No mtd block devices under Linux Kernel 5.17.4 Kirkwood

Hi,

Yesterday I upgraded one of my Pogo V4 box to the latest 5.17.4 kernel. When i tried to mount the mtd block devices i received an error, that it does not exists. Looking into the dev list they are indeed missing:

root@server:~# uname -r
5.17.4-kirkwood-tld-1
root@server:~# ls /dev/m*
/dev/mem  /dev/mtd0  /dev/mtd0ro  /dev/mtd1  /dev/mtd1ro

When i downgrade the kernel to 5.15.5 everything works as expected

root@server:~# uname -r
5.15.5-kirkwood-tld-1
root@server:~# ls /dev/m*
/dev/mem  /dev/mtd0  /dev/mtd0ro  /dev/mtd1  /dev/mtd1ro  /dev/mtdblock0  /dev/mtdblock1

I did not try kernel 5.16.5 due to the mentioned USB issues.

What can cause this issue?

The box is on Debian 10:

root@server:~# cat /etc/debian_version 
10.12

Thanks

Schnee



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2022 11:50AM by schnee.

Hi Schnee,

The MTD block was reconfigured to loadable module. It has been giving misleading scary messages for some boxes, so I decided to change it to loadable module.

Quote

Kernel linux-5.16.5-kirkwood-tld-1 package has been uploaded. The following features were added/updated:

- General kernel upgrade
- Add supports for CTera C200 V1 box.
- Move MTD block devices to loadable module.

So load it as a test:

modprobe mtdblock

And later add it to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules to load it when booting.

-bodhi
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2022 03:21PM by bodhi.

I guess i should read the release notes next time more carefully.... I just read the red USB warning

I added the module to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules, then regenerated the initrd file:

cd boot
update-initramfs -u
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T ramdisk -C gzip -a 0x00000000 -e 0x00000000 -n initramfs-5.17.4-kirkwood-tld-1 -d initrd.img-5.17.4-kirkwood-tld-1 uInitrd

Now everything works fine.

I see a notice during boot

[  T159] mtdblock: MTD device 'u-boot' is NAND, please consider using UBI block devices instead.
[  T159] mtdblock: MTD device 'data' is NAND, please consider using UBI block devices instead.

but otherwise everything is clean.

Thanks

Schnee

Hi Schnee,

[  T159] mtdblock: MTD device 'u-boot' is NAND, please consider using UBI block devices instead.

That's OK. Only a warning to recommend people to move on to UBIFS, instead of JFFS2 (the old default).

-bodhi
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