Tweak MTD's cache allocation to make it work with the atmel DMA'ed SPI.
Substitute kmalloc for vmalloc so the cache buffer is mappable as per
the Atmel SPI driver's requirements, otherwise an Oops would occur.
The original patch by Ian McDonnell <[email protected]> was found here:
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2007-December/020184.html
Signed-off-by: Anders Larsen <[email protected]>
Cc: Ian McDonnell <[email protected]>
Cc: David Woodhouse <[email protected]>
Cc: Matthias Kaehlcke <[email protected]>
Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <[email protected]>
Cc: Nicolas Pitre <[email protected]>
---
drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c | 8 ++++++++
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
Index: b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
===================================================================
--- a/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
+++ b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
@@ -253,7 +253,11 @@ static int mtdblock_writesect(struct mtd
{
struct mtdblk_dev *mtdblk = mtdblks[dev->devnum];
if (unlikely(!mtdblk->cache_data && mtdblk->cache_size)) {
+#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
+ mtdblk->cache_data = kmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize, GFP_KERNEL);
+#else
mtdblk->cache_data = vmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize);
+#endif
if (!mtdblk->cache_data)
return -EINTR;
/* -EINTR is not really correct, but it is the best match
@@ -322,7 +326,11 @@ static int mtdblock_release(struct mtd_b
mtdblks[dev] = NULL;
if (mtdblk->mtd->sync)
mtdblk->mtd->sync(mtdblk->mtd);
+#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
+ kfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
+#else
vfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
+#endif
kfree(mtdblk);
}
Hi Anders,
I wouldn't recommend that. MTD erase blocks are 64K or more. In a typical
embedded system you will not be able to kmalloc that much memory after
a few day's of operation - the page pool gets fragmented.
A possibly better approach is to arrange for that memory to get allocated
at driver start time.
An even better approach would be to change the algorithm to operate on
a list of smaller allocations, e.g. MTD page size.
Best regards,
Iwo
Anders Larsen wrote:
> Tweak MTD's cache allocation to make it work with the atmel DMA'ed SPI.
> Substitute kmalloc for vmalloc so the cache buffer is mappable as per
> the Atmel SPI driver's requirements, otherwise an Oops would occur.
>
> The original patch by Ian McDonnell <[email protected]> was found here:
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2007-December/020184.html
>
> Signed-off-by: Anders Larsen <[email protected]>
> Cc: Ian McDonnell <[email protected]>
> Cc: David Woodhouse <[email protected]>
> Cc: Matthias Kaehlcke <[email protected]>
> Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <[email protected]>
> Cc: Nicolas Pitre <[email protected]>
> ---
> drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c | 8 ++++++++
> 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
>
> Index: b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> ===================================================================
> --- a/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> +++ b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> @@ -253,7 +253,11 @@ static int mtdblock_writesect(struct mtd
> {
> struct mtdblk_dev *mtdblk = mtdblks[dev->devnum];
> if (unlikely(!mtdblk->cache_data && mtdblk->cache_size)) {
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
> + mtdblk->cache_data = kmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize, GFP_KERNEL);
> +#else
> mtdblk->cache_data = vmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize);
> +#endif
> if (!mtdblk->cache_data)
> return -EINTR;
> /* -EINTR is not really correct, but it is the best match
> @@ -322,7 +326,11 @@ static int mtdblock_release(struct mtd_b
> mtdblks[dev] = NULL;
> if (mtdblk->mtd->sync)
> mtdblk->mtd->sync(mtdblk->mtd);
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
> + kfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
> +#else
> vfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
> +#endif
> kfree(mtdblk);
> }
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Linux MTD discussion mailing list
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-mtd/
>
>
Hi Iwo,
On 2010-04-14 09:30:41, Iwo Mergler wrote:
> I wouldn't recommend that. MTD erase blocks are 64K or more. In a typical
> embedded system you will not be able to kmalloc that much memory after
> a few day's of operation - the page pool gets fragmented.
the original problem occurs with SPI flashes, which typically have a much
smaller erase block size (and it only occurs when they are driven by an Atmel
SoC SPI controller, hence the #ifdefs)
> A possibly better approach is to arrange for that memory to get allocated
> at driver start time.
The buffer in question is indeed allocated _once_ (at the first write
operation to the device) and only deallocated when the device is unmounted,
so allocating it at driver load time wouldn't make much difference IMHO.
I realize that my patch also affects e.g. parallel NOR flash on the system,
but unless an MTD device is unmounted/remounted over and over again, I don't
see a problem.
Did I miss something else?
> An even better approach would be to change the algorithm to operate on
> a list of smaller allocations, e.g. MTD page size.
That's unfortunately beyond my abilities, I fear.
Cheers
Anders
> Anders Larsen wrote:
> > Tweak MTD's cache allocation to make it work with the atmel DMA'ed SPI.
> > Substitute kmalloc for vmalloc so the cache buffer is mappable as per
> > the Atmel SPI driver's requirements, otherwise an Oops would occur.
> >
> > The original patch by Ian McDonnell <[email protected]> was found here:
> > http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2007-December/020184.html
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Anders Larsen <[email protected]>
> > Cc: Ian McDonnell <[email protected]>
> > Cc: David Woodhouse <[email protected]>
> > Cc: Matthias Kaehlcke <[email protected]>
> > Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <[email protected]>
> > Cc: Nicolas Pitre <[email protected]>
On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:57 AM, Anders Larsen <[email protected]> wrote:
> the original problem occurs with SPI flashes, which typically have a much
> smaller erase block size (and it only occurs when they are driven by an Atmel
> SoC SPI controller, hence the #ifdefs)
FWIW, the 16MiB Spansion SPI NOR flashes I've been seeing on new
designs have 64KiB or 256KiB (!) eraseblocks. 256KiB eraseblocks are
likely to become even more common as the device capacity increases to
32MiB and beyond.
Hi Anders,
Anders Larsen wrote:
> Hi Iwo,
>
> On 2010-04-14 09:30:41, Iwo Mergler wrote:
>> I wouldn't recommend that. MTD erase blocks are 64K or more. In a typical
>> embedded system you will not be able to kmalloc that much memory after
>> a few day's of operation - the page pool gets fragmented.
>
> the original problem occurs with SPI flashes, which typically have a much
> smaller erase block size (and it only occurs when they are driven by an Atmel
> SoC SPI controller, hence the #ifdefs)
>
>> A possibly better approach is to arrange for that memory to get allocated
>> at driver start time.
>
> The buffer in question is indeed allocated _once_ (at the first write
> operation to the device) and only deallocated when the device is unmounted,
> so allocating it at driver load time wouldn't make much difference IMHO.
>
I'm sorry, I thought you were somewhere else in the MTD source.
The bad block handling code for NAND also has a full erase block
allocation, which happens during runtime.
You are correct in that the mount time allocation should be
safe, for most systems.
Best regards,
Iwo
On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:57:20 +0200
Anders Larsen <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2010-04-14 09:30:41, Iwo Mergler wrote:
> > I wouldn't recommend that. MTD erase blocks are 64K or more. In a typical
> > embedded system you will not be able to kmalloc that much memory after
> > a few day's of operation - the page pool gets fragmented.
>
> the original problem occurs with SPI flashes, which typically have a much
> smaller erase block size (and it only occurs when they are driven by an Atmel
> SoC SPI controller, hence the #ifdefs)
>
> > A possibly better approach is to arrange for that memory to get allocated
> > at driver start time.
>
> The buffer in question is indeed allocated _once_ (at the first write
> operation to the device) and only deallocated when the device is unmounted,
> so allocating it at driver load time wouldn't make much difference IMHO.
>
> I realize that my patch also affects e.g. parallel NOR flash on the system,
> but unless an MTD device is unmounted/remounted over and over again, I don't
> see a problem.
Attempting the allocation at mtdblock_writesect()-time is the least
reliable approach.
It would be much more reliable to perform the allocation at boot-time
or modprobe-time.
It would be 100% reliable to perform the allocation at compile time
too! If that's possible. A statically allocated buffer with
appropriate locking around it to prevent it from getting scribbled on.
Of course, this assumes that the buffer is shared between different
devices and it won't work at all if cache_data is really a "cache".
Ho-hum. Anyway, please do try to find a way to make this allocation
more reliable. It'd be pretty bad to have an embedded device go crump
when the user tries to save his data.
Also, the mdtblock code has changed a lot in this very area in the
linux-next tree (mtdblks[] has gone away). So please redo any patch
against linux-next.
Finally.. Wouldn't it be better to just fix the atmel SPI driver so
that it doesn't barf when handed vmalloc'ed memory? Who do we ridicule
about that? <checks, adds cc>
On Tue, 2010-04-13 at 13:31 +0200, Anders Larsen wrote:
> Tweak MTD's cache allocation to make it work with the atmel DMA'ed SPI.
> Substitute kmalloc for vmalloc so the cache buffer is mappable as per
> the Atmel SPI driver's requirements, otherwise an Oops would occur.
>
> The original patch by Ian McDonnell <[email protected]> was found here:
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2007-December/020184.html
>
> Signed-off-by: Anders Larsen <[email protected]>
> Cc: Ian McDonnell <[email protected]>
> Cc: David Woodhouse <[email protected]>
> Cc: Matthias Kaehlcke <[email protected]>
> Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <[email protected]>
> Cc: Nicolas Pitre <[email protected]>
> ---
> drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c | 8 ++++++++
> 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
>
> Index: b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> ===================================================================
> --- a/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> +++ b/drivers/mtd/mtdblock.c
> @@ -253,7 +253,11 @@ static int mtdblock_writesect(struct mtd
> {
> struct mtdblk_dev *mtdblk = mtdblks[dev->devnum];
> if (unlikely(!mtdblk->cache_data && mtdblk->cache_size)) {
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
> + mtdblk->cache_data = kmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize, GFP_KERNEL);
> +#else
> mtdblk->cache_data = vmalloc(mtdblk->mtd->erasesize);
> +#endif
> if (!mtdblk->cache_data)
> return -EINTR;
> /* -EINTR is not really correct, but it is the best match
> @@ -322,7 +326,11 @@ static int mtdblock_release(struct mtd_b
> mtdblks[dev] = NULL;
> if (mtdblk->mtd->sync)
> mtdblk->mtd->sync(mtdblk->mtd);
> +#ifdef CONFIG_SPI_ATMEL
> + kfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
> +#else
> vfree(mtdblk->cache_data);
> +#endif
> kfree(mtdblk);
> }
This is an old problem. Instead of doing this dirty hack, change the
code and teach it to work with array of 1-4 pages , not with buffers.
--
Best Regards,
Artem Bityutskiy (Артём Битюцкий)