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linuxflash-memorydisk-partitioning

Is it possible to resize MTD partitions at runtime?

I have a very specific need: to partially replace the content of a flash and to move MTD partition boundaries.

Current map is:

  • u-boot 0x000000 0x040000
  • u-boot-env 0x040000 0x010000
  • kernel 0x050000 0x230000
  • initrd 0x280000 0x170000
  • scripts 0x3f0000 0x010000
  • filesystem 0x400000 0xbf0000
  • firmware 0xff0000 0x010000

While desired output is:

  • u-boot 0x000000 0x040000
  • u-boot-env 0x040000 0x010000
  • kernel 0x050000 0x230000
  • filesystem 0x280000 0xd70000
  • firmware 0xff0000 0x010000

This means to collapse initrd, scripts and filesystem into a single area while leaving the others alone.

Problem is this should be achieved from the running system (booted with the "old" configuration") and I should rewrite kernel and "new" filesystem before rebooting.

The system is an embedded, so I have little space for maneuver (I have a SD card, though).

Of course the rewritten kernel will have "new" configuration written in its DTB.

Problem is transition.

Note: I have seen this Question, but it is very old and it has drawback to need kernel patches, which I would like to avoid.

NOTE2: this question has been flagged for deletion because "not about programming". I beg to disagree: I need to perform said operation on ~14k devices, most of them already sold to customers, so any workable solution should involve, at the very least, scripting.

NOTE3: if absolutely necessary I can even consider (small) kernel modifications (YES, I have means to update kernel remotely).

Solution

  • I have three ideas/suggestions:

    1. Instead of moving the partitions, can you just split the "new" filesystem image into chunks and write them to the corresponding "old" MTD partitions? This way you don't really need to change MTD partition map. After booting into the new kernel, it will see the new contiguous root filesystem. For JFFS2 filesystem, it should be fairly straightforward to do using split or dd, flash_erase and nandwrite. Something like:
    # WARNING: this script assumes that it runs from tmpfs and the old root filesystem is already unmounted.
# Also, it assumes that your shell has arithmetic evaluation, which handles hex (my busybox 1.29 ash does this).

# assuming newrootfs.img is the image of new rootfs
new_rootfs_img="newrootfs.img"

mtd_initrd="/dev/mtd3"
mtd_initrd_size=0x170000
mtd_scripts="/dev/mtd4"
mtd_scripts_size=0x010000
mtd_filesystem="/dev/mtd5"
mtd_filesystem_size=0xbf0000

# prepare chunks of new filesystem image
bs="0x1000"
# note: using arithmetic evaluation $(()) to convert from hex and do the math.
# dd doesn't handle hex numbers ("dd: invalid number '0x1000'") -- $(()) works this around
dd if="${new_rootfs_img}" of="rootfs_initrd"     bs=$(( bs )) count=$(( mtd_initrd_size / bs ))
dd if="${new_rootfs_img}" of="rootfs_scripts"    bs=$(( bs )) count=$(( mtd_scripts_size / bs )) skip=$(( mtd_initrd_size / bs ))
dd if="${new_rootfs_img}" of="rootfs_filesystem" bs=$(( bs )) count=$(( mtd_filesystem_size / bs )) skip=$(( ( mtd_initrd_size + mtd_scripts_size ) / bs ))

# there's no going back after this point

flash_eraseall -j "${mtd_initrd}"
flash_eraseall -j "${mtd_scripts}"
flash_eraseall -j "${mtd_filesystem}"

nandwrite -p "${mtd_initrd}"     rootfs_initrd
nandwrite -p "${mtd_scripts}"    rootfs_scripts
nandwrite -p "${mtd_filesystem}" rootfs_filesystem

# don't forget to update the kernel too

    1. There is kernel support for concatenating MTD devices (which is exactly what you're trying to do). I don't see an easy way to use it, but you could create a kernel module, which concatenates the desired partitions for you into a contiguous MTD device.

    2. In order to combine the 3 MTD partitions into one to write the new filesystem, you could create a dm-linear mapping over the 3 mtdblocks, and then turn it back into an MTD device using block2mtd. (i.e. mtdblock + device mapper linear + block2mtd) But it looks very awkward and I don't know if it'll work well (for say, OOB data).

    EDIT1: added a comment explaining use of $(( bs )) -- to convert from hex as dd doesn't handle hex numbers directly (neither coreutils, nor busybox dd).