[PATCH 4/8] mtd: spi-nor: disallow further writes to SR if WP# is low

From: Brian Norris
Date: Thu Jan 28 2016 - 00:54:01 EST


Locking the flash is most useful if it provides real hardware security.
Otherwise, it's little more than a software permission bit.

A reasonable use case that provides real HW security might be like
follows:

(1) hardware WP# is deasserted
(2) program flash
(3) flash range is protected via status register
(4) hardware WP# is asserted
(5) flash protection range can no longer be changed, until WP# is
deasserted

In this way, flash protection is co-owned by hardware and software.

Now, one would expect to be able to perform step (3) with
ioctl(MEMLOCK), except that the spi-nor driver does not set the Status
Register Protect bit (a.k.a. Status Register Write Disable (SRWD)), so
even though the range is now locked, it does not satisfy step (5) -- it
can still be changed by a call to ioctl(MEMUNLOCK).

So, let's enable status register protection after the first lock
command.

Signed-off-by: Brian Norris <computersforpeace@xxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c b/drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c
index 3a08aa53c171..46da6bb706fa 100644
--- a/drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c
+++ b/drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c
@@ -518,6 +518,9 @@ static int stm_lock(struct spi_nor *nor, loff_t ofs, uint64_t len)

status_new = (status_old & ~mask) | val;

+ /* Disallow further writes if WP pin is asserted */
+ status_new |= SR_SRWD;
+
/* Don't bother if they're the same */
if (status_new == status_old)
return 0;
--
1.7.9.5