Hi Frank,
On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 3:36 AM <frowand.list@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Frank Rowand <frank.rowand@xxxxxxxx>
>
> When an overlay is applied or removed, the live devicetree visible in
> /proc/device-tree/, aka /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/, reflects the
> changes. There is no method for user space to determine whether the
> live devicetree was modified by overlay actions.
>
> Provide a sysfs file, /sys/firmware/devicetree/tree_version, to allow
> user space to determine if the live devicetree has remained unchanged
> while a series of one or more accesses of /proc/device-tree/ occur.
Thanks for your patch!
> The use of both dynamic devicetree modifications and overlay apply and
> removal are not supported during the same boot cycle. Thus non-overlay
> dynamic modifications are not reflected in the value of tree_version.
What does this mean exactly, for users?
I am used to applying and removing overlays at run time (still
carrying Pantelis'
overlay configfs patches), but when would I use non-overlay dynamic
modifications?
> --- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-ofw
> +++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-ofw
>
> +What: /sys/firmware/devicetree/tree_version
> +Date: October 2018
> +KernelVersion: 4.20
> +Contact: Frank Rowand <frowand.list@xxxxxxxxx>, devicetree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> +Description:
> + When an overlay is applied or removed, the live devicetree
> + visible in /proc/device-tree/, aka
> + /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/, reflects the changes.
> +
> + tree_version provides a way for user space to determine if the
> + live devicetree has remained unchanged while a series of one
> + or more accesses of /proc/device-tree/ occur.
> +
> + The use of both dynamic devicetree modifications and overlay
> + apply and removal are not supported during the same boot
> + cycle. Thus non-overlay dynamic modifications are not
> + reflected in the value of tree_version.
> +
> + Example shell use of tree_version:
> +
> + done=1
> +
> + while [ $done = 1 ] ; do
> +
> + pre_version=$(cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/tree_version)
> + version=$pre_version
> + while [ $(( ${version} & 1 )) != 0 ] ; do
> + # echo is optional, sleep value can be tuned
> + echo "${version} sleeping"
> + sleep 2;
> + pre_version=$(cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/tree_version)
> + version=${pre_version}
> + done
> +
> + # 'critical region'
> + # access /proc/device-tree/ one or more times
> +
> + post_version=$(cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/tree_version)
> +
> + if [ ${post_version} = ${pre_version} ] ; then
> + done=0
> + fi
> +
> + done
Please say explicitly that tree_version contains a 32-bit unsigned
decimal number, which is incremented before and after every change.
I had to deduce that from the code.
IMHO that is more important than having the sample script here.
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
