This file is focused on providing information about the flash setup that the code update application requires to be supported out-of-the-box, which includes how the Linux filesystem is setup, filesystem layouts, overlays, boot options, and how code update updates the flash modules and boots the new image. See code-update.md for details about code update interfaces.
For system initialization and bootstrap, Das U-Boot was selected as the bootloader.
After basic initialization of the system, the bootloader may present a prompt and/or start automatic boot. The commands and/or data to select the boot image are stored in the bootloader environment. The bootloader copies the compressed kernel, initrd image, and device tree into memory, and then transfers control to the kernel. The kernel initializes itself and the system using the information passed in the device tree, including the flash partitions and the kernel command line embedded in the tree.
For runtime management, the systemd system and service manager was chosen for its configuration, dependency, and triggered action support, as well as its robust recovery.
Before starting execution, systemd requires the root filesystem and all binaries to be mounted. The filesystems for /dev, /sys, and /proc may be mounted before starting systemd. Reference the systemd File Hierarchy Requirements.
For storage of the root filesystem, a read-only volume was selected. This allows the majority of the filesystem content, including all executables and static data files, to be stored in a read-only filesystem image. Replacing read-only filesystem images allows the space used by the content to be confirmed at build time and allows the selection of compressed filesystems that do not support mutations.
An effort has been made to adhere to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard FHS. Specifically data ephemeral to the current boot is stored in /run and most application data is stored under /var. Some information continues to be stored in the system configuration data directory /etc; this is mostly traditionally configuration such as network addresses, user identification, and ssh host keys.
To conserve flash space, squashfs with xz compression was selected to store the read-only filesystem content. This applies to systems with limited attached flash storage (see the JFFS2 and UBI options below), not eMMC.
To load the root filesystem, the initramfs locates and mounts the squashfs and writable filesystems, merges them with overlayfs, performs a chroot into the result and starts systemd. Alternatively, information to find the active image for the BMC can be stored in the U-Boot environment, and an init script can mount the images then start systemd. This choice depends on the platform implementation, and details are located in the Supported Filesystem Choices section below.
OpenBMC supports code update for the following types of filesystems. Additional information is given for each filesystem such as how the filesystem is stored on flash, how the filesystem is instantiated during system boot/init, and how code update handles the filesystem.
The majority of the filesystem is stored in a read-only squashfs in an MTD partition using the block emulation driver (mtdblock). A second MTD partition is mounted read-write using the JFFS2 filesystem. This read-write filesystem is mounted over the entire filesystem space allowing all files and directories to be written.
This filesystem stack requires the mounts to be performed from an initramfs. The initramfs is composed of a basic system based on busybox and three custom scripts (init, shutdown, and update) that locate the MTD partitions by name. These scripts are installed by obmc-phosphor-initfs.
In code update mode, the squashfs image and white-listed files from the read-write filesystem are copied into RAM by the initramfs and used to assemble the root overlayfs instance, leaving the flash free to be modified by installing images at runtime. An orderly shutdown writes remaining images to like-named raw MTD partitions and white listed files to the writable overlay filesystem. Alternatively, if code update mode was not selected, the image updates must be delayed until the partitions are unmounted during an orderly shutdown.
This is the default filesystem in OpenBMC. It is used in several BMC systems based around the AST2400 and AST2500 system-on-chip controllers from Aspeed Technology. These SOCs support 1 and 2 GB of DDR RAM, while the attached flash storage is typically in the 10s of MB, so staging the filesystem to RAM is not an issue.
The majority of the filesystem is stored in a read-only squashfs in a static UBI
volume using the UBI block emulation driver (ubiblock). To store updates to
files, a UBIFS volume is used for /var and mounted over the /etc and /home
directories using overlayfs. These mounts are performed by the init script
installed by the preinit-mounts package before systemd is started.
Selecting UBI allows the writes to the read-write overlay to be distributed over
the full UBI area instead of just the read-write MTD partition.
The environment for Das U-boot continues to be stored at fixed sectors in the flash. The Das U-boot environment contains enough MTD partition definition to read UBI volumes in a UBI device in the same flash. The bootcmd script loads a kernel from a FIT image and pass it to bootargs to locate and mount the squashfs in the paired UBI volume.
This option is enabled via the obmc-ubi-fs OpenBMC distro feature. Used in the
same BMC subsystems as the JFFS2 ones, but targeted for configurations that have
enough flash storage to store at least 2 copies of the filesystem. This can be
accomplished with dual flash storage. Some controllers, such as those in the
AST2500, allow booting from an alternate flash on failure and this UBI option
supports this feature. For this support, a copy of each kernel is stored on each
flash and the U-Boot environment selects which kernel to use.
This is a work in progress. See the eMMC Design Document.
A tmpfs is used for /tmp, /run, and similar, while /dev, /proc, and /sys are supported by their normal kernel special filesystems, as specified by the FHS.
Additional Bitbake layer configurations exist for Raspberry Pi and x86 QEMU machines, but are provided primarily for code development and exploration. Code update for these environments is not supported.