A single {IDF_TARGET_NAME}'s flash can contain multiple apps, as well as many different kinds of data (calibration data, filesystems, parameter storage, etc). For this reason a partition table is flashed to (:ref:`default offset <CONFIG_PARTITION_TABLE_OFFSET>`) 0x8000 in the flash.
Partition table length is 0xC00 bytes (maximum 95 partition table entries). An MD5 checksum, which is used for checking the integrity of the partition table, is appended after the table data.
Each entry in the partition table has a name (label), type (app, data, or something else), subtype and the offset in flash where the partition is loaded.
The simplest way to use the partition table is to open the project configuration menu (``idf.py menuconfig``) and choose one of the simple predefined partition tables under :ref:`CONFIG_PARTITION_TABLE_TYPE`:
In both cases the factory app is flashed at offset 0x10000. If you execute `idf.py partition-table` then it will print a summary of the partition table.
* There are now three app partition definitions. The type of the factory app (at 0x10000) and the next two "OTA" apps are all set to "app", but their subtypes are different.
* There is also a new "otadata" slot, which holds the data for OTA updates. The bootloader consults this data in order to know which app to execute. If "ota data" is empty, it will execute the factory app.
If you choose "Custom partition table CSV" in menuconfig then you can also enter the name of a CSV file (in the project directory) to use for your partition table. The CSV file can describe any number of definitions for the table you need.
The CSV format is the same format as printed in the summaries shown above. However, not all fields are required in the CSV. For example, here is the "input" CSV for the OTA partition table::
* The "Offset" field for each partition is empty. The gen_esp32part.py tool fills in each blank offset, starting after the partition table and making sure each partition is aligned correctly.
Partition type field can be specified as ``app`` (0x00) or ``data`` (0x01). Or it can be a number 0-254 (or as hex 0x00-0xFE). Types 0x00-0x3F are reserved for ESP-IDF core functions.
If writing in C++ then specifying a application-defined partition type requires casting an integer to :cpp:type:`esp_partition_type_t` in order to use it with the :ref:`partition API<api-reference-partition-table>`. For example::
The 8-bit subtype field is specific to a given partition type. ESP-IDF currently only specifies the meaning of the subtype field for ``app`` and ``data`` partition types.
See enum :cpp:type:`esp_partition_subtype_t` for the full list of subtypes defined by ESP-IDF, including the following:
-``factory`` (0x00) is the default app partition. The bootloader will execute the factory app unless there it sees a partition of type data/ota, in which case it reads this partition to determine which OTA image to boot.
-``ota_0`` (0x10) ... ``ota_15`` (0x1F) are the OTA app slots. When :doc:`OTA <../api-reference/system/ota>` is in use, the OTA data partition configures which app slot the bootloader should boot. When using OTA, an application should have at least two OTA application slots (``ota_0`` & ``ota_1``). Refer to the :doc:`OTA documentation <../api-reference/system/ota>` for more details.
-``test`` (0x20) is a reserved subtype for factory test procedures. It will be used as the fallback boot partition if no other valid app partition is found. It is also possible to configure the bootloader to read a GPIO input during each boot, and boot this partition if the GPIO is held low, see :ref:`bootloader_boot_from_test_firmware`.
* When type is ``data``, the subtype field can be specified as ``ota`` (0x00), ``phy`` (0x01), ``nvs`` (0x02), nvs_keys (0x04), or a range of other component-specific subtypes (see :cpp:type:`subtype enum <esp_partition_subtype_t>`).
-``ota`` (0) is the :ref:`OTA data partition <ota_data_partition>` which stores information about the currently selected OTA app slot. This partition should be 0x2000 bytes in size. Refer to the :ref:`OTA documentation <ota_data_partition>` for more details.
-``phy`` (1) is for storing PHY initialisation data. This allows PHY to be configured per-device, instead of in firmware.
- In the default configuration, the phy partition is not used and PHY initialisation data is compiled into the app itself. As such, this partition can be removed from the partition table to save space.
- To load PHY data from this partition, open the project configuration menu (``idf.py menuconfig``) and enable {IDF_TARGET_ESP_PHY_REF} option. You will also need to flash your devices with phy init data as the esp-idf build system does not do this automatically.
- NVS is used to store WiFi data if the :doc:`esp_wifi_set_storage(WIFI_STORAGE_FLASH) <../api-reference/network/esp_wifi>` initialisation function is used.
- There are other predefined data subtypes for data storage supported by ESP-IDF. These include :doc:`FAT filesystem </api-reference/storage/fatfs>` (:cpp:enumerator:`ESP_PARTITION_SUBTYPE_DATA_FAT`), :doc:`SPIFFS </api-reference/storage/spiffs>` (:cpp:enumerator:`ESP_PARTITION_SUBTYPE_DATA_SPIFFS`), etc.
Other subtypes of ``data`` type are reserved for future ESP-IDF uses.
* If the partition type is any application-defined value (range 0x40-0xFE), then ``subtype`` field can be any value chosen by the application (range 0x00-0xFE).
Note that when writing in C++, an application-defined subtype value requires casting to type :cpp:type:`esp_partition_subtype_t` in order to use it with the :ref:`partition API<api-reference-partition-table>`.
Partitions with blank offsets in the CSV file will start after the previous partition, or after the partition table in the case of the first partition.
Partitions of type ``app`` have to be placed at offsets aligned to 0x10000 (64K). If you leave the offset field blank, ``gen_esp32part.py`` will automatically align the partition. If you specify an unaligned offset for an app partition, the tool will return an error.
If you want the partitions in the partition table to work relative to any placement (:ref:`CONFIG_PARTITION_TABLE_OFFSET`) of the table itself, leave the offset field (in CSV file) for all partitions blank. Similarly, if changing the partition table offset then be aware that all blank partition offsets may change to match, and that any fixed offsets may now collide with the partition table (causing an error).
Only one flag is currently supported, ``encrypted``. If this field is set to ``encrypted``, this partition will be encrypted if :doc:`/security/flash-encryption` is enabled.
The partition table which is flashed to the {IDF_TARGET_NAME} is in a binary format, not CSV. The tool :component_file:`partition_table/gen_esp32part.py` is used to convert between CSV and binary formats.
If you configure the partition table CSV name in the project configuration (``idf.py menuconfig``) and then build the project or run ``idf.py partition-table``, this conversion is done as part of the build process.
To display the contents of a binary partition table on stdout (this is how the summaries displayed when running ``idf.py partition-table`` are generated::
The ESP-IDF build system will automatically check if generated binaries fit in the available partition space, and will fail with an error if a binary is too large.
Currently these checks are performed for the following binaries:
* App binary should fit in at least one partition of type "app". If the app binary doesn't fit in any app partition, the build will fail. If it only fits in some of the app partitions, a warning is printed about this.
..note::
Although the build process will fail if the size check returns an error, the binary files are still generated and can be flashed (although they may not work if they are too large for the available space.)
The binary format of the partition table contains an MD5 checksum computed based on the partition table. This checksum is used for checking the integrity of the partition table during the boot.
The MD5 checksum generation can be disabled by the ``--disable-md5sum`` option of ``gen_esp32part.py`` or by the :ref:`CONFIG_PARTITION_TABLE_MD5` option. This is useful for example when one :ref:`uses a bootloader from ESP-IDF before v3.1 <CONFIG_APP_COMPATIBLE_PRE_V3_1_BOOTLOADERS>` which cannot process MD5 checksums and the boot fails with the error message ``invalid magic number 0xebeb``.
The MD5 checksum generation can be disabled by the ``--disable-md5sum`` option of ``gen_esp32part.py`` or by the :ref:`CONFIG_PARTITION_TABLE_MD5` option.
Note that updating the partition table doesn't erase data that may have been stored according to the old partition table. You can use ``idf.py erase-flash`` (or ``esptool.py erase_flash``) to erase the entire flash contents.
The component `partition_table` provides a tool :component_file:`parttool.py<partition_table/parttool.py>` for performing partition-related operations on a target device. The following operations can be performed using the tool:
- reading a partition and saving the contents to a file (read_partition)
- writing the contents of a file to a partition (write_partition)
The tool can either be imported and used from another Python script or invoked from shell script for users wanting to perform operation programmatically. This is facilitated by the tool's Python API and command-line interface, respectively.
The partition to operate on is specified using `PartitionName` or `PartitionType` or PARTITION_BOOT_DEFAULT. As the name implies, these can be used to refer to partitions of a particular name, type-subtype combination, or the default boot partition.
