partup 3.0.1

Changes

• Add mtd-utils to the build dependencies and their resulting commands
  on Ubuntu and Arch Linux in the README.
• Add tooling for manually and automatically building Debian packages of
  partup.

Contributors

Martin Schwan

partup 3.0.0

Changes

• Various small improvements to the documentation.

• Describe how to build and install partup in Windows' Subsystem for
  Linux (WSL).

• Add a new module for parsing units and their corresponding factors.
  This allows for parsing sizes and offsets, independent of any
  underlying device.

• Add logic for parsing a list of supported device types. This is needed
  for differentiating layout configuration files meant for different
  devices, such as eMMC and MTD. By default, and to support older layout
  API versions, supported-device-types includes MMC and HD type devices,
  if not specified otherwise.

• Add a new module to support flashing Memory Technology Devices (MTD).
  This requires specifying the appropriate supported-device-type
mtd.

  MTDs can be partitioned. However, partitions are just a statically
  specified section in the flash device, with an offset and size. There
  is no partition table in MTDs and care must be taken not to overlap
  the partitions. This is automatically done with partup, so partitions
  do not overlap or exceed the maximum device size.

  This feature requires the Linux kernel being configured with
  MTD_PARTITIONED_MASTER, so the master device of the MTD is always
  exposed, regardless of it already being partitioned or not.

  As of this point in time (July 2025, Linux 6.15.8), the kernel only
  properly exposes the MTD master device for one MTD at a time. For
  systems with multiple MTDs, e.g. a raw NAND flash and an SPI NOR
  flash, this does not work. This is currently a limitation of the Linux
  MTD driver.

• Test a simple MTD layout configuration.

• Describe how to flash MTDs and how the supported device types
  function. While at it, reorder the sections for MMC devices to be
  separate from the MTD sections. This should clarify the difference
  between MMC/HD partitions and MTD partitions.

• For binary data in eMMC boot partitions, verify the written output
  data, in addition to the already existing input verification. This
  adds the same output verification as exists for the "raw" section.

  First, a checksum is created of the input file while accounting any
  input offset. Then the data is written as usual to the device.
  Finally, the written data is verified at the specified output offset
  against the previously determined checksum.

• Unify raw output data checksum verification for the MTD and MMC
  modules. Provided SHA256 and MD5 sums are only used for verifying the
  input data. Output data is always independently checked with a
  separately generated SHA1 sum.

• Only generate the output data checksum, if not skipping the checksum
  verification. If checksum verification is skipped, there is no point
  in generating an output checksum.

Bug Fixes

• Prefix a GError when package creation failed, instead of overwriting
  it.
• Correctly store the api-version property as an integer, not as a
  pointer.

Contributors

Martin Schwan

partup 2.2.0

Changes

• Allow an empty disklabel and thus skipping partitioning. This also disables any checks whether written raw data would overwrite the partition table and any partitions. Setting eMMC-specific features is still possible in this mode.
• Optimize the statically built binaries of partup by building with the release type and stripping symbols after it.

Contributors

Martin Schwan

partup 2.1.0

Changes

• Verify the checksum of written data, independent of a provided input checksum.
• Reorder some file-related helper functions into their own module. There were no functional changes in this case.

Contributors

Martin Schwan

partup 2.0.0

Changes

• Allow setting the eMMC boot acknowledgement bit.
• Allow enabling or disabling the eMMC H/W reset feature bit. This is a one-time programmable setting.
• Allow setting the eMMC bootbus conditions.
• Print the layout configuration when using partup show.
• Add support for the FAT16 filesystem type.
• Allow passing extra arguments to mkfs when making the filesystem on a partition with the option mkfs-extra-args.
• Print the help text when no command is provided to partup.

Contributors

Martin Schwan, Leonard Anderweit

partup 1.0.0

Changes

• Host partup's documentation on readthedocs.org.
• Add usage description for all commands.
• The layout configuration file does not need to be named layout.yaml anymore. Any yaml file provided will be recognized as the layout.
• Rename the input uri to filename as all files are provided in a package and therefore only need a relative path.
• Set the filesystem label after writing raw ext[234] partition. This overwrites the label of the provided filesystem unless label is set to null.
• Restructure the way eMMC boot partitions are specified in the layout configuration, so other MMC controls can be added in the future. Make the input for eMMC boot partitions optional, allowing to disable them without any input.
• Only write eMMC boot partitions if they actually exist. SD cards do not support eMMC boot partitions, so they should be ignored for this option.
• Allow setting the eMMC boot partition to be enabled by its number. Previously, only a boolean value was allowed, but now it is possible to specify the exact boot partition to enable.
• Multiple binaries for the eMMC boot partitions can now be specified. Each with their own input and output offset.

Bug Fixes

• Set LABEL for supported filesystems during filesystem creation. Previously only PARTLABEL would be set, but this is only supported with GPT.

Contributors

Martin Schwan, Leonard Anderweit

partup 0.4.0

Changes

• Implement a new module "command" that allows creating a context for parsing command line positional arguments. Each command can have their own command-specific options. Use these commands in the main program and move most functionality to commands, except for the automatically generated help option. Also provide commands for inspecting, creating and installing the new partup packages.
• Add a new module for creating and listing content of partup packages. partup packages are just SquashFS images under the hood, but have some specific requirements that allow for an easy way of providing input files and flash layout configurations.
• Check, if raw input data would overwrite the partition table or any other data specified in the layout configuration.
• Add program option --quiet to disable message printing.
• Add option --debug-domains to specify which debug output is printed.
• Improve debug and normal message printing.
• Add a custom logging writer that can format output messages with color, if supported. The output format is slightly tuned from the default coming from GLib, to be shorter and easier to read.
• Remove API documentation generated with Doxygen and Breathe. Since partup does not provide a library, this type of documentation is not needed.
• Describe the main features of partup in the documentation index page.
• Use libmount from util-linux for mount operations instead of calling mount and umount in a command line.
• Use libblkid for detecting drives instead of calling similar commands from a command line.
• Add a build option enabling to statically link GLib and GIO to partup. This is useful to support older systems, where the version of GLib may be too old and does not contain required functions.
• Add more unit tests for various modules.
• Add unit tests for functions requiring root access.

Bug Fixes

• Fix mount detection on devices without partitions.

Contributors

Martin Schwan, Leonard Anderweit

partup 0.3.1

Changes

• Correct a spelling mistake in the configuration reference.
• Print the output message of failed processes spawned by partup.

Bug Fixes

• Fix a bug where partup would not return when specifying an input-offset greater than zero.
• Wait for partitions to show up after setting up the partition layout. This prevents premature writing to partitions not yet known to the operating system.

Contributors

Leonard Anderweit, Martin Schwan

partup 0.3.0

Changes

• Add support for GUID Partition Tables. This includes setting a UUID for each partition using the partuuid option.
• Add a new configuration option clean for cleaning specific sections outside of partitions. This is especially useful to clean previously existing bootloader environments.
• Add a new configuration option flags for partitions. This makes it possible to specify partition flags, as defined by parted.
• Add new configuration option block-size for partitions, to make sure a partition’s size is a multiple of this value.
• Add various checks for:
  • using a correct drive instead of existing partitions.
  • a correct offset of the first partition to not overwrite the partition table.
  • empty uri values in input.
  • missing inputs for raw and emmc-boot-partitions.
• Add option -s, --skip-checksums to skip checksum verification of input files.
• Add option -p, --prefix=PREFIX to add a prefix path to all file-type input URIs.
• Add support for writing ext[234] images to an unformatted partition.
• Resize the filesystem after writing ext[234] files
• Consistently verify the checksum of files before writing them.
• Improve README by listing dependencies and using Meson Build commands only. Add notes about install partup.
• Various improvements and additions to the documentation:
  • Document the supported file types for the input option.
  • Describe the supported output devices.
  • Document the supported partition tables used in the disklabel option.
  • Add examples of the layout configuration file.
  • Add a nice logo for partup.

Bug Fixes

• Make it possible to use /dev/sd* named output devices.
• Unmount dangling partitions in case of a write failure.
• Correctly free an internal object holding a list of input files.
• Only mount partitions when needed during writing.
• Check exit status of spawned processes to uncover any errors.

Contributors

Martin Schwan, Leonard Anderweit

partup 0.2.1

Changes

• Improve the writing of raw data using GLib's streaming function instead of calling a subprocess using dd.
• Improve error handling of the utilities functions.

Bug Fixes

• Increase the padding of logical partitions to two sectors to allow storing the EBR information. Previously, logical partitions may have overlapped because the padding was too narrow.