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|
<html devsite>
<head>
<title>A/B (Seamless) System Updates</title>
<meta name="project_path" value="/_project.yaml" />
<meta name="book_path" value="/_book.yaml" />
</head>
<body>
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<p>A/B system updates, also known as seamless updates, ensure a workable
booting system remains on the disk during an <a href="/devices/tech/ota/index.html">
over-the-air (OTA) update</a>. This approach reduces the likelihood of
an inactive device after an update, which means fewer device
replacements and device reflashes at repair and warranty centers. Other
commercial-grade operating systems such as
<a href="https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os">ChromeOS</a> also use A/B
updates successfully.
</p>
<p>A/B system updates provide the following benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li>
OTA updates can occur while the system is running, without
interrupting the user (including app optimizations that occur after a
reboot). This means users can continue to use their devices during an
OTA—the only downtime during an update is when the device
reboots into the updated disk partition.
</li>
<li>
If an OTA fails, the device boots into the pre-OTA disk partition and
remains usable. The download of the OTA can be attempted again.
</li>
<li>
Any errors (such as I/O errors) affect only the <strong>unused</strong>
partition set and can be retried. Such errors also become less likely
because the I/O load is deliberately low to avoid degrading the user
experience.
</li>
<li>
Updates can be streamed to A/B devices, removing the need to download
the package before installing it. Streaming means it's not necessary
for the user to have enough free space to store the update package on
<code>/data</code> or <code>/cache</code>.
</li>
<li>
The cache partition is no longer used to store OTA update packages, so
there is no need for sizing the cache partition.
</li>
<li>
<a href="/security/verifiedboot/dm-verity.html">dm-verity</a>
guarantees a device will boot an uncorrupted image. If a device
doesn't boot due to a bad OTA or dm-verity issue, the device can
reboot into an old image. (Android <a href="/security/verifiedboot/">
Verified Boot</a> does not require A/B updates.)
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="overview">About A/B system updates</h2>
<p>A/B system updates affect the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Partition selection (slots), the <code>update_engine</code> daemon,
and bootloader interactions (described below)
</li>
<li>
Build process and OTA update package generation (described in
<a href="/devices/tech/ota/ab_implement.html">Implementing A/B
Updates</a>)
</li>
</ul>
<aside class="note">
<strong>Note:</strong> A/B system updates implemented through OTA are
recommended for new devices only.
</aside>
<h3 id="slots">Partition selection (slots)</h3>
<p>
A/B system updates use two sets of partitions referred to as
<em>slots</em> (normally slot A and slot B). The system runs from
the <em>current</em> slot while the partitions in the <em>unused</em>
slot are not accessed by the running system during normal operation.
This approach makes updates fault resistant by keeping the unused
slot as a fallback: If an error occurs during or immediately after
an update, the system can rollback to the old slot and continue to
have a working system. To achieve this goal, no partition used by
the <em>current</em> slot should be updated as part of the OTA
update (including partitions for which there is only one copy).
</p>
<p>
Each slot has a <em>bootable</em> attribute that states whether the
slot contains a correct system from which the device can boot. The
current slot is bootable when the system is running, but the other
slot may have an old (still correct) version of the system, a newer
version, or invalid data. Regardless of what the <em>current</em>
slot is, there is one slot that is the <em>active</em> slot (the one
the bootloader will boot form on the next boot) or the
<em>preferred</em> slot.
</p>
<p>
Each slot also has a <em>successful</em> attribute set by the user
space, which is relevant only if the slot is also bootable. A
successful slot should be able to boot, run, and update itself. A
bootable slot that was not marked as successful (after several
attempts were made to boot from it) should be marked as unbootable
by the bootloader, including changing the active slot to another
bootable slot (normally to the slot running immediately before the
attempt to boot into the new, active one). The specific details of
the interface are defined in
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/hardware/libhardware/+/master/include/hardware/boot_control.h" class="external-link">
boot_control.h</a></code>.
</p>
<h3 id="update-engine">Update engine daemon</h3>
<p>
A/B system updates use a background daemon called
<code>update_engine</code> to prepare the system to boot into a new,
updated version. This daemon can perform the following actions:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Read from the current slot A/B partitions and write any data to
the unused slot A/B partitions as instructed by the OTA package.
</li>
<li>
Call the <code>boot_control</code> interface in a pre-defined
workflow.
</li>
<li>
Run a <em>post-install</em> program from the <em>new</em>
partition after writing all the unused slot partitions, as
instructed by the OTA package. (For details, see
<a href="#post-installation">Post-installation</a>).
</li>
</ul>
<p>
As the <code>update_engine</code> daemon is not involved in the boot
process itself, it is limited in what it can do during an update by
the <a href="/security/selinux/">SELinux</a> policies and features
in the <em>current</em> slot (such policies and features can't be
updated until the system boots into a new version). To maintain a
robust system, the update process <strong>should not</strong> modify
the partition table, the contents of partitions in the current slot,
or the contents of non-A/B partitions that can't be wiped with a
factory reset.
</p>
<p>
The <code>update_engine</code> source is located in
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/update_engine/" class="external">system/update_engine</a></code>.
The A/B OTA dexopt files are split between <code>installd</code> and
a package manager:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/native/+/master/cmds/installd/" class="external-link">frameworks/native/cmds/installd/</a></code>ota*
includes the postinstall script, the binary for chroot, the
installd clone that calls dex2oat, the post-OTA move-artifacts
script, and the rc file for the move script.
</li>
<li>
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/OtaDexoptService.java" class="external-link">frameworks/base/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/OtaDexoptService.java</a></code>
(plus <code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/OtaDexoptShellCommand.java" class="external-link">OtaDexoptShellCommand</a></code>)
is the package manager that prepares dex2oat commands for
applications.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
For a working example, refer to <code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/marlin/+/nougat-dr1-release/device-common.mk" class="external-link">/device/google/marlin/device-common.mk</a></code>.
</p>
<h3 id="bootloader-interactions">Bootloader interactions</h3>
<p>
The <code>boot_control</code> HAL is used by
<code>update_engine</code> (and possibly other daemons) to instruct
the bootloader what to boot from. Common example scenarios and their
associated states include the following:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong>Normal case</strong>: The system is running from its
current slot, either slot A or B. No updates have been applied so
far. The system's current slot is bootable, successful, and the
active slot.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Update in progress</strong>: The system is running from
slot B, so slot B is the bootable, successful, and active slot.
Slot A was marked as unbootable since the contents of slot A are
being updated but not yet completed. A reboot in this state should
continue booting from slot B.
</li>
<li>
<strong>Update applied, reboot pending</strong>: The system is
running from slot B, slot B is bootable and successful, but slot A
was marked as active (and therefore is marked as bootable). Slot A
is not yet marked as successful and some number of attempts to
boot from slot A should be made by the bootloader.
</li>
<li>
<strong>System rebooted into new update</strong>: The system is
running from slot A for the first time, slot B is still bootable
and successful while slot A is only bootable, and still active but
not successful. A user space daemon, <code>update_verifier</code>,
should mark slot A as successful after some checks are made.
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="streaming-updates">Streaming update support</h3>
<p>
User devices don't always have enough space on <code>/data</code> to
download the update package. As neither OEMs nor users want to waste
space on a <code>/cache</code> partition, some users go without
updates because the device has nowhere to store the update package.
To address this issue, Android 8.0 added support for streaming A/B
updates that write blocks directly to the B partition as they are
downloaded, without having to store the blocks on <code>/data</code>.
Streaming A/B updates need almost no temporary storage and require
just enough storage for roughly 100 KiB of metadata.
</p>
<p>To enable streaming updates in Android 7.1, cherrypick the following
patches:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://android-review.googlesource.com/333624" class="external">
Allow to cancel a proxy resolution request</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://android-review.googlesource.com/333625" class="external">
Fix terminating a transfer while resolving proxies</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://android-review.googlesource.com/333626" class="external">
Add unit test for TerminateTransfer between ranges</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://android-review.googlesource.com/333627" class="external">
Cleanup the RetryTimeoutCallback()</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
These patches are required to support streaming A/B updates in
Android 7.1 and later whether using
<a href="https://www.android.com/gms/">Google Mobile Services
(GMS)</a> or any other update client.
</p>
<h2 id="life-of-an-a-b-update">Life of an A/B update</h2>
<p>
The update process starts when an OTA package (referred to in code as a
<em>payload</em>) is available for downloading. Policies in the device
may defer the payload download and application based on battery level,
user activity, charging status, or other policies. In addition,
because the update runs in the background, users might not know an
update is in progress. All of this means the update process might be
interrupted at any point due to policies, unexpected reboots, or user
actions.
</p>
<p>
Optionally, metadata in the OTA package itself indicates the update
can be streamed; the same package can also be used for non-streaming
installation. The server may use the metadata to tell the client it's
streaming so the client will hand off the OTA to
<code>update_engine</code> correctly. Device manufacturers with their
own server and client can enable streaming updates by ensuring the
server identifies the update is streaming (or assumes all updates are
streaming) and the client makes the correct call to
<code>update_engine</code> for streaming. Manufacturers can use the
fact that the package is of the streaming variant to send a flag to
the client to trigger hand off to the framework side as streaming.
</p>
<p>After a payload is available, the update process is as follows:</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Step</th>
<th>Activities</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>The current slot (or "source slot") is marked as successful (if
not already marked) with <code>markBootSuccessful()</code>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>
The unused slot (or "target slot") is marked as unbootable by
calling the function <code>setSlotAsUnbootable()</code>. The
current slot is always marked as successful at the beginning of
the update to prevent the bootloader from falling back to the
unused slot, which will soon have invalid data. If the system has
reached the point where it can start applying an update, the
current slot is marked as successful even if other major
components are broken (such as the UI in a crash loop) as it is
possible to push new software to fix these problems.
<br /><br />
The update payload is an opaque blob with the instructions to
update to the new version. The update payload consists of the
following:
<ul>
<li>
<em>Metadata</em>. A relatively small portion of the update
payload, the metadata contains a list of operations to produce
and verify the new version on the target slot. For example, an
operation could decompress a certain blob and write it to
specific blocks in a target partition, or read from a source
partition, apply a binary patch, and write to certain blocks
in a target partition.
</li>
<li>
<em>Extra data</em>. As the bulk of the update payload, the
extra data associated with the operations consists of the
compressed blob or binary patch in these examples.
</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>The payload metadata is downloaded.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>
For each operation defined in the metadata, in order, the
associated data (if any) is downloaded to memory, the operation is
applied, and the associated memory is discarded.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>
The whole partitions are re-read and verified against the expected
hash.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td>
The post-install step (if any) is run. In the case of an error
during the execution of any step, the update fails and is
re-attempted with possibly a different payload. If all the steps
so far have succeeded, the update succeeds and the last step is
executed.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td>
The <em>unused slot</em> is marked as active by calling
<code>setActiveBootSlot()</code>. Marking the unused slot as
active doesn't mean it will finish booting. The bootloader (or
system itself) can switch the active slot back if it doesn't read
a successful state.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td>
Post-installation (described below) involves running a program
from the "new update" version while still running in the old
version. If defined in the OTA package, this step is
<strong>mandatory</strong> and the program must return with exit
code <code>0</code>; otherwise, the update fails.
</td>
</tr>
<td>9</td>
<td>
After the system successfully boots far enough into the new slot
and finishes the post-reboot checks, the now current slot
(formerly the "target slot") is marked as successful by calling
<code>markBootSuccessful()</code>.
</td>
<tr>
</table>
<aside class="note">
<strong>Note:</strong> Steps 3 and 4 take most of the update time as
they involve writing and downloading large amounts of data, and are
likely to be interrupted for reasons of policy or reboot.
</aside>
<h3 id="post-installation">Post-installation</h3>
<p>
For every partition where a post-install step is defined,
<code>update_engine</code> mounts the new partition into a specific
location and executes the program specified in the OTA relative to
the mounted partition. For example, if the post-install program is
defined as <code>usr/bin/postinstall</code> in the system partition,
this partition from the unused slot will be mounted in a fixed
location (such as <code>/postinstall_mount</code>) and the
<code>/postinstall_mount/usr/bin/postinstall</code> command is
executed.
</p>
<p>
For post-installation to succeed, the old kernel must be able to:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong>Mount the new filesystem format</strong>. The filesystem
type cannot change unless there's support for it in the old
kernel, including details such as the compression algorithm used
if using a compressed filesystem (i.e. SquashFS).
</li>
<li>
<strong>Understand the new partition's post-install program format</strong>.
If using an Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) binary, it should
be compatible with the old kernel (e.g. a 64-bit new program
running on an old 32-bit kernel if the architecture switched from
32- to 64-bit builds). Unless the loader (<code>ld</code>) is
instructed to use other paths or build a static binary, libraries
will be loaded from the old system image and not the new one.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
For example, you could use a shell script as a post-install program
interpreted by the old system's shell binary with a <code>#!</code>
marker at the top), then set up library paths from the new
environment for executing a more complex binary post-install
program. Alternatively, you could run the post-install step from a
dedicated smaller partition to enable the filesystem format in the
main system partition to be updated without incurring backward
compatibility issues or stepping-stone updates; this would allow
users to update directly to the latest version from a factory image.
</p>
<p>
The new post-install program is limited by the SELinux policies
defined in the old system. As such, the post-install step is
suitable for performing tasks required by design on a given device
or other best-effort tasks (i.e. updating the A/B-capable firmware
or bootloader, preparing copies of databases for the new version,
etc.). The post-install step is <strong>not suitable</strong> for
one-off bug fixes before reboot that require unforeseen permissions.
</p>
<p>
The selected post-install program runs in the
<code>postinstall</code> SELinux context. All the files in the new
mounted partition will be tagged with <code>postinstall_file</code>,
regardless of what their attributes are after rebooting into that
new system. Changes to the SELinux attributes in the new system
won't impact the post-install step. If the post-install program
needs extra permissions, those must be added to the post-install
context.
</p>
<h3 id="after_reboot">After reboot</h3>
<p>
After rebooting, <code>update_verifier</code> triggers the integrity
check using dm-verity. This check starts before zygote to avoid Java
services making any irreversible changes that would prevent a safe
rollback. During this process, bootloader and kernel may also
trigger a reboot if verified boot or dm-verity detect any
corruption. After the check completes, <code>update_verifier</code>
marks the boot successful.
</p>
<p>
<code>update_verifier</code> will read only the blocks listed in
<code>/data/ota_package/care_map.txt</code>, which is included in an
A/B OTA package when using the AOSP code. The Java system update
client, such as GmsCore, extracts <code>care_map.txt</code>, sets up
the access permission before rebooting the device, and deletes the
extracted file after the system successfully boots into the new
version.
</p>
<h2 id="faq">Frequently asked questions</h2>
<h3>Has Google used A/B OTAs on any devices?</h3>
<p>
Yes. The marketing name for A/B updates is <em>seamless updates</em>.
Pixel and Pixel XL phones from October 2016 shipped with A/B, and
all Chromebooks use the same <code>update_engine</code>
implementation of A/B. The necessary platform code implementation is
public in Android 7.1 and higher.
</p>
<h3>Why are A/B OTAs better?</h3>
<p>A/B OTAs provide a better user experience when taking updates. Measurements
from monthly security updates show this feature has already proven a success: As
of May 2017, 95% of Pixel owners are running the latest security update after a
month compared to 87% of Nexus users, and Pixel users update sooner than Nexus
users. Failures to update blocks during an OTA no longer result in a device that
won't boot; until the new system image has successfully booted, Android retains
the ability to fall back to the previous working system image.</p>
<h3>How did A/B affect the 2016 Pixel partition sizes?</h3>
<p>The following table contains details on the shipping A/B configuration versus
the internally-tested non-A/B configuration:</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Pixel partition sizes</th>
<th width="33%">A/B</th>
<th width="33%">Non-A/B</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bootloader</td>
<td>50*2</td>
<td>50</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Boot</td>
<td>32*2</td>
<td>32</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Recovery</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>32</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Cache</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Radio</td>
<td>70*2</td>
<td>70</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Vendor</td>
<td>300*2</td>
<td>300</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>System</td>
<td>2048*2</td>
<td>4096</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Total</strong></td>
<td><strong>5000</strong></td>
<td><strong>4680</strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>A/B updates require an increase of only 320 MiB in flash, with a savings of
32MiB from removing the recovery partition and another 100MiB preserved by
removing the cache partition. This balances the cost of the B partitions for
the bootloader, the boot partition, and the radio partition. The vendor
partition doubled in size (the vast majority of the size increase). Pixel's
A/B system image is half the size of the original non-A/B system image.
</p>
<p>For the Pixel A/B and non-A/B variants tested internally (only A/B shipped),
the space used differed by only 320MiB. On a 32GiB device, this is just under
1%. For a 16GiB device this would be less than 2%, and for an 8GiB device almost
4% (assuming all three devices had the same system image).</p>
<h3>Why didn't you use SquashFS?</h3>
<p>We experimented with SquashFS but weren't able to achieve the performance
desired for a high-end device. We don't use or recommend SquashFS for handheld
devices.</p>
<p>More specifically, SquashFS provided about 50% size savings on the system
partition, but the overwhelming majority of the files that compressed well were
the precompiled .odex files. Those files had very high compression ratios
(approaching 80%), but the compression ratio for the rest of the system
partition was much lower. In addition, SquashFS in Android 7.0 raised the
following performance concerns:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pixel has very fast flash compared to earlier devices but not a huge
number of spare CPU cycles, so reading fewer bytes from flash but needing
more CPU for I/O was a potential bottleneck.</li>
<li>I/O changes that perform well on an artificial benchmark run on an
unloaded system sometimes don't work well on real-world use cases under
real-world load (such as crypto on Nexus 6).</li>
<li>Benchmarking showed 85% regressions in some places.</li>
</ul>
<p>As SquashFS matures and adds features to reduce CPU impact (such as a
whitelist of commonly-accessed files that shouldn't be compressed), we will
continue to evaluate it and offer recommendations to device manufacturers.</p>
<h3>How did you halve the size of the system partition without SquashFS?</h3>
<p>Applications are stored in .apk files, which are actually ZIP archives. Each
.apk file has inside it one or more .dex files containing portable Dalvik
bytecode. An .odex file (optimized .dex) lives separately from the .apk file
and can contain machine code specific to the device. If an .odex file is
available, Android can run applications at ahead-of-time compiled speeds
without having to wait for the code to be compiled each time the application is
launched. An .odex file isn't strictly necessary: Android can actually run the
.dex code directly via interpretation or Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation, but an
.odex file provides the best combination of launch speed and run-time speed if
space is available.</p>
<p>Example: For the installed-files.txt from a Nexus 6P running Android 7.1 with
a total system image size of 2628MiB (2755792836 bytes), the breakdown of the
largest contributors to overall system image size by file type is as follows:
</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>.odex</td>
<td>1391770312 bytes</td>
<td>50.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>.apk</td>
<td>846878259 bytes</td>
<td>30.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>.so (native C/C++ code)</td>
<td>202162479 bytes</td>
<td>7.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>.oat files/.art images</td>
<td>163892188 bytes</td>
<td>5.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Fonts</td>
<td>38952361 bytes</td>
<td>1.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>icu locale data</td>
<td>27468687 bytes</td>
<td>0.9%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>These figures are similar for other devices too, so on Nexus/Pixel
devices, .odex files take up approximately half the system partition. This meant
we could continue to use ext4 but write the .odex files to the B partition
at the factory and then copy them to <code>/data</code> on first boot. The
actual storage used with ext4 A/B is identical to SquashFS A/B, because if we
had used SquashFS we would have shipped the preopted .odex files on system_a
instead of system_b.</p>
<h3>Doesn't copying .odex files to /data mean the space saved on /system is
lost on /data?</h3>
<p>Not exactly. On Pixel, most of the space taken by .odex files is for apps,
which typically exist on <code>/data</code>. These apps take Google Play
updates, so the .apk and .odex files on the system image are unused for most of
the life of the device. Such files can be excluded entirely and replaced by
small, profile-driven .odex files when the user actually uses each app (thus
requiring no space for apps the user doesn't use). For details, refer to the
Google I/O 2016 talk <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMM6g7wpQ8">The
Evolution of Art</a>.</p>
<p>The comparison is difficult for a few key reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Apps updated by Google Play have always had their .odex files on
<code>/data</code> as soon as they receive their first update.</li>
<li>Apps the user doesn't run don't need an .odex file at all.</li>
<li>Profile-driven compilation generates smaller .odex files than ahead-of-time
compilation (because the former optimizes only performance-critical code).</li>
</ul>
<p>For details on the tuning options available to OEMs, see
<a href="/devices/tech/dalvik/configure.html">Configuring ART</a>.</p>
<h3>Aren't there two copies of the .odex files on /data?</h3>
<p>It's a little more complicated ... After the new system image has been
written, the new version of dex2oat is run against the new .dex files to
generate the new .odex files. This occurs while the old system is still running,
so the old and new .odex files are both on <code>/data</code> at the same time.
</p>
<p>The code in OtaDexoptService
(<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/OtaDexoptService.java#200" class="external">frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/OtaDexoptService.java#200</a></code>)
calls <code>getAvailableSpace</code> before optimizing each package to avoid
over-filling <code>/data</code>. Note that <em>available</em> here is still
conservative: it's the amount of space left <em>before</em> hitting the usual
system low space threshold (measured as both a percentage and a byte count). So
if <code>/data</code> is full, there won't be two copies of every .odex file.
The same code also has a BULK_DELETE_THRESHOLD: If the device gets that close
to filling the available space (as just described), the .odex files belonging to
apps that aren't used are removed. That's another case without two copies of
every .odex file.</p>
<p>In the worst case where <code>/data</code> is completely full, the update
waits until the device has rebooted into the new system and no longer needs the
old system's .odex files. The PackageManager handles this:
(<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/PackageManagerService.java#7215" class="external">frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/services/core/java/com/android/server/pm/PackageManagerService.java#7215</a></code>). After the new system has
successfully booted, <code>installd</code>
(<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/native/+/nougat-mr1-release/cmds/installd/commands.cpp#2192" class="external">frameworks/native/+/nougat-mr1-release/cmds/installd/commands.cpp#2192</a></code>)
can remove the .odex files that were used by the old system, returning the
device back to the steady state where there's only one copy.</p>
<p>So, while it is possible that <code>/data</code> contains two copies of all
the .odex files, (a) this is temporary and (b) only occurs if you had plenty of
free space on <code>/data</code> anyway. Except during an update, there's only
one copy. And as part of ART's general robustness features, it will never fill
<code>/data</code> with .odex files anyway (because that would be a problem on a
non-A/B system too).</p>
<h3>Doesn't all this writing/copying increase flash wear?</h3>
<p>Only a small portion of flash is rewritten: a full Pixel system update
writes about 2.3GiB. (Apps are also recompiled, but that's true of non-A/B
too.) Traditionally, block-based full OTAs wrote a similar amount of data, so
flash wear rates should be similar.</p>
<h3>Does flashing two system partitions increase factory flashing time?</h3>
<p>No. Pixel didn't increase in system image size (it merely divided the space
across two partitions).</p>
<h3>Doesn't keeping .odex files on B make rebooting after factory data reset
slow?</h3>
<p>Yes. If you've actually used a device, taken an OTA, and performed a factory
data reset, the first reboot will be slower than it would otherwise be (1m40s vs
40s on a Pixel XL) because the .odex files will have been lost from B after the
first OTA and so can't be copied to <code>/data</code>. That's the trade-off.</p>
<p>Factory data reset should be a rare operation when compared to regular boot
so the time taken is less important. (This doesn't affect users or reviewers who
get their device from the factory, because in that case the B partition is
available.) Use of the JIT compiler means we don't need to recompile
<em>everything</em>, so it's not as bad as you might think. It's also possible
to mark apps as requiring ahead-of-time compilation using
<code>coreApp="true"</code> in the manifest:
(<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/packages/SystemUI/AndroidManifest.xml#23" class="external">frameworks/base/+/nougat-mr1-release/packages/SystemUI/AndroidManifest.xml#23</a></code>).
This is currently used by <code>system_server</code> because it's not allowed to
JIT for security reasons.</p>
<h3>Doesn't keeping .odex files on /data rather than /system make rebooting
after an OTA slow?</h3>
<p>No. As explained above, the new dex2oat is run while the old system image is
still running to generate the files that will be needed by the new system. The
update isn't considered available until that work has been done.</p>
<h3>Can (should) we ship a 32GiB A/B device? 16GiB? 8GiB?</h3>
<p>32GiB works well as it was proven on Pixel, and 320MiB out of 16GiB means a
reduction of 2%. Similarly, 320MiB out of 8GiB a reduction of 4%. Obviously
A/B would not be the recommended choice on devices with 4GiB, as the 320MiB
overhead is almost 10% of the total available space.</p>
<h3>Does AVB2.0 require A/B OTAs?</h3>
<p>No. Android <a href="/security/verifiedboot/">Verified Boot</a> has always
required block-based updates, but not necessarily A/B updates.</p>
<h3>Do A/B OTAs require AVB2.0?</h3>
<p>No.</p>
<h3>Do A/B OTAs break AVB2.0's rollback protection?</h3>
<p>No. There's some confusion here because if an A/B system fails to boot into
the new system image it will (after some number of retries determined by your
bootloader) automatically revert to the "previous" system image. The key point
here though is that "previous" in the A/B sense is actually still the "current"
system image. As soon as the device successfully boots a new image, rollback
protection kicks in and ensures that you can't go back. But until you've
actually successfully booted the new image, rollback protection doesn't
consider it to be the current system image.</p>
<h3>If you're installing an update while the system is running, isn't that
slow?</h3>
<p>With non-A/B updates, the aim is to install the update as quickly as
possible because the user is waiting and unable to use their device while the
update is applied. With A/B updates, the opposite is true; because the user is
still using their device, as little impact as possible is the goal, so the
update is deliberately slow. Via logic in the Java system update client (which
for Google is GmsCore, the core package provided by GMS), Android also attempts
to choose a time when the users aren't using their devices at all. The platform
supports pausing/resuming the update, and the client can use that to pause the
update if the user starts to use the device and resume it when the device is
idle again.</p>
<p>There are two phases while taking an OTA, shown clearly in the UI as
<em>Step 1 of 2</em> and <em>Step 2 of 2</em> under the progress bar. Step 1
corresponds with writing the data blocks, while step 2 is pre-compiling the
.dex files. These two phases are quite different in terms of performance
impact. The first phase is simple I/O. This requires little in the way of
resources (RAM, CPU, I/O) because it's just slowly copying blocks around.</p>
<p>The second phase runs dex2oat to precompile the new system image. This
obviously has less clear bounds on its requirements because it compiles actual
apps. And there's obviously much more work involved in compiling a large and
complex app than a small and simple app; whereas in phase 1 there are no disk
blocks that are larger or more complex than others.</p>
<p>The process is similar to when Google Play installs an app update in the
background before showing the <em>5 apps updated</em> notification, as has been
done for years.</p>
<h3>What if a user is actually waiting for the update?</h3>
<p>The current implementation in GmsCore doesn't distinguish between background
updates and user-initiated updates but may do so in the future. In the case
where the user explicitly asked for the update to be installed or is watching
the update progress screen, we'll prioritize the update work on the assumption
that they're actively waiting for it to finish.</p>
<h3>What happens if there's a failure to apply an update?</h3>
<p>With non-A/B updates, if an update failed to apply, the user was usually
left with an unusable device. The only exception was if the failure occurred
before an application had even started (because the package failed to verify,
say). With A/B updates, a failure to apply an update does not affect the
currently running system. The update can simply be retried later.</p>
<h3>What does GmsCore do?</h3>
<p>In Google's A/B implementation, the platform APIs and
<code>update_engine</code> provide the mechanism while GmsCore provides the
policy. That is, the platform knows <em>how</em> to apply an A/B update and all
that code is in AOSP (as mentioned above); but it's GmsCore that decides
<em>what</em> and <em>when</em> to apply.</p>
<p>If you’re not using GmsCore, you can write your own replacement using the
same platform APIs. The platform Java API for controlling
<code>update_engine</code> is <code>android.os.UpdateEngine</code>:
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/core/java/android/os/UpdateEngine.java" class="external-link">frameworks/base/core/java/android/os/UpdateEngine.java</a></code>.
Callers can provide an <code>UpdateEngineCallback</code> to be notified of status
updates:
<code><a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/core/java/android/os/UpdateEngineCallback.java" class="external-link">frameworks/base/+/master/core/java/android/os/UpdateEngineCallback.java</a></code>.
Refer to the reference files for the core classes to use the interface.</p>
<h3>Which systems on a chip (SoCs) support A/B?</h3>
<p>As of 2017-03-15, we have the following information:</p>
<table class="style0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td><strong>Android 7.x Release</strong></td>
<td><strong>Android 8.x Release</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Qualcomm</strong></td>
<td>Depending on OEM requests </td>
<td>All chipsets will get support</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Mediatek</strong></td>
<td>Depending on OEM requests</td>
<td>All chipsets will get support</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>For details on schedules, check with your SoC contacts. For SoCs not listed
above, reach out to your SoC directly.</p>
</body>
</html>
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