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202 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
202 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
Welcome to YAFFS, the first file system developed specifically for NAND flash.
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It is now YAFFS2 - original YAFFS (AYFFS1) only supports 512-byte page
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NAND and is now deprectated. YAFFS2 supports 512b page in 'YAFFS1
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compatibility' mode (CONFIG_YAFFS_YAFFS1) and 2K or larger page NAND
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in YAFFS2 mode (CONFIG_YAFFS_YAFFS2).
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A note on licencing
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-------------------
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YAFFS is available under the GPL and via alternative licensing
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arrangements with Aleph One. If you're using YAFFS as a Linux kernel
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file system then it will be under the GPL. For use in other situations
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you should discuss licensing issues with Aleph One.
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Terminology
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-----------
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Page - NAND addressable unit (normally 512b or 2Kbyte size) - can
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be read, written, marked bad. Has associated OOB.
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Block - Eraseable unit. 64 Pages. (128K on 2K NAND, 32K on 512b NAND)
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OOB - 'spare area' of each page for ECC, bad block marked and YAFFS
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tags. 16 bytes per 512b - 64 bytes for 2K page size.
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Chunk - Basic YAFFS addressable unit. Same size as Page.
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Object - YAFFS Object: File, Directory, Link, Device etc.
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YAFFS design
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------------
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YAFFS is a log-structured filesystem. It is designed particularly for
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NAND (as opposed to NOR) flash, to be flash-friendly, robust due to
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journalling, and to have low RAM and boot time overheads. File data is
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stored in 'chunks'. Chunks are the same size as NAND pages. Each page
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is marked with file id and chunk number. These marking 'tags' are
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stored in the OOB (or 'spare') region of the flash. The chunk number
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is determined by dividing the file position by the chunk size. Each
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chunk has a number of valid bytes, which equals the page size for all
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except the last chunk in a file.
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File 'headers' are stored as the first page in a file, marked as a
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different type to data pages. The same mechanism is used to store
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directories, device files, links etc. The first page describes which
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type of object it is.
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YAFFS2 never re-writes a page, because the spec of NAND chips does not
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allow it. (YAFFS1 used to mark a block 'deleted' in the OOB). Deletion
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is managed by moving deleted objects to the special, hidden 'unlinked'
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directory. These records are preserved until all the pages containing
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the object have been erased (We know when this happen by keeping a
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count of chunks remaining on the system for each object - when it
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reaches zero the object really is gone).
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When data in a file is overwritten, the relevant chunks are replaced
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by writing new pages to flash containing the new data but the same
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tags.
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Pages are also marked with a short (2 bit) serial number that
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increments each time the page at this position is incremented. The
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reason for this is that if power loss/crash/other act of demonic
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forces happens before the replaced page is marked as discarded, it is
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possible to have two pages with the same tags. The serial number is
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used to arbitrate.
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A block containing only discarded pages (termed a dirty block) is an
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obvious candidate for garbage collection. Otherwise valid pages can be
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copied off a block thus rendering the whole block discarded and ready
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for garbage collection.
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In theory you don't need to hold the file structure in RAM... you
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could just scan the whole flash looking for pages when you need them.
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In practice though you'd want better file access times than that! The
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mechanism proposed here is to have a list of __u16 page addresses
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associated with each file. Since there are 2^18 pages in a 128MB NAND,
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a __u16 is insufficient to uniquely identify a page but is does
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identify a group of 4 pages - a small enough region to search
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exhaustively. This mechanism is clearly expandable to larger NAND
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devices - within reason. The RAM overhead with this approach is approx
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2 bytes per page - 512kB of RAM for a whole 128MB NAND.
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Boot-time scanning to build the file structure lists only requires
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one pass reading NAND. If proper shutdowns happen the current RAM
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summary of the filesystem status is saved to flash, called
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'checkpointing'. This saves re-scanning the flash on startup, and gives
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huge boot/mount time savings.
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YAFFS regenerates its state by 'replaying the tape' - i.e. by
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scanning the chunks in their allocation order (i.e. block sequence ID
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order), which is usually different form the media block order. Each
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block is still only read once - starting from the end of the media and
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working back.
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YAFFS tags in YAFFS1 mode:
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18-bit Object ID (2^18 files, i.e. > 260,000 files). File id 0- is not
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valid and indicates a deleted page. File od 0x3ffff is also not valid.
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Synonymous with inode.
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2-bit serial number
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20-bit Chunk ID within file. Limit of 2^20 chunks/pages per file (i.e.
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> 500MB max file size). Chunk ID 0 is the file header for the file.
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10-bit counter of the number of bytes used in the page.
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12 bit ECC on tags
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YAFFS tags in YAFFS2 mode:
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4 bytes 32-bit chunk ID
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4 bytes 32-bit object ID
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2 bytes Number of data bytes in this chunk
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4 bytes Sequence number for this block
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3 bytes ECC on tags
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12 bytes ECC on data (3 bytes per 256 bytes of data)
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Page allocation and garbage collection
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Pages are allocated sequentially from the currently selected block.
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When all the pages in the block are filled, another clean block is
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selected for allocation. At least two or three clean blocks are
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reserved for garbage collection purposes. If there are insufficient
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clean blocks available, then a dirty block ( ie one containing only
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discarded pages) is erased to free it up as a clean block. If no dirty
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blocks are available, then the dirtiest block is selected for garbage
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collection.
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Garbage collection is performed by copying the valid data pages into
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new data pages thus rendering all the pages in this block dirty and
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freeing it up for erasure. I also like the idea of selecting a block
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at random some small percentage of the time - thus reducing the chance
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of wear differences.
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YAFFS is single-threaded. Garbage-collection is done as a parasitic
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task of writing data. So each time some data is written, a bit of
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pending garbage collection is done. More pages are garbage-collected
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when free space is tight.
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Flash writing
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YAFFS only ever writes each page once, complying with the requirements
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of the most restricitve NAND devices.
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Wear levelling
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This comes as a side-effect of the block-allocation strategy. Data is
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always written on the next free block, so they are all used equally.
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Blocks containing data that is written but never erased will not get
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back into the free list, so wear is levelled over only blocks which
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are free or become free, not blocks which never change.
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Some helpful info
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-----------------
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Formatting a YAFFS device is simply done by erasing it.
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Making an initial filesystem can be tricky because YAFFS uses the OOB
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and thus the bytes that get written depend on the YAFFS data (tags),
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and the ECC bytes and bad block markers which are dictated by the
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hardware and/or the MTD subsystem. The data layout also depends on the
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device page size (512b or 2K). Because YAFFS is only responsible for
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some of the OOB data, generating a filesystem offline requires
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detailed knowledge of what the other parts (MTD and NAND
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driver/hardware) are going to do.
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To make a YAFFS filesystem you have 3 options:
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1) Boot the system with an empty NAND device mounted as YAFFS and copy
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stuff on.
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2) Make a filesystem image offline, then boot the system and use
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MTDutils to write an image to flash.
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3) Make a filesystem image offline and use some tool like a bootloader to
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write it to flash.
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Option 1 avoids a lot of issues because all the parts
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(YAFFS/MTD/hardware) all take care of their own bits and (if you have
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put things together properly) it will 'just work'. YAFFS just needs to
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know how many bytes of the OOB it can use. However sometimes it is not
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practical.
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Option 2 lets MTD/hardware take care of the ECC so the filesystem
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image just had to know which bytes to use for YAFFS Tags.
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Option 3 is hardest as the image creator needs to know exactly what
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ECC bytes, endianness and algorithm to use as well as which bytes are
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available to YAFFS.
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mkyaffs2image creates an image suitable for option 3 for the
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particular case of yaffs2 on 2K page NAND with default MTD layout.
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mkyaffsimage creates an equivalent image for 512b page NAND (i.e.
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yaffs1 format).
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Bootloaders
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-----------
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A bootloader using YAFFS needs to know how MTD is laying out the OOB
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so that it can skip bad blocks.
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YAFFS Tracing
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-------------
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