linux-kernel - Re: UBI fastmap updates

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <1343924267.25013.156.camel@sauron.fi.intel.com>
Date:	Thu, 02 Aug 2012 19:17:47 +0300
From:	Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@...ux.intel.com>
To:	Richard Weinberger <richard@....at>
Cc:	linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	adrian.hunter@...el.com, Heinz.Egger@...utronix.de,
	thomas.wucher@...utronix.de, shmulik.ladkani@...il.com,
	tglx@...utronix.de, tim.bird@...sony.com, Marius.Mazarel@...l.ro,
	nyoushchenko@...sta.com
Subject: Re: UBI fastmap updates

On Thu, 2012-08-02 at 16:51 +0200, Richard Weinberger wrote:
> Every time fastmap writes a new fastmap to the flash it tries to get a
> new PEB and returns the old one (used for the old fastmap) back to the
> WL sub-system.

OK.

> If no free PEBs are available (E.g Volume is full or the erase worker
> is too slow) ubi_wl_get_fm_peb() returns NULL and fastmap reuses the
> currently used PEB.

This should not happen. Fastmap should _reserve_ enough of PEBs for it
to operate. It should always find the PEB to write.

Just like if you create a volume maximum possible size, we guarantee
that you can fill it with data, and UBI will find enough PEBs for that.

Just like we always have enough PEBs for the volume table.

The above things are UBI's liabilities.

In the situation when a lot of PEBs became bad, UBI will switch to R/O
mode with a scary message if it notices that it does not have enough
PEBs to satisfy all the liabilities.

And this is why we reserve 2% of PEBs for bad PEBs handling.

> In this situation ubi_wl_get_fm_peb() may trigger such an error message.
> If think we should get rid of the message as this is not an error
> condition. It's a well known execution path.

Unless I am confused, this should lead to switching to R/O mode instead,
just like we do when we write to an LEB and do not find a PEB to map to.

-- 
Best Regards,
Artem Bityutskiy

Download attachment "signature.asc" of type "application/pgp-signature" (837 bytes)