Broadcom uses U-Boot for a lot of their bcmbca familiy chipsets. U-Boot
stores its configuration in an environment data block.
Such blocks are usually stored on flash as a separated partition at
hardcoded address. Broadcom however decided to:
1. Store env data block inside U-Boot partition
2. Avoid sticking to hardcoded offsets
3. Use custom header with "uEnv" magic and env data length
Example (length 0x4000):
$ hexdump -n 32 -C -s 0x40000 /dev/mtdblock0
00040000 76 6e 45 75 00 40 00 00 34 89 7a 82 49 4d 41 47 |vnEu.@..4.z.IMAG|
00040010 45 3d 4e 41 4e 44 3a 31 4d 2c 31 30 32 34 4d 00 |E=NAND:1M,1024M.|
(0x40000 offset is unit specific and can change)
Starting with the commit 118f3fbe51 ("dt-bindings: mtd: partitions:
support label/name only partition") DT can describe partitions matching
them by a name (without specifying actual address). With that feature
and this binding change it's possible to:
1. Specify DT node for Broadcom's U-Boot env data subpartition
2. Add nodes for specific environment data variables
3. Reference them as NVMEM cells
This binding is unlikely to help Broadcom's U-Boot. U-Boot SPL needs to
find environment data early (before it accesses DTB) and it does that by
looking for an "uEnv" magic. Dirty way.
This binding can however be used by operating systems. It allows
describing cleanly U-Boot, its env data and variables. It tells
operating system about Broadcom-specific env data so it can parse it.
Signed-off-by: Rafał Miłecki <rafal@milecki.pl>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221018154202.4634-2-zajec5@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
U-Boot doesn't have cells at hardcoded addresses. They are stored in
internal format. It's still important to define relevant cells in DT so
NVMEM consumers can reference them.
Update binding to allow including basic cells as NVMEM device subnodes.
Signed-off-by: Rafał Miłecki <rafal@milecki.pl>
Reviewed-by: Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220703084843.21922-1-zajec5@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
U-Boot uses environment variables for storing device setup data. It
usually needs to be accessed by a bootloader, kernel and often
user-space.
This binding allows describing environment data located in a raw flash
partition. It's treated as NVMEM device and can be reused later for
other storage devices.
Using DT should be cleaner than hardcoding & duplicating such info in
multiple places. Bootloader & kernel can share DTS and user-space can
try reading it too or just have correct data exposed by a kernel.
A custom "compatible" string allows system to automatically load
relevant NVMEM driver but phandle can be also used for reading raw
location.
Signed-off-by: Rafał Miłecki <rafal@milecki.pl>
Reviewed-by: Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com>
Signed-off-by: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220228131250.16943-1-zajec5@gmail.com
