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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>
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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>
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(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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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