and some others
  were involved too. The implementation of the kernel layer was done by Artem
  B. Bityutskiy. The user-space applications and tools were written by Oliver
  Lohmann with contributions from Frank Haverkamp, Andreas Arnez, and Artem.
  Joern Engel contributed a patch which modifies JFFS2 so that it can be run on
  a UBI volume. Thomas Gleixner did modifications to the NAND layer. Alexander
  Schmidt made some testing work as well as core functionality improvements.

Signed-off-by: Artem B. Bityutskiy <dedekind@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Frank Haverkamp <haver@vnet.ibm.com>
2007-04-27 14:23:33 +03:00