Plugin: MTD

Introduction

The Memory Technology Device (MTD) interface is a way of abstracting flash devices as if they were normal block devices.

See http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/general.html for more details.

This plugin supports the following protocol ID:

  • org.infradead.mtd

GUID Generation

These devices use custom DeviceInstanceId values built from the device NAME and DMI data, e.g.

  • MTD\NAME_Factory
  • MTD\VENDOR_foo&NAME_baz
  • MTD\VENDOR_foo&PRODUCT_bar&NAME_baz

Since 2.0.13, if the MTD device has a PCI parent device, this information will be used instead, e.g.

  • MTD\NAME_Factory
  • MTD\VEN_1234&DEV_5678
  • MTD\VEN_1234&DEV_5678&NAME_Factory
  • MTD\DRIVER_xe (quirk-only)

If the FirmwareGType quirk is set for the device then the firmware is read back from the device at daemon startup and parsed for the version number. In the event the firmware has multiple child images then the device GUIDs are used as firmware IDs.

Update Behavior

The MTD device is erased in chunks, written and then read back to verify.

Although fwupd can read and write a raw image to the MTD partition there is no automatic way to get the existing version number. By providing the GType fwupd can read the MTD partition and discover additional metadata about the image. For instance, adding a quirk like:

[MTD\VENDOR_PINE64&PRODUCT_PinePhone-Pro&NAME_spi1.0]
FirmwareGType = FuUswidFirmware

… and then append or insert the image into the MTD image with prepared SBOM metadata:

pip install uswid
uswid --load uswid.ini --save metadata.uswid

This would allow fwupd to read the MTD image data, look for a uSWID data section and then parse the metadata from that. Any of the firmware formats supported by fwupdtool get-firmware-gtypes that can provide a version can be used.

Quirk Use

This plugin uses the following plugin-specific quirks:

MtdMetadataOffset

The offset to start searching within the MTD partition when using FirmwareGType. This is provided to avoid dumping a huge amount of MTD data to access a tiny chunk of data that will not be before a known offset.

Since: 1.9.1

MtdFmapRegions

A comma-separated list of region names that should be written to the device as images in the specified order. Each image should have the required offset set as a physical address.

This can be used to selectively target coreboot FMAP regions.

Since: 2.0.17

MtdFmapOffset

An offset where the __FMAP__ header can be found, for example 0x1090000.

This can be used to avoid loading and searching the entire SPI rom for a FMAP image. If this option is set then the device FirmwareGType is automatically set to FuFmapFirmware.

To test actual firmware blobs with mtram, use sudo modprobe mtdram total_size=32768

Since: 2.0.17

MtdMetadataSize

The size of data to read from the MTD partition when using FirmwareGType. This is provided to avoid dumping a huge amount of MTD data to access a tiny chunk of data.

Since: 1.9.1

Vendor ID Security

The vendor ID is set from the system vendor, for example DMI:LENOVO

External Interface Access

This plugin requires read/write access to /dev/mtd.

Version Considerations

This plugin has been available since fwupd version 1.7.2.