linux-kernel - Re: [RFC/PATCH 1/5] mtd: ubi: Read disturb infrastructure

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Date:	Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:05:52 +0200
From:	Richard Weinberger <richard@....at>
To:	Tanya Brokhman <tlinder@...eaurora.org>, dedeking1@...il.com
CC:	Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@...il.com>,
	linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org,
	open list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org,
	Brian Norris <computersforpeace@...il.com>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH 1/5] mtd: ubi: Read disturb infrastructure

Am 02.10.2014 15:42, schrieb Tanya Brokhman:
> On 10/2/2014 4:24 PM, Richard Weinberger wrote:
>> Am 02.10.2014 14:50, schrieb Tanya Brokhman:
>>>> Consider the case where you have a board with a fastmap enabled bootloader and a Linux OS.
>>>> The bootloader does a fastmap attach and boots the kernel from UBI and the kernel it self has the rootfs
>>>> on UBI too. If you install a new kernel with your changes applied it will write the fastmap in a different
>>>> format and the bootloader will fail badly. In worst case the board bricks, in best case the bootloader can fall back
>>>> to scanning mode but it will be slow and the customer unhappy.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ok, I understand the problem now. I wanted to discuss a possible solution before implementing it:
>>> We have a "fastmap version" in fm_sb. At the moment UBI_FM_FMT_VERSION = 1 and any other is not supported. We can use that; Add another fm version (UBI_FM_FMT_VERSION_RD = 2) and
>>> then decide according to it. Meaning, if during attach process we find fm superblock we check it's version, if it's != UBI_FM_FMT_VERSION_RD, we fall back to full scan. The next
>>> fastmap will be written with the new layout (and new version number) so second boot will attach from fastmap without any issues.
>>
>> Yes, if we change the fastmap on-disk layout we need to change UBI_FM_FMT_VERSION.
>> Then other fastmap implementations will notice the change and can hopefully recover.
>> Implementations which do not evaluate UBI_FM_FMT_VERSION deserve breaking. ;-)
> 
> good. will work on the fix and upload a new set when ready&tested.
> 
>>
>> That said, I'll not block a layout change but we have to be sure that it is *really* needed.
> 
> In order to support read-disturb, I think its really needed. There is no other way to save read counter per PEB but in fastmap.

The question is, do we really need all this values on-flash?
You could create a simple sysfs or ioctl() interface to pass these values to userspace.
Then you can hack up an userspace daemon which monitors the counters and triggers a check if needed.
The daemon can also store the counter into a flat file. If think you don't need exact counters,
there it does not hurt if the daemon does not store the most current values at a power cut.

Thanks,
//richard
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