1 files changed, 34 insertions, 20 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/mtd/ubi/scan.c b/drivers/mtd/ubi/scan.c
index 0028bf283930..b65cc088fde5 100644
--- a/drivers/mtd/ubi/scan.c
+++ b/drivers/mtd/ubi/scan.c
@@ -39,32 +39,46 @@
  * eraseblocks are put to the @free list and the physical eraseblock to be
  * erased are put to the @erase list.
  *
+ * About corruptions
+ * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ *
+ * UBI protects EC and VID headers with CRC-32 checksums, so it can detect
+ * whether the headers are corrupted or not. Sometimes UBI also protects the
+ * data with CRC-32, e.g., when it executes the atomic LEB change operation, or
+ * when it moves the contents of a PEB for wear-leveling purposes.
+ *
  * UBI tries to distinguish between 2 types of corruptions.
- * 1. Corruptions caused by power cuts. These are harmless and expected
- *    corruptions and UBI tries to handle them gracefully, without printing too
- *    many warnings and error messages. The idea is that we do not lose
- *    important data in these case - we may lose only the data which was being
- *    written to the media just before the power cut happened, and the upper
- *    layers (e.g., UBIFS) are supposed to handle these situations. UBI puts
- *    these PEBs to the head of the @erase list and they are scheduled for
- *    erasure.
+ *
+ * 1. Corruptions caused by power cuts. These are expected corruptions and UBI
+ * tries to handle them gracefully, without printing too many warnings and
+ * error messages. The idea is that we do not lose important data in these case
+ * - we may lose only the data which was being written to the media just before
+ * the power cut happened, and the upper layers (e.g., UBIFS) are supposed to
+ * handle such data losses (e.g., by using the FS journal).
+ *
+ * When UBI detects a corruption (CRC-32 mismatch) in a PEB, and it looks like
+ * the reason is a power cut, UBI puts this PEB to the @erase list, and all
+ * PEBs in the @erase list are scheduled for erasure later.
  *
  * 2. Unexpected corruptions which are not caused by power cuts. During
- *    scanning, such PEBs are put to the @corr list and UBI preserves them.
- *    Obviously, this lessens the amount of available PEBs, and if at some
- *    point UBI runs out of free PEBs, it switches to R/O mode. UBI also loudly
- *    informs about such PEBs every time the MTD device is attached.
+ * scanning, such PEBs are put to the @corr list and UBI preserves them.
+ * Obviously, this lessens the amount of available PEBs, and if at some  point
+ * UBI runs out of free PEBs, it switches to R/O mode. UBI also loudly informs
+ * about such PEBs every time the MTD device is attached.
  *
  * However, it is difficult to reliably distinguish between these types of
- * corruptions and UBI's strategy is as follows. UBI assumes (2.) if the VID
- * header is corrupted and the data area does not contain all 0xFFs, and there
- * were not bit-flips or integrity errors while reading the data area. Otherwise
- * UBI assumes (1.). The assumptions are:
- *   o if the data area contains only 0xFFs, there is no data, and it is safe
- *     to just erase this PEB.
- *   o if the data area has bit-flips and data integrity errors (ECC errors on
+ * corruptions and UBI's strategy is as follows. UBI assumes corruption type 2
+ * if the VID header is corrupted and the data area does not contain all 0xFFs,
+ * and there were no bit-flips or integrity errors while reading the data area.
+ * Otherwise UBI assumes corruption type 1. So the decision criteria are as
+ * follows.
+ *   o If the data area contains only 0xFFs, there is no data, and it is safe
+ *     to just erase this PEB - this is corruption type 1.
+ *   o If the data area has bit-flips or data integrity errors (ECC errors on
  *     NAND), it is probably a PEB which was being erased when power cut
- *     happened.
+ *     happened, so this is corruption type 1. However, this is just a guess,
+ *     which might be wrong.
+ *   o Otherwise this it corruption type 2.
  */
 
 #include <linux/err.h>