[U-Boot] U-Boot: using nand write to flash an ubi image, ubi part fails

[Lars Michael]

--- On Thu, 29/9/11, Aaron Williams <Aaron.Williams at cavium.com> wrote:
> From: Aaron Williams <Aaron.Williams at cavium.com>
> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] U-Boot: using nand write to flash an ubi image, ubi part fails
> To: u-boot at lists.denx.de
> Cc: "Lars Michael" <lh_post at yahoo.com>
> Date: Thursday, 29 September, 2011, 4:11
> Hi Lars,
> 
> Were you ever successful in getting UBI to work in U-Boot?
> I am in a similar 
> boat. I have UBI working beautifully in Linux (2.6.32.27)
> but so far I've had 
> no luck in U-Boot.
> 
> -Aaron

Hi Aaron,

Good question, I am not able to write a ubi image (created by ubinize) 
and then attatch to it from U-Boot. I found that I need the free space
fixup patch. My U-Boot is rather old (2009.08) and I can not easily
apply that patch due to too many other changes. So for now, I must
write the image from Linux, do the fixup and then U-Boot is able to
attach. 

Regards,
- Lars 

> On Monday, July 18, 2011 02:29:08 AM Lars Michael wrote:
> > Hello Ben,
> > 
> > --- On Wed, 1/6/11, Ben Gardiner <bengardiner at nanometrics.ca>
> wrote:
> > > > Using mkfs.ubifs and ubinize I have created
> an image
> > > 
> > > with 5 volumes. In Linux I could flash it using
> "ubiformat
> > > /dev/mtd1 -f /root/ubi.img" and attach it using
> "ubiattach
> > > /dev/ubi_ctrl -m 1". It worked.
> > > 
> > > > In production I would prefer to write the
> image from
> > > 
> > > U-Boot. So in U-Boot I used "nand erase" then
> "nand write"
> > > to flash the image. Then I want to attach by "ubi
> part"
> > > command - but this fails: "UBI error: ubi_init:
> UBI error:
> > > cannot initialize UBI, error -17"
> > > 
> > > > [...]
> > > > I realize that the U-Boot 'nand erase' does
> not
> > > 
> > > preserve the erase counters. So what would be the
> correct
> > > way to erase and write in U-Boot? And why is the
> ubiformat
> > > not able to correct the problems?
> > > 
> > > It's true that the ECs are not preserved. But
> it's also
> > > true that
> > > trailing pages of 0xff are not trimmed either.
> You
> > > definitely need to
> > > drop trailing 0xff pages when writing ubinized
> images
> > > containing UBIFS
> > > volumes. To do this you can use either the new
> 'nand write'
> > > variant,
> > > .trimffs [1] which is currently patches that have
> been
> > > Acked. Or you
> > > can use the free-space-fixup feature which is
> available in
> > > the
> > > ubifs-2.6 tree and requires that you use a
> mkfs.ubifs built
> > > from the
> > > the mtd-utils tree.
> > 
> > Ok, I have updated my mtd-utils and recompiled the
> mkfs.ubifs to get
> > support for the free-space-fixup feature. Next I have
> pulled
> > all ubi updates from the 2.6.29 backport tree which
> gave med 154 patches
> > including the fixup.
> > 
> > Now I can build the image, ubiformat, ubiattach and
> mount with success.
> > After a reboot I can ubiattach and mount with
> success.
> > 
> > Next step is to get it to work in U-Boot too.
> > 
> > Thanks and regards,
> > - Lars
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > U-Boot mailing list
> > U-Boot at lists.denx.de
> > http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot
> 
> -- 
> Aaron Williams <Aaron.Williams at cavium.com>
>  (408) 943-7198
>