UBI Fastmap is an optional feature which stores the physical to logical eraseblock relations in a checkpoint (called fastmap) to reduce the initialization time of UBI. The current init time of UBI is proportional to the number of physical erase blocks on the FLASH device. With fastmap enabled the scan time is limited to a fixed number of blocks.
Fastmap does not affect any of the existing UBI robustness features and in fact the fastmap code falls back to scanning mode when the found fastmap is corrupted. A fastmap consists of two elements: 1) A primary super block, which contains merrily a pointer to the erase block(s) which hold the real fastmap data. This super block is guaranteed to be held within the first 64 eraseblocks of a device. 2) The secondary fastmap blocks, which contain the real fastmap data (physical to logical eraseblock relations, erase counts, sequence numbers ...) Aside of that the fastmap data contains a list of blocks which belong to the active working pool. The active working pool is a fixed number of blocks to be used by the WL sub-system itself and the layer on top of UBI, which can be modified before the next fastmap is written to FLASH. These blocks need to be scanned in the conventional UBI scan mode. The reason for these pool blocks is to reduce the fastmap updates to the necessary minimum to avoid accelerated device wearout in scenarios where data changes rapidly. The fastmap data is updated whenever a working pool runs out of blocks. So the fastmap scan consists of the following steps: 1) Find the fastmap super block block by scanning the start of the device. 2) Read the real fastmap data and construct the UBI device info structures. 3) Scan the pool blocks. The fastmap functionality is fully compatible with existing UBI deployments. If no fastmap blocks can be found then the device is scanned and the fastmap blocks are created from the scanned information. Changes since v17: - UBI reserves now PEBs to hold two fastmaps. It is guaranteed that each LEB has a corresponding PEB which can be used by an user. - Fastmap is automatically disabled if the FLASH devices has less than 64 PEBs - Fastmap is only available if CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP is enabled. It is per default N. If fastmap has proven stable over some time we can remove CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP and the corresponding #ifdefs. Even with CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP=Y UBI will not automatically install a fastmap on existing images. This behavior is controlled by the fm_autoconvert UBI module parameter. Only if set to 1 UBI will install a fastmap automatically. By default it will use the fastmap only if one is found. So, if you want to test fastmap enable CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP and set fm_autoconvert to 1. If the device was attached by a fastmap you'll observe the following log message while attaching: "UBI: attached by fastmap". State of fastmap: We (linutronix gmbh) did numerous tests and are not aware of any issue or regression so far. The tests have been done on real hardware and simulators (nandsim and mtdram). Of course with and without bitflip emulation enabled and on NAND "bad" devices with bad blocks, bitflips, IO erros, ... The tests consisted of mtd-util's ubi-tests, my fastmap torture script[1] and real world use cases. Each test run was done with the following configurations: - CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP=n To verify that traditional UBI works fine. - CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP=y, fm_autoconvert=0 In this configuration the fastmap pool mechanism is active but no fastmap is written to non-fastmap devices. - CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP=y, fm_autoconvert=1 Fastmap is enabled and non-fastmap devices get fastmap enabled. Either at detach time or while writing. I hope the MTD community do will also test fastmap in many different situations. Bug reports are welcome! Future work: - Currently fastmap's powercut policy is that it will fall back to scanning mode if a power cut happened while writing the fastmap. If users really need fast attaching also after a power cut we could use the adjacent blocks mechanism for writing fastmap. - Add fastmap support to ubinize - If fastmap has proven stable, we can remove CONFIG_MTD_UBI_FASTMAP and enable it per default. This patch set is based on artems ubi repository: git://git.infradead.org/linux-ubi.git You can find fastmap v18 also in my git repo on kernel.org: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rw/ubi2.git ubi2/v18 Thanks to the folks at CELF who sponsored this work! Thanks, //richard [1] http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2012-June/042347.html [PATCH 01/10] UBI: Add fastmap on-flash data structures [PATCH 02/10] UBI: Add fastmap stuff to ubi.h [PATCH 03/10] UBI: Export next_sqnum() [PATCH 04/10] UBI: Add self_check_eba() [PATCH 05/10] UBI: Add fastmap bits to build.c [PATCH 06/10] UBI: Wire-up ->fm_sem [PATCH 07/10] UBI: Add fastmap stuff to attach.c [PATCH 08/10] UBI: Add fastmap support to the WL sub-system [PATCH 09/10] UBI: Add fastmap core [PATCH 10/10] UBI: Wire-up fastmap --- MAINTAINERS | 6 + drivers/mtd/ubi/Kconfig | 20 + drivers/mtd/ubi/Makefile | 1 + drivers/mtd/ubi/attach.c | 387 +++++++---- drivers/mtd/ubi/build.c | 71 ++- drivers/mtd/ubi/eba.c | 126 ++++- drivers/mtd/ubi/fastmap.c | 1560 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/mtd/ubi/ubi-media.h | 137 ++++ drivers/mtd/ubi/ubi.h | 119 ++++- drivers/mtd/ubi/wl.c | 600 +++++++++++++++-- 10 files changed, 2814 insertions(+), 213 deletions(-) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/