Hi Frieder,

On 01.08.23 16:46, Frieder Schrempf wrote:
From: Frieder Schrempf <frieder.schre...@kontron.de>

There are plenty of cases where the OS wants to know where the
persistent environment is stored in order to print or manipulate it.

In most cases a userspace tool like libubootenv [1] is used to handle
the environment. It uses hardcoded settings in a config file in the
rootfs to determine the exact location of the environment.


...or the configuration file is generated, or it is located on a rw (overlayfs) partition.

In order to make systems more flexible and let userspace tools
detect the location of the environment currently in use, let's
add an option to export the runtime configuration to the FDT passed
to the OS.
> This is especially useful when your device is able to use multiple
locations for the environment and the rootfs containing the
fw_env.config file should be kept universal.

Ok

One possible issue is there is a hard dependency between the properties set in DT and the user space tool. The tool in user space is bound to the list of properties, and changes / extensions for the user tool requires changes in DT semantics (which properties, their path, etc).

The same hard dependency is set by fw_env.config with its strong hardcoded and position dependent syntax. This one of the reason I introduced YAML support in libubootenv, so that the user tool is independent and can add own properties.

I am just asking if this use case requires a new interface, or it is already available in some way. I mean, the configuration is YAML instead of fw_env.config and contains multiple setup ("namespaces"), like:

mmc:
  size : 0x100000
  lockfile : /var/lock/fw_printenv.lock
  devices:
    - path : /dev/mmcblk0boot0
      offset : 0x1E0000
      sectorsize : 0x100000
    - path : /dev/mmcblk0boot0
      offset : 0x1E0000
      sectorsize : 0x100000
spi:
  size : 0x100000
  lockfile : /var/lock/fw_printenv.lock
  devices:
    - path : /dev/mtd0
      offset : 0x1E0000
      sectorsize : 0x100000
    - path : /dev/mtd0
      offset : 0x1F0000
      sectorsize : 0x100000

This configuration file can safely stored in your common rootfs and covers all possible storage for environment. It does not cover "runtime" changes, but well, I do not think this is a use case.

An advantage here is that new options, useful for the User Space tool, can be simply introduced for the tool without the need to synchronize with DT spec and U-Boot.

A mapping between location index and device path is not required. What is still required is a selector, and this can be implemented in DT or as kernel parameter.

Does this already cover your use case or do we need the introduction of this new interface ?


Currently the general information like location/type, size, offset
and redundancy are exported. Userspace tools might already be able
to guess the correct device to access based on this information.

For further device-specific information two additional properties
'id1' and 'id2' are used. The current implementation uses them for
MMC and SPI FLASH like this:

| Type       | id1                        | id2                        |
| ---------- | -------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| MMC        | MMC device index in U-Boot | MMC hwpart index in U-Boot |
| SPI FLASH  | SPI bus index in U-Boot    | SPI CS index in U-Boot     |

Further extensions for other environment devices are possible.

We add the necessary information to the '/chosen' node. The following
shows two examples:

Redundant environment in MMC:

   /chosen {
     u-boot,env-config {
       location = <5>;              # according to 'enum env_location'
       offset = <0x1E0000>;
       size = <0x100000>;
       sect_size = <0x100000>;
       id1 = <1>;                   # MMC device index
       id2 = <0>;                   # MMC HW partition index
     };
     u-boot,env-redund-config {
       offset = <0x1F0000>;
     };
   };

Redundant environment in SPI NOR:

   /chosen {
     u-boot,env-config {
       location = <10>;             # according to 'enum env_location'
       offset = <0x1E0000>;
       size = <0x100000>;
       sect_size = <0x100000>;
       id1 = <0>;                   # SPI bus
       id2 = <0>;                   # SPI CS
     };
     u-boot,env-redund-config {
       offset = <0x1F0000>;
     };
   };

See [2] for an example parser implementation for libubootenv.

[1] https://github.com/sbabic/libubootenv
[2] 
https://github.com/fschrempf/libubootenv/commit/726a7ac9b1b1020354ee8fe750f4cad3df01f5e7

Cc: Stefano Babic <sba...@denx.de>
Cc: Michael Walle <mich...@walle.cc>
Signed-off-by: Frieder Schrempf <frieder.schre...@kontron.de>
---
  boot/Kconfig     |  9 ++++++++
  boot/image-fdt.c |  8 ++++++++
  env/env.c        | 53 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
  include/env.h    |  4 ++++
  4 files changed, 74 insertions(+)

diff --git a/boot/Kconfig b/boot/Kconfig
index e8fb03b801..16a94f9b35 100644
--- a/boot/Kconfig
+++ b/boot/Kconfig
@@ -702,6 +702,15 @@ config OF_BOARD_SETUP
          board-specific information in the device tree for use by the OS.
          The device tree is then passed to the OS.
+config OF_EXPORT_ENV_CONFIG
+       bool "Export environment config to device tree before boot"
+       depends on OF_LIBFDT
+       help
+         This causes U-Boot to call fdt_environment_config() before booting 
into
+         the operating system. This function exports the currently in use
+         environemnt configuration to the "chosen" node of the fdt. This allows
+         the OS to determine where the environment is located.
+
  config OF_SYSTEM_SETUP
        bool "Set up system-specific details in device tree before boot"
        depends on OF_LIBFDT
diff --git a/boot/image-fdt.c b/boot/image-fdt.c
index f10200f647..c02c8f33ef 100644
--- a/boot/image-fdt.c
+++ b/boot/image-fdt.c
@@ -643,6 +643,14 @@ int image_setup_libfdt(struct bootm_headers *images, void 
*blob,
        /* Append PStore configuration */
        fdt_fixup_pstore(blob);
  #endif
+       if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_OF_EXPORT_ENV_CONFIG)) {
+               fdt_ret = fdt_environment_config(blob);
+               if (fdt_ret) {
+                       printf("ERROR: environment config fdt fixup failed: 
%s\n",
+                              fdt_strerror(fdt_ret));
+                       goto err;
+               }
+       }
        if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_OF_BOARD_SETUP)) {
                const char *skip_board_fixup;
diff --git a/env/env.c b/env/env.c
index 2aa52c98f8..a640977205 100644
--- a/env/env.c
+++ b/env/env.c
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
  #include <env.h>
  #include <env_internal.h>
  #include <log.h>
+#include <mmc.h>
  #include <asm/global_data.h>
  #include <linux/bitops.h>
  #include <linux/bug.h>
@@ -156,6 +157,58 @@ __weak enum env_location env_get_location(enum 
env_operation op, int prio)
        return arch_env_get_location(op, prio);
  }
+#ifdef CONFIG_OF_EXPORT_ENV_CONFIG
+int fdt_environment_config(void *blob)
+{
+       struct mmc *mmc;
+       u32 location;
+       int chosen_offs, offs;
+       int ret;
+
+       if (CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(ENV_IS_NOWHERE))
+               return 0;
+
+       chosen_offs = fdt_path_offset(blob, "/chosen");
+       if (chosen_offs < 0) {
+               printf("Could not find chosen node.\n");
+               return chosen_offs;
+       }
+
+       offs = fdt_add_subnode(blob, chosen_offs, "u-boot,env-config");
+       if (offs < 0) {
+               printf("Could not create env-config node.\n");
+               return offs;
+       }
+
+       location = env_get_location(0, 0);
+       fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "location", location);
+       fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "offset", CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET);
+       fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "size", CONFIG_ENV_SIZE);
+       fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "sect_size", CONFIG_ENV_SECT_SIZE);
+

My major concern is regarding the dependency that is introduced. These properties are then compiled into U-Boot. If a new property will be required in future, this could required an update for the bootloader in field. Even if yes, bootloader's updates are done in field, they are often risky and not power-cut safe.

If the whole configuration, new properties, etc, remains as much as possible in User Space, to get the new feature we need an update of rootfs (in your example), that is (mostly) safe (and then it is not, the update procedure should be revisited). A single rootfs for multiple hardware using different locations and maybe different options (if needed or if they will be introduced) is possible, the yaml configuration will contain all of them and some detection (in user space) can do the trick to select the right one.

What do you think ?

Regards,
Stefano

+       if (CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(ENV_IS_IN_MMC) && location == ENVL_MMC) {
+               fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "id1", mmc_get_env_dev());
+               mmc = find_mmc_device(mmc_get_env_dev());
+               if (mmc)
+                       fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "id2", 
mmc_get_env_part(mmc));
+       } else if (CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(ENV_IS_IN_SPI_FLASH) && location == 
ENVL_SPI_FLASH) {
+               fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "id1", CONFIG_ENV_SPI_BUS);
+               fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "id2", CONFIG_ENV_SPI_CS);
+       }
+
+       if (CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(SYS_REDUNDAND_ENVIRONMENT)) {
+               offs = fdt_add_subnode(blob, chosen_offs, 
"u-boot,env-redund-config");
+               if (offs < 0) {
+                       printf("Could not create env-redund-config node.\n");
+                       return offs;
+               }
+               fdt_setprop_u32(blob, offs, "offset", CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET_REDUND);
+       }
+
+       return 0;
+}
+#endif
+
  /**
   * env_driver_lookup() - Finds the most suited environment location
   * @op: operations performed on the environment
diff --git a/include/env.h b/include/env.h
index 1480efa59e..f9b45a4925 100644
--- a/include/env.h
+++ b/include/env.h
@@ -377,4 +377,8 @@ void env_import_fdt(void);
  static inline void env_import_fdt(void) {}
  #endif
+#ifdef CONFIG_OF_EXPORT_ENV_CONFIG
+int fdt_environment_config(void *blob);
+#endif
+
  #endif

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