Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 15:22:03 -0600
From: Gagan Sidhu <broly@....com>
To: Daniel Golle <daniel@...rotopia.org>
Cc: Richard Weinberger <richard@....at>,
 ZhaoLong Wang <wangzhaolong1@...wei.com>,
 chengzhihao1 <chengzhihao1@...wei.com>,
 dpervushin <dpervushin@...eddedalley.com>,
 linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
 linux-mtd <linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org>,
 Miquel Raynal <miquel.raynal@...tlin.com>,
 Vignesh Raghavendra <vigneshr@...com>,
 yangerkun <yangerkun@...wei.com>,
 yi zhang <yi.zhang@...wei.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] ubi: gluebi: Fix NULL pointer dereference caused by
 ftl notifier

hi daniel,

most of your understanding is correct, but i am using a device tree. i will answer in-line

Thanks,
Gagan

> On Jun 17, 2024, at 2:29 PM, Daniel Golle <daniel@...rotopia.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Richard,
> 
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 08:52:55PM +0200, Richard Weinberger wrote:
>> [CC'ing Daniel]
>> 
>> ----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
>>> Von: "Gagan Sidhu" <broly@....com>
>>> An: "richard" <richard@....at>
>>> CC: "ZhaoLong Wang" <wangzhaolong1@...wei.com>, "chengzhihao1" <chengzhihao1@...wei.com>, "dpervushin"
>>> <dpervushin@...eddedalley.com>, "linux-kernel" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, "linux-mtd"
>>> <linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org>, "Miquel Raynal" <miquel.raynal@...tlin.com>, "Vignesh Raghavendra" <vigneshr@...com>,
>>> "yangerkun" <yangerkun@...wei.com>, "yi zhang" <yi.zhang@...wei.com>
>>> Gesendet: Montag, 17. Juni 2024 20:46:10
>>> Betreff: Re: [PATCH v2] ubi: gluebi: Fix NULL pointer dereference caused by ftl notifier
>> 
>>>> On Jun 17, 2024, at 12:32 PM, Richard Weinberger <richard@....at> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> ----- Ursprüngliche Mail -----
>>>>> Von: "Gagan Sidhu" <broly@....com>
>>>>>> AFAICT, this log line is not part of the mainline kernel.
>>>>> 
>>>>> this is mainline. it’s just not 6.x. it’s 4.14.
>>>> 
>>>> I've double checked and disagree.
>>>> This line comes from:
>>>> https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=blob;f=target/linux/generic/pending-4.14/480-mtd-set-rootfs-to-be-root-dev.patch;h=6cddaf01b75cb58cfb377f568f2c375af87e2f1b;hb=c3bd1321de1e0d814f5cfc4f494f6b2fb1f5133b
>>> 
>>> no i know that, that’s the patch i showed you. i meant the rest of it is
>>> mainline. the patch obviously is not.
>>>> 
>>>> In recent OpenWRT kernels I see:
>>>> https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=blob;f=target/linux/generic/pending-5.15/493-ubi-set-ROOT_DEV-to-ubiblock-rootfs-if-unset.patch;h=266a6331c2acc0f7c17d9ac72f54659d31b56249;hb=HEAD
>>>> 
>>>> Looks like in recent versions the patch in question does *not* cause a
>>>> regression.
>>> 
>>> that patch is also applied in my version as well, so i don’t see how this avoids
>>> the regression.
>>> 
>>> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/mtd/mtdcore.c#L774
>>> 
>>> mine says "[6.051426] mtd: device 12 (rootfs) set to be root filesystem"
>>> 
>>> which is simply the call from drivers/mtd/mtdcore.c
>>> 
>>> so the rootfs device is set correctly. it’s just not booting from it.
>>> 
>>> the regression comes from having GLUEBI+BLOCK enabled, it seems, are they
>>> fighting for/operating on the same partition?
>> 
>> I don't know. Let's ask Daniel.
> 
> I've tried to follow up with this thread and to understand what this is all
> about.
> 
> Let me add a few things:
> 
> * In OpenWrt we are trying to get rid of the downstream patches
>   mentioned here. They were introduced at a time when we did not have
>   Device Tree and hence no option to use kernel cmdline to attach UBI,
>   or use root= parameter. Nowadays they are legacy and we should not
>   use the various auto-rootfs hacks in favor of doing the same thing
>   using /chosen/bootargs in DT and the like.
> 
> * Shortly after the introduction of ubiblock we happily got rid of gluebi.
>   In OpenWrt gluebi has not been enabled for a very long time, and
>   hence I can tell little about potential problems it may cause, or at
>   least I can't do more than anyone else can which is reading the code
>   and the logs supplied by the user.
> 
> All that being said there are of course cases where one may simply
> require to use a very old kernel (4.14 here) in order to be able to run
> proprietary out-of-tree drivers (rt2860 wifi here). And, of course, if
> you can compile a kernel with gluebi and ubiblock both enabled, then
> that should work as well and not result in either of them going south.
> 
> So reading the logs I do understand what has happened:
> Note that the error for unknown-block(31,12) is ENXIO ("No such device
> or address"), and that makes sense as that mtdblock12 device indeed
> doesn't exist:
> 
>> [    6.457518] 1f0b            4608 mtdblock11
>> [    6.457523]  (driver?)
>> [    6.470720] fe00           33604 ubiblock0_0
>> [    6.470724]  (driver?)
> 
> And yes, that's due to the added tests for mtd->type != MTD_UBIVOLUME
> which prevent mtdblock from being created for gluebi devices.
> 
> I understand that the board depends on OpenWrt's patches, as back in the
> days of Linux 4.14 MT7621 was still using platform C code for each board
> and there was no way to set, append or replace bootargs from DT, simply
> because there isn't DT.

i am using the DT that is very similar to this one:
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/blob/master/target/linux/ramips/dts/mt7621_dlink_dir_nand_128m.dtsi

as in, the mtd layout you’re seeing in the boot logs is fixed partitions:
```
[    3.188484] 9 fixed-partitions partitions found on MTD device MT7621-NAND
[    3.202005] Creating 9 MTD partitions on "MT7621-NAND":
[    3.212430] 0x000000000000-0x000000080000 : "Bootloader"
[    3.224024] 0x0000000c0000-0x000000100000 : "Config"
[    3.234684] 0x000000100000-0x000000140000 : "Factory"
[    3.245518] 0x000000140000-0x000000180000 : "Config2"
[    3.256379] 0x000000180000-0x000002d80000 : "sysv"
[    3.895176] 1 squashfs-split partitions found on MTD device sysv
[    3.907164] 0x0000005c1000-0x000002d60000 : "ddwrt"
[    3.920925] 2 uimage-fw partitions found on MTD device sysv
[    3.932031] Creating 2 MTD partitions on "sysv":
[    3.941232] 0x000000000000-0x000000400000 : "kernel"
[    3.951995] 0x000000400000-0x000002c00000 : "ubi"
[    3.962325] 0x000002d80000-0x000004d80000 : "private"
[    3.973322] 0x000004d80000-0x000007580000 : "firmware2"
[    3.984759] 0x000007580000-0x000007b80000 : "mydlink"
[    3.995699] 0x000007b80000-0x000008000000 : “reserved”
[    4.006687] [mtk_nand] probe successfully!
[    4.015584] Signature matched and data read!
[    4.024090] load_fact_bbt success 1023

```
here is the rest of the log that richard & i are honing in upon:

```
[    5.462504] auto-attach mtd7
[    5.462525] ubi0: default fastmap pool size: 15
[    5.477309] ubi0: default fastmap WL pool size: 7
[    5.486683] ubi0: attaching mtd7
[    5.811240] UBI: EOF marker found, PEBs from 273 will be erased
[    5.811299] ubi0: scanning is finished
[    5.874546] gluebi (pid 1): gluebi_resized: got update notification for unknown UBI device 0 volume 1
[    5.892927] ubi0: volume 1 ("rootfs_data") re-sized from 9 to 28 LEBs
[    5.906683] ubi0: attached mtd7 (name "ubi", size 40 MiB)
[    5.917446] ubi0: PEB size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB), LEB size: 126976 bytes
[    5.931132] ubi0: min./max. I/O unit sizes: 2048/2048, sub-page size 2048
[    5.944654] ubi0: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048), data offset: 4096
[    5.958513] ubi0: good PEBs: 320, bad PEBs: 0, corrupted PEBs: 0
[    5.970472] ubi0: user volume: 2, internal volumes: 1, max. volumes count: 128
[    5.984859] ubi0: max/mean erase counter: 1/0, WL threshold: 4096, image sequence number: 1613475955
[    6.003045] ubi0: available PEBs: 0, total reserved PEBs: 320, PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 15
[    6.021426] rootfs: parsing partitions cmdlinepart
[    6.021444] ubi0: background thread "ubi_bgt0d" started, PID 97
[    6.043694] rootfs: got parser (null)
[    6.051426] mtd: device 12 (rootfs) set to be root filesystem
[    6.062891] rootfs_data: parsing partitions cmdlinepart
[    6.073669] rootfs_data: got parser (null)
[    6.211240] block ubiblock0_0: created from ubi0:0(rootfs)
[    6.259545] rtc-pcf8563 0-0051: hctosys: unable to read the hardware clock
[    6.282125] VFS: Cannot open root device "(null)" or unknown-block(31,12): error -6
[    6.297406] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[    6.314054] 1f00             512 mtdblock0
[    6.314060]  (driver?)
[    6.327077] 1f01             256 mtdblock1
[    6.327081]  (driver?)
[    6.340101] 1f02             256 mtdblock2
[    6.340105]  (driver?)
[    6.353124] 1f03             256 mtdblock3
[    6.353129]  (driver?)
[    6.366153] 1f04           45056 mtdblock4
[    6.366158]  (driver?)
[    6.379175] 1f05           40572 mtdblock5
[    6.379179]  (driver?)
[    6.392217] 1f06            4096 mtdblock6
[    6.392222]  (driver?)
[    6.405240] 1f07           40960 mtdblock7
[    6.405244]  (driver?)
[    6.418272] 1f08           32768 mtdblock8
[    6.418277]  (driver?)
[    6.431296] 1f09           40960 mtdblock9
[    6.431300]  (driver?)
[    6.444324] 1f0a            6144 mtdblock10
[    6.444328]  (driver?)
[    6.457518] 1f0b            4608 mtdblock11
[    6.457523]  (driver?)
[    6.470720] fe00           33604 ubiblock0_0
[    6.470724]  (driver?)
[    6.484090] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(31,12)

```

> 
> As at the time also ubiblock wasn't used and also most likely won't work
> with that semi-proprietary firmware based Linux 4.14 which expects JFFS2
> to be used, my suggestion is to disabled CONFIG_FTL (if it isn't already
> disabled anyway) and apply this patch (which should be further
> discussed) in order to fix commit ("mtd: Fix gluebi NULL pointer
> dereference caused by ftl notifier”):

i’m not using JFFS2, either.

my question is about the interaction between GLUEBI and UBI_BLOCK.

it seems to me that the device is created by UBI_BLOCK, so that’s fine.

the question is: is there interaction between GLUEBI and UBI_BLOCK?

i don’t understand how, if the device is created by UBI_BLOCK, that it could get the MTD_UBIVOLUME tag unless GLUEBI scanned the MTD volumes and found the block device created by UBI Block, and decided that it should have this tag.

there is something wrong here. as richard said: if the ubiblock0_0 device is created by ubi_block as is shown above:

[    6.211240] block ubiblock0_0: created from ubi0:0(rootfs)

then how the heck is this device not getting mounted after boot? the only explanation is that GLUEBI is interfering and doesn’t realise the UBI_BLOCK device should not be tagged.

i would test this myself but i don’t have this router on me and i don’t want to make a user flash their router a few times for me to figure this out. they’ve been through enough with this whole ordeal (lol).

> 
> diff --git a/drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c b/drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c
> index 3caa0717d46c..3ef57dd56288 100644
> --- a/drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c
> +++ b/drivers/mtd/mtd_blkdevs.c
> @@ -461,7 +461,7 @@ static void blktrans_notify_add(struct mtd_info *mtd)
> {
> 	struct mtd_blktrans_ops *tr;
> 
> -	if (mtd->type == MTD_ABSENT || mtd->type == MTD_UBIVOLUME)
> +	if (mtd->type == MTD_ABSENT || (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_FTL) && mtd->type == MTD_UBIVOLUME))
> 		return;
> 
> 	list_for_each_entry(tr, &blktrans_majors, list)
> @@ -501,7 +501,7 @@ int register_mtd_blktrans(struct mtd_blktrans_ops *tr)
> 	mutex_lock(&mtd_table_mutex);
> 	list_add(&tr->list, &blktrans_majors);
> 	mtd_for_each_device(mtd)
> -		if (mtd->type != MTD_ABSENT && mtd->type != MTD_UBIVOLUME)
> +		if (mtd->type != MTD_ABSENT && (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_FTL || mtd->type != MTD_UBIVOLUME)))
> 			tr->add_mtd(tr, mtd);
> 	mutex_unlock(&mtd_table_mutex);
> 	return 0;
> 
> 
> Let me know if that helps and lets discuss if it could be considered for
> being applied in upstream Linux.

we could do that, but i think we need to find out whether GLUEBI is taking our UBI_BLOCK device and doing something it shouldn’t be doing.

> 
>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>>> (31, 12) would be mtdblock12.
>>>>>> How does your kernel know that mtdblock12 shall be the rootfs?
>>>>> 
>>>>> this is an openwrt approach: https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/filesystems (under
>>>>> “technical details”, third paragraph)
>>>>> 
>>>>> essentially there’s a feature they add to the kernel (via patch) where you can
>>>>> enable a feature that sets the root device based on the name of the partition.
>>>> 
>>>> So, this is all not mainline. :-/
>>> 
>>> i did say openwrt at the start, and i think that’s pretty close to mainline as
>>> it gets.
>>> 
>>> sometimes these patches aren’t appropriate to push upstream. this one is not the
>>> one causing the issue.
>>> 
>>> it seems to me that there is a problem with GLUEBI+BLOCK playing together.
>>> 
>>> as far as i can see, the setting of the device is being doing by mtdcore.c
>>> 
>>> it’s just not working with gluebi and block are enabled, and i need to know
>>> whether disabling gluebi will allow it to work.
>>> 
>>> in other words, is it possible for gluebi to use the partition created by
>>> ubi_block, and add the MTD_UBIVOLUME flag?
>> 
>> No. UBIBlock works on top of UBI volumes and creates a block device.
>> 
>> We'll sort this out. :)
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> //richard
>> 
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Linux MTD discussion mailing list
>> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-mtd/

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