mtd: ABI documentation: clarification of bitflip_threshold
[deliverable/linux.git] / Documentation / ABI / testing / sysfs-class-mtd
1 What: /sys/class/mtd/
2 Date: April 2009
3 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
4 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
5 Description:
6 The mtd/ class subdirectory belongs to the MTD subsystem
7 (MTD core).
8
9 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/
10 Date: April 2009
11 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
12 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
13 Description:
14 The /sys/class/mtd/mtd{0,1,2,3,...} directories correspond
15 to each /dev/mtdX character device. These may represent
16 physical/simulated flash devices, partitions on a flash
17 device, or concatenated flash devices. They exist regardless
18 of whether CONFIG_MTD_CHAR is actually enabled.
19
20 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdXro/
21 Date: April 2009
22 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
23 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
24 Description:
25 These directories provide the corresponding read-only device
26 nodes for /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/ . They are only created
27 (for the benefit of udev) if CONFIG_MTD_CHAR is enabled.
28
29 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/dev
30 Date: April 2009
31 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
32 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
33 Description:
34 Major and minor numbers of the character device corresponding
35 to this MTD device (in <major>:<minor> format). This is the
36 read-write device so <minor> will be even.
37
38 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdXro/dev
39 Date: April 2009
40 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
41 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
42 Description:
43 Major and minor numbers of the character device corresponding
44 to the read-only variant of thie MTD device (in
45 <major>:<minor> format). In this case <minor> will be odd.
46
47 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/erasesize
48 Date: April 2009
49 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
50 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
51 Description:
52 "Major" erase size for the device. If numeraseregions is
53 zero, this is the eraseblock size for the entire device.
54 Otherwise, the MEMGETREGIONCOUNT/MEMGETREGIONINFO ioctls
55 can be used to determine the actual eraseblock layout.
56
57 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/flags
58 Date: April 2009
59 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
60 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
61 Description:
62 A hexadecimal value representing the device flags, ORed
63 together:
64
65 0x0400: MTD_WRITEABLE - device is writable
66 0x0800: MTD_BIT_WRITEABLE - single bits can be flipped
67 0x1000: MTD_NO_ERASE - no erase necessary
68 0x2000: MTD_POWERUP_LOCK - always locked after reset
69
70 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/name
71 Date: April 2009
72 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
73 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
74 Description:
75 A human-readable ASCII name for the device or partition.
76 This will match the name in /proc/mtd .
77
78 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/numeraseregions
79 Date: April 2009
80 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
81 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
82 Description:
83 For devices that have variable eraseblock sizes, this
84 provides the total number of erase regions. Otherwise,
85 it will read back as zero.
86
87 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/oobsize
88 Date: April 2009
89 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
90 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
91 Description:
92 Number of OOB bytes per page.
93
94 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/size
95 Date: April 2009
96 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
97 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
98 Description:
99 Total size of the device/partition, in bytes.
100
101 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/type
102 Date: April 2009
103 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
104 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
105 Description:
106 One of the following ASCII strings, representing the device
107 type:
108
109 absent, ram, rom, nor, nand, dataflash, ubi, unknown
110
111 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/writesize
112 Date: April 2009
113 KernelVersion: 2.6.29
114 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
115 Description:
116 Minimal writable flash unit size. This will always be
117 a positive integer.
118
119 In the case of NOR flash it is 1 (even though individual
120 bits can be cleared).
121
122 In the case of NAND flash it is one NAND page (or a
123 half page, or a quarter page).
124
125 In the case of ECC NOR, it is the ECC block size.
126
127 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/ecc_strength
128 Date: April 2012
129 KernelVersion: 3.4
130 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
131 Description:
132 Maximum number of bit errors that the device is capable of
133 correcting within each region covering an ecc step. This will
134 always be a non-negative integer. Note that some devices will
135 have multiple ecc steps within each writesize region.
136
137 In the case of devices lacking any ECC capability, it is 0.
138
139 What: /sys/class/mtd/mtdX/bitflip_threshold
140 Date: April 2012
141 KernelVersion: 3.4
142 Contact: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org
143 Description:
144 This allows the user to examine and adjust the criteria by which
145 mtd returns -EUCLEAN from mtd_read() and mtd_read_oob(). If the
146 maximum number of bit errors that were corrected on any single
147 region comprising an ecc step (as reported by the driver) equals
148 or exceeds this value, -EUCLEAN is returned. Otherwise, absent
149 an error, 0 is returned. Higher layers (e.g., UBI) use this
150 return code as an indication that an erase block may be
151 degrading and should be scrutinized as a candidate for being
152 marked as bad.
153
154 The initial value may be specified by the flash device driver.
155 If not, then the default value is ecc_strength.
156
157 The introduction of this feature brings a subtle change to the
158 meaning of the -EUCLEAN return code. Previously, it was
159 interpreted to mean simply "one or more bit errors were
160 corrected". Its new interpretation can be phrased as "a
161 dangerously high number of bit errors were corrected on one or
162 more regions comprising an ecc step". The precise definition of
163 "dangerously high" can be adjusted by the user with
164 bitflip_threshold. Users are discouraged from doing this,
165 however, unless they know what they are doing and have intimate
166 knowledge of the properties of their device. Broadly speaking,
167 bitflip_threshold should be low enough to detect genuine erase
168 block degradation, but high enough to avoid the consequences of
169 a persistent return value of -EUCLEAN on devices where sticky
170 bitflips occur. Note that if bitflip_threshold exceeds
171 ecc_strength, -EUCLEAN is never returned by the read operations.
172 Conversely, if bitflip_threshold is zero, -EUCLEAN is always
173 returned, absent a hard error.
174
175 This is generally applicable only to NAND flash devices with ECC
176 capability. It is ignored on devices lacking ECC capability;
177 i.e., devices for which ecc_strength is zero.
This page took 0.033208 seconds and 5 git commands to generate.