Re: How to handle write-protect pin of NAND device ?

[Miquel Raynal]

Hi Hello,

Boris Brezillon <boris.brezillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Mon, 27 Jan
2020 16:45:54 +0100:

> On Mon, 27 Jan 2020 15:35:59 +0100
> Miquel Raynal <miquel.raynal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Masahiro,
> > 
> > Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Mon, 27 Jan 2020
> > 21:55:25 +0900:
> >   
> > > Hi.
> > > 
> > > I have a question about the
> > > WP_n pin of a NAND chip.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > As far as I see, the NAND framework does not
> > > handle it.    
> > 
> > There is a nand_check_wp() which reads the status of the pin before
> > erasing/writing.
> >   
> > > 
> > > Instead, it is handled in a driver level.
> > > I see some DT-bindings that handle the WP_n pin.
> > > 
> > > $ git grep wp -- Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/
> > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/brcm,brcmnand.txt:-
> > > brcm,nand-has-wp          : Some versions of this IP include a
> > > write-protect    
> > 
> > Just checked: brcmnand de-assert WP when writing/erasing and asserts it
> > otherwise. IMHO this switching is useless.
> >   
> > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/ingenic,jz4780-nand.txt:-
> > > wp-gpios: GPIO specifier for the write protect pin.
> > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/ingenic,jz4780-nand.txt:
> > >          wp-gpios = <&gpf 22 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
> > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/nvidia-tegra20-nand.txt:-
> > > wp-gpios: GPIO specifier for the write protect pin.
> > > Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mtd/nvidia-tegra20-nand.txt:
> > >          wp-gpios = <&gpio TEGRA_GPIO(S, 0) GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;    
> > 
> > In both cases, the WP GPIO is unused in the code, just de-asserted at
> > boot time like what you do in the patch below.
> >   
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I wrote a patch to avoid read-only issue in some cases:
> > > http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/1229749/
> > > 
> > > Generally speaking, we expect NAND devices
> > > are writable in Linux. So, I think my patch is OK.    
> > 
> > I think the patch is fine.
> >   
> > > 
> > > 
> > > However, I asked this myself:
> > > Is there a useful case to assert the write protect
> > > pin in order to make the NAND chip really read-only?
> > > For example, the system recovery image is stored in
> > > a read-only device, and the write-protect pin is
> > > kept asserted to assure nobody accidentally corrupts it.    
> > 
> > It is very likely that the same device is used for RO and RW storage so
> > in most cases this is not possible. We already have squashfs which is
> > actually read-only at filesystem level, I'm not sure it is needed to
> > enforce this at a lower level... Anyway if there is actually a pin for
> > that, one might want to handle the pin directly as a GPIO, what do you
> > think?  
> 
> FWIW, I've always considered the WP pin as a way to protect against
> spurious destructive command emission, which is most likely to happen
> during transition phases (bootloader -> linux, linux -> kexeced-linux,
> platform reset, ..., or any other transition where the pin state might
> be undefined at some point). This being said, if you're worried about
> other sources of spurious cmds (say your bus is shared between
> different kind of memory devices, and the CS pin is unreliable), you
> might want to leave the NAND in a write-protected state de-asserting WP
> only when explicitly issuing a destructive command (program page, erase
> block).

Ok so with this in mind, only the brcmnand driver does a useful use of
the WP output.