[PATCH v3 0/4] block: preparations for NVMEM provider

Daniel Golle
2024-06-26T02:50:24Z

On embedded devices using an eMMC it is common that one or more (hw/sw)
partitions on the eMMC are used to store MAC addresses and Wi-Fi
calibration EEPROM data.

Typically the NVMEM framework is used to have kernel drivers read and
use binary data from EEPROMs, efuses, flash memory (MTD), ...

Using references to NVMEM bits in Device Tree allows the kernel to
access and apply e.g. the Ethernet MAC address, which can be a requirement
for userland to come up (e.g. for nfsroot).

The goal of this series is to prepare the block subsystem to allow for
the implementation of an NVMEM provider similar to other types of
non-volatile storage, so the same approach already used for EEPROMs, MTD
(raw flashes) and UBI-managed NAND can also be used for devices storing
those bits on an eMMC.

Define a device tree schema for block devices and partitions on them,
which (similar to how it now works also for UBI volumes) can be matched
by one or more properties.

Also add a simple notification API for other subsystems to be notified
about additions and removals of block devices, which is going to be used
by the block-backed NVMEM provider.

Overall, this enables uniform handling across practially all flash
storage types used for this purpose (MTD, UBI, and soon also MMC or and
in future maybe also other block devices).
---
Changes since v2 sent on May 30th 2024 [1] addressing comments from
Hauke Mehrtens (https://patchwork.kernel.org/comment/25892133/)
- Check length of UUID and PARTNAME.
- Remove forgotten fallback to get 'partitions' subnode from parent.
It is no longer needed and was a left over from earlier development.
- Split series into 3 parts, one for each affected subsystem. This is
the first part covering only the changes needed in the block
subsystem. The second part adds the actual nvmem provider to
drivers/nvmem/, the third part is going to make use of it for MMC
block devices and cover changes in drivers/mmc.

Changes since v1 sent on March 21st 2024 [2]:
- introduce notifications for block device addition and removal for
in-kernel users. This allows the nvmem driver to be built as a module
and avoids using class_interface and block subsystem internals as
suggested in https://patchwork.kernel.org/comment/25771998/ and
https://patchwork.kernel.org/comment/25770441/

This series has previously been submitted as RFC on July 19th 2023[3]
and most of the basic idea did not change since. Another round of RFC
was submitted on March 5th 2024[4].

[1]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/list/?series=857192
[2]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/list/?series=837150&archive=both
[3]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/list/?series=767565
[4]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-block/list/?series=832705

Daniel Golle (4):
dt-bindings: block: add basic bindings for block devices
block: partitions: populate fwnode
block: add support for notifications
block: add new genhd flag GENHD_FL_NVMEM

.../bindings/block/block-device.yaml | 22 +++++
.../devicetree/bindings/block/partition.yaml | 51 +++++++++++
.../devicetree/bindings/block/partitions.yaml | 20 +++++
block/Kconfig | 6 ++
block/Makefile | 1 +
block/blk-notify.c | 88 +++++++++++++++++++
block/partitions/core.c | 40 +++++++++
include/linux/blkdev.h | 10 +++
8 files changed, 238 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/block/block-device.yaml
create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/block/partition.yaml
create mode 100644 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/block/partitions.yaml
create mode 100644 block/blk-notify.c

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2.45.2