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Date:      Sun, 10 Jul 2022 13:48:59 -0700
From:      Mark Millard <marklmi@yahoo.com>
To:        "Dr. Rolf Jansen" <freebsd-rj@cyclaero.com>
Cc:        freebsd-arm <freebsd-arm@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Partition layout of ARM SD card images
Message-ID:  <FA446115-E78D-42C9-B5B0-21EF88075FC1@yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <1F42EED0-B39F-4E33-986A-FB70A3AA4362@cyclaero.com>
References:  <1F42EED0-B39F-4E33-986A-FB70A3AA4362@cyclaero.com>

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On 2022-Jul-10, at 12:26, Dr. Rolf Jansen <freebsd-rj@cyclaero.com> =
wrote:

> For example let's have a llok on the partition layout of, =
FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img (the others are similar):
>=20
> # mdconfig -a -u 0 -t vnode -f =
diskimg/FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img
> # gpart show md0 md0s2
>=20
>   =3D>     63  6291393  md0  MBR  (3.0G)
>          63     2016       - free -  (1.0M)
>        2079   102312    1  fat32lba  [active]  (50M)
>      104391  6187041    2  freebsd  (3.0G)
>     6291432       24       - free -  (12K)
>=20
>   =3D>      0  6187041  md0s2  BSD  (3.0G)
>           0       57         - free -  (29K)
>          57  6186880      1  freebsd-ufs  (2.9G)
>     6186937      104         - free -  (52K)
>=20
> The start of the fat32 boot slice s1 (containing the u-boot) stuff is =
neither aligned to 1M nor to 4k, it starts on an odd base. The start of =
the BSD payload slice s2 and its size are odd as well. The padding of 57 =
blocks within s2 lets the UFS partition start on a globally even base, =
namely 104391+57 =3D 104448, which as a matter of fact is 4k aligned =
(104448*512/4096 =3D 13056) and 1M aligned as well (104448*512/1024/1024 =
=3D 51), however all this keeps looking strange.
>=20
> Are there reasons for this partition layout besides making it look =
more interesting? If yes, some insights would be good.

The layout details are more specific to the aarch64 RPi* context
than to general aarch64 SD card images. For example, the Rock64
image is different:

# mdconfig -a -u 0 -t vnode -f  =
FreeBSD-14.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-ROCK64-20220708-a0b956f5ac5-256605.img
# gpart show md0
=3D>     40  6291376  md0  GPT  (3.0G)
       40    32728       - free -  (16M)
    32768   102400    1  efi  (50M)
   135168  6156160    2  freebsd-ufs  (2.9G)
  6291328       88       - free -  (44K)

The 32768 is associated with:

# more /usr/local/share/u-boot/u-boot-rock64/README=20
U-Boot loader and related files for the Pine64 Rock64.

To install this bootloader on an sdcard just do:
dd if=3D/usr/local/share/u-boot/u-boot-rock64/idbloader.img =
of=3D/path/to/sdcarddevice seek=3D64 bs=3D512 conv=3Dsync
dd if=3D/usr/local/share/u-boot/u-boot-rock64/u-boot.itb =
of=3D/path/to/sdcarddevice seek=3D16384 bs=3D512 conv=3Dsync

where the sizes are:

103411 for idbloader.img
793560 for u-boot.itb

In other words: assocaited with having room for
the idbloader and U-Boot as required by the Rock64.
[Most U-Boot's(/whatever's) are not placed inside
a file system and the positions/sizes vary. The
Rock64 is just an example that I happen to have
access to.]

[If I make my own partitioning, I tend to use the 32768 so
U-Boot/whatever fairly generally have room to be replaced.
But I've not checked if any u-boot/whatever ports require
even more space up front. I tend to set up to also allow
the RPi* to boot as well as the likes of the Rock64 (or
whatever).]

Looking at what the official raspios arm64 images look
like, for example:

=
https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_lite_arm64/images/raspios_lite_a=
rm64-2022-04-07/2022-04-04-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz

# mdconfig -a -u 1 -t vnode -f =
2022-04-04-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img=20
# gpart show md1
=3D>     33  3907551  md1  MBR  (1.9G)
       33     8159       - free -  (4.0M)
     8192   524288    1  fat32lba  (256M)
   532480  3375104    2  linux-data  (1.6G)

Note the 256M fat32lba instead of only 50M. This dates back
to:

QUOTE
2019-06-20:
  * Based on Debian Buster
. . .
  * Boot partition size set to 256M
  * Linux kernel 4.19.50
  * Raspberry Pi firmware 88ca9081f5e51cdedd16d5dbc85ed12a25123201
END QUOTE

rpi-update has logic that can produce the following
kind of message:

QUOTE
Partition size $(( $PARTSIZE >> 20 ))M may not be sufficient for new Pi4 =
files
This could result in a system that will not boot.
256M FAT partition is recommended. Ensure you have a backup if =
continuing.
END QUOTE

It has had that since 2019-Jun-24, 882f5c1 in:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-update/commits/master/rpi-update

I do not know when the 8192 usage started.

It is possible that the FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img
structure just dates back to matching far earlier Raspberry Pi
images. (I did not look that far back.)

> For the time being, I created a second SD card from the initial one =
for my RPi 4, and it's partition table is as follows:
>=20
> # gpart show mmcsd0 mmcsd0s2
>   =3D>      63  62410689  mmcsd0  MBR  (30G)
>           63        25          - free -  (13K)
>           88    102312       1  fat32lba  [active]  (50M)
>       102400  62308352       2  freebsd  (30G)
>=20
>   =3D>       0  62308352  mmcsd0s2  BSD  (30G)
>            0  56623104         1  freebsd-ufs  (27G)
>     56623104   5685248         2  freebsd-swap  (2.7G)



=3D=3D=3D
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com




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