This version of this document is no longer maintained. For the latest documentation, see http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs.

`devf-ixdp2400`

IXDP2400 flash filesystem

This driver is available only in the Board Support Packages that need it.
You must be root to start this driver.

Syntax:

devf-ixdp2400 
    [-a] [-b priority] 
    [-E] [-f verifylevel] [-i arrayindex[,partindex]]
    [-l] [-m mountover
    [-p backgroundpercent[,superlimit]] [-r]
    [-s base[,wsize[,aoffset[,asize[,usize[,bwidth[,ileave]]]]]]]
    [-t threads] [-u update] [-V] [-v]
    [-w buffersize]

Options:

-a

Don't automount filesystem partitions present on the media. See also the -R option.

-b priority

Enable background reclaim at the specified priority. By default, background reclamation is disabled.

-E

Do not daemonize and exit on EBADFSYS with partition num +1 of corrupt filesystem.

-f verifylevel

Enable flash verify. (default=0, 0=none, write=1, erase=2, all=3)

-i arrayindex[,partindex]

Starting socket index and first partition index; 0 >= index >=15. The default is 0,0. Use this to give multiple drivers unique IDs. The -i option is just a suggestion for the resource database manager; the selected indexes can be larger.

-l

List the available flash databases and exit.

-m mountover

Override the mountpoints assigned to the file system that are formatted with an empty (i.e. flashctl -p/dev/fs0p0 -f -n "") mountpoint. The mountover argument can include two %X format specifiers (like those for printf()) that are replaced by the socket index and the partition index.

The -m option doesn't override a mountpoint specified with mkefs.

-p backgroundpercent[,superlimit]

Set the background-reclaim percentage trigger (stale space over free space) and, optionally, the superseded extent limit before reclaim. The default is 100,16.

-R

Mount the automount filesystem as read-only. It doesn't affect raw partition mounts. The -R option has an effect only at startup and initialization. Any subsequent mounting (with either flashctl or mount) ignores the -R option. If you use -a option, the -R option is ignored.

-r

Enable fault recovery for dirty extents, dangling extents, and partial reclaims. By default, recovery isn't performed, which, when power faults are likely, can waste space on the media or make the media read-only.

-s base[,wsize[,aoffset[,asize[,usize[,bwidth[,ileave]]]]]]

Set socket options, normally the base physical address, window size, array offset, array size, unit size, bus width, and interleave. The format is left flexible for socket services with customized drivers. This option must be specified.

The arguments are:

base: Physical base address of the flash part. This value is board-specific.
wsize: Size of the physically contiguous flash part.
aoffset: For SRAM, the offset from the base address to the start of the flash array.
asize: For SRAM, the size of the flash array. The default is equal to wsize.
usize: The size of a physical erase sector. For SRAM, this number can be any power of two. 64K should be the minimum, for performance reasons.
bwidth: The total width of the data bus, as seen from the microprocessor's perspective. This is the width of one flash chip multiplied by the interleave. The value is specified as a power of 2 (1,2,4,8).
ileave: The number of flash chips arranged on the data bus. Two 16-bit wide chips used as the upper and lower halves of a 32-bit databus give an interleave of 2. This number is specified as a power of 2 (1,2,4).

You can specify the base physical address, sizes, and offset in octal (0777), hexadecimal (0x1ff), or decimal (511). The sizes must be a power of two, and you can specify them with any of the following suffixes:

(nothing) -- bytes
k -- kilobytes
m -- megabytes

-t threads

Number of threads; 1 >= threads >= 4 (default is 2). Extra threads increase performance when background reclaim is enabled (with the -b option) and when multiple chips and/or spare blocks are available.

-u update

Update level for timestamps; 0 for never update, 1 to update files only, and 2 to update files and directories. The default update is 0.

-V

Display filesystem and MTD version information.

-v

Display verbose information.

-w buffersize

Write (append) buffer size in bytes. The default buffersize is 512. Using a larger write-buffer prevents the creation of very small extents, reducing overhead. If buffersize is 0, appending is disabled.

Description:

The devf-ixdp2400 manager provides Flash filesystem support for any standard flash device. Typically, all you need to do is to pass the address and size using the -s option. The manager should detect the device automatically.

The following default filenames (the ID, n, appended to /dev/fs can be changed via the -i option):

/dev/fsn: Default mountpoint for socket n.
/dev/fsnp0: Raw access for socket n, partition 0.
mountpoint: Flash filesystem mountpoint for socket n, partition 0 with transparent decompression.

You can specify the mountpoint above with the mount attribute of the mkefs command, and override it with the -n option to flashctl. By default, it's /fsnp0.

If you erase a raw partition or the raw array (socket), you might erase any boot monitor, BIOS, or other data installed by the manufacturer. Check the documentation for the board.

The driver probes the hardware to determine its block size. If you need to know the block size, you can:

Look in the documentation for the hardware.
Or:
Start the driver in verbose mode by specifying the -v option. In the output, U: indicates the number of units (i.e. blocks), and S: indicates the block size. Both numbers are in hexadecimal.
Or:
Start the driver, and then run flashctl, specifying the -i option.

Examples:

Start devf-ixdp2400 and automatically mount the flash filesystem partitions with an initial fault recovery process, most POSIX semantics enabled and background reclaim at priority 5:

devf-ixdp2400  -r -u2 -b5 &

Create a 32MB flash partition, with a 64KB unit (sector) size:

devf-ixdp2400 -s0,32m,,,64k  -v -r

Create a 128MB flash partition, with large block sizes (to speed formatting):

devf-ixdp2400 -s0,128m,,,512k -v -r

Create a 4MB partition:

devf-ixdp2400 -s0,4m,,,64k -v -r

Create a 16MB flash partition, from a given physical address, with a 128KB unit size, and a 16-bit wide data bus:

devf-generic -s0xa4000000,16m,,,128k,2 -v -r

Create a 16MB flash partition, from a given physical address, with a 256KB unit size, and a 32-bit-wide data bus, with an interleave of two:

devf-generic -s0,16m,,,256k,4,2 -v -r

Caveats:

You must specify the -s option when using this driver.

Although the Flash filesystem supports most POSIX semantics, some functionality isn't implemented in order to keep the driver simple and efficient. The unsupported POSIX semantics include:

Hard links, and everything related to hard links (the . and .. directories don't exist, struct stat's nlink member is hard-coded, and unlink() of directories returns ENOTSUP).
Access times aren't updated on the media; they're set to the modification time.

QNX Neutrino flash filesystem version 3 no longer provides built-in decompression. The flash filesystem's decompression functionality has moved into the inflator resource manager. You should now use the deflate utility to compress files.

Performance might be slow when multiple writers are writing randomly to a shared file or to a shared directory (e.g. using unlink or rename). In these cases, the offset pointers have to be rewound for every access. There's no performance penalty when appending to a file, or when creating files with open(O_CREAT), mkdir, mknod, or link.