devlink: introduce flash update overwrite mask

Sections of device flash may contain settings or device identifying
information. When performing a flash update, it is generally expected
that these settings and identifiers are not overwritten.

However, it may sometimes be useful to allow overwriting these fields
when performing a flash update. Some examples include, 1) customizing
the initial device config on first programming, such as overwriting
default device identifying information, or 2) reverting a device
configuration to known good state provided in the new firmware image, or
3) in case it is suspected that current firmware logic for managing the
preservation of fields during an update is broken.

Although some devices are able to completely separate these types of
settings and fields into separate components, this is not true for all
hardware.

To support controlling this behavior, a new
DEVLINK_ATTR_FLASH_UPDATE_OVERWRITE_MASK is defined. This is an
nla_bitfield32 which will define what subset of fields in a component
should be overwritten during an update.

If no bits are specified, or of the overwrite mask is not provided, then
an update should not overwrite anything, and should maintain the
settings and identifiers as they are in the previous image.

If the overwrite mask has the DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_SETTINGS bit set,
then the device should be configured to overwrite any of the settings in
the requested component with settings found in the provided image.

Similarly, if the DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_IDENTIFIERS bit is set, the
device should be configured to overwrite any device identifiers in the
requested component with the identifiers from the image.

Multiple overwrite modes may be combined to indicate that a combination
of the set of fields that should be overwritten.

Drivers which support the new overwrite mask must set the
DEVLINK_SUPPORT_FLASH_UPDATE_OVERWRITE_MASK in the
supported_flash_update_params field of their devlink_ops.

Signed-off-by: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 28 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/networking/devlink/devlink-flash.rst b/Documentation/networking/devlink/devlink-flash.rst
index 40a87c0222cb..603e732f00cc 100644
--- a/Documentation/networking/devlink/devlink-flash.rst
+++ b/Documentation/networking/devlink/devlink-flash.rst
@@ -16,6 +16,34 @@ Note that the file name is a path relative to the firmware loading path
 (usually ``/lib/firmware/``). Drivers may send status updates to inform
 user space about the progress of the update operation.
 
+Overwrite Mask
+==============
+
+The ``devlink-flash`` command allows optionally specifying a mask indicating
+how the device should handle subsections of flash components when updating.
+This mask indicates the set of sections which are allowed to be overwritten.
+
+.. list-table:: List of overwrite mask bits
+   :widths: 5 95
+
+   * - Name
+     - Description
+   * - ``DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_SETTINGS``
+     - Indicates that the device should overwrite settings in the components
+       being updated with the settings found in the provided image.
+   * - ``DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_IDENTIFIERS``
+     - Indicates that the device should overwrite identifiers in the
+       components being updated with the identifiers found in the provided
+       image. This includes MAC addresses, serial IDs, and similar device
+       identifiers.
+
+Multiple overwrite bits may be combined and requested together. If no bits
+are provided, it is expected that the device only update firmware binaries
+in the components being updated. Settings and identifiers are expected to be
+preserved across the update. A device may not support every combination and
+the driver for such a device must reject any combination which cannot be
+faithfully implemented.
+
 Firmware Loading
 ================