+++ /dev/null
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
- "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
-
-<book id="Linux-USB-API">
- <bookinfo>
- <title>The Linux-USB Host Side API</title>
-
- <legalnotice>
- <para>
- This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
- it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
- License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
- version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
- version.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
- useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
- warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
- See the GNU General Public License for more details.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
- License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
- Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
- MA 02111-1307 USA
- </para>
-
- <para>
- For more details see the file COPYING in the source
- distribution of Linux.
- </para>
- </legalnotice>
- </bookinfo>
-
-<toc></toc>
-
-<chapter id="intro">
- <title>Introduction to USB on Linux</title>
-
- <para>A Universal Serial Bus (USB) is used to connect a host,
- such as a PC or workstation, to a number of peripheral
- devices. USB uses a tree structure, with the host as the
- root (the system's master), hubs as interior nodes, and
- peripherals as leaves (and slaves).
- Modern PCs support several such trees of USB devices, usually
- a few USB 3.0 (5 GBit/s) or USB 3.1 (10 GBit/s) and some legacy
- USB 2.0 (480 MBit/s) busses just in case.
- </para>
-
- <para>That master/slave asymmetry was designed-in for a number of
- reasons, one being ease of use. It is not physically possible to
- mistake upstream and downstream or it does not matter with a type C
- plug
- (or they are built into the peripheral).
- Also, the host software doesn't need to deal with distributed
- auto-configuration since the pre-designated master node manages all that.
- </para>
-
- <para>Kernel developers added USB support to Linux early in the 2.2 kernel
- series and have been developing it further since then. Besides support
- for each new generation of USB, various host controllers gained support,
- new drivers for peripherals have been added and advanced features for latency
- measurement and improved power management introduced.
- </para>
-
- <para>Linux can run inside USB devices as well as on
- the hosts that control the devices.
- But USB device drivers running inside those peripherals
- don't do the same things as the ones running inside hosts,
- so they've been given a different name:
- <emphasis>gadget drivers</emphasis>.
- This document does not cover gadget drivers.
- </para>
-
- </chapter>
-
-<chapter id="host">
- <title>USB Host-Side API Model</title>
-
- <para>Host-side drivers for USB devices talk to the "usbcore" APIs.
- There are two. One is intended for
- <emphasis>general-purpose</emphasis> drivers (exposed through
- driver frameworks), and the other is for drivers that are
- <emphasis>part of the core</emphasis>.
- Such core drivers include the <emphasis>hub</emphasis> driver
- (which manages trees of USB devices) and several different kinds
- of <emphasis>host controller drivers</emphasis>,
- which control individual busses.
- </para>
-
- <para>The device model seen by USB drivers is relatively complex.
- </para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
-
- <listitem><para>USB supports four kinds of data transfers
- (control, bulk, interrupt, and isochronous). Two of them (control
- and bulk) use bandwidth as it's available,
- while the other two (interrupt and isochronous)
- are scheduled to provide guaranteed bandwidth.
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>The device description model includes one or more
- "configurations" per device, only one of which is active at a time.
- Devices are supposed to be capable of operating at lower than their top
- speeds and may provide a BOS descriptor showing the lowest speed they
- remain fully operational at.
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>From USB 3.0 on configurations have one or more "functions", which
- provide a common functionality and are grouped together for purposes
- of power management.
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>Configurations or functions have one or more "interfaces", each
- of which may have "alternate settings". Interfaces may be
- standardized by USB "Class" specifications, or may be specific to
- a vendor or device.</para>
-
- <para>USB device drivers actually bind to interfaces, not devices.
- Think of them as "interface drivers", though you
- may not see many devices where the distinction is important.
- <emphasis>Most USB devices are simple, with only one configuration,
- one function, one interface, and one alternate setting.</emphasis>
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>Interfaces have one or more "endpoints", each of
- which supports one type and direction of data transfer such as
- "bulk out" or "interrupt in". The entire configuration may have
- up to sixteen endpoints in each direction, allocated as needed
- among all the interfaces.
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>Data transfer on USB is packetized; each endpoint
- has a maximum packet size.
- Drivers must often be aware of conventions such as flagging the end
- of bulk transfers using "short" (including zero length) packets.
- </para></listitem>
-
- <listitem><para>The Linux USB API supports synchronous calls for
- control and bulk messages.
- It also supports asynchronous calls for all kinds of data transfer,
- using request structures called "URBs" (USB Request Blocks).
- </para></listitem>
-
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <para>Accordingly, the USB Core API exposed to device drivers
- covers quite a lot of territory. You'll probably need to consult
- the USB 3.0 specification, available online from www.usb.org at
- no cost, as well as class or device specifications.
- </para>
-
- <para>The only host-side drivers that actually touch hardware
- (reading/writing registers, handling IRQs, and so on) are the HCDs.
- In theory, all HCDs provide the same functionality through the same
- API. In practice, that's becoming mostly true,
- but there are still differences that crop up especially with
- fault handling on the less common controllers.
- Different controllers don't necessarily report
- the same aspects of failures, and recovery from faults (including
- software-induced ones like unlinking an URB) isn't yet fully
- consistent.
- Device driver authors should make a point of doing disconnect
- testing (while the device is active) with each different host
- controller driver, to make sure drivers don't have bugs of
- their own as well as to make sure they aren't relying on some
- HCD-specific behavior.
- </para>
-
- </chapter>
-
-<chapter id="types"><title>USB-Standard Types</title>
-
- <para>In <filename><linux/usb/ch9.h></filename> you will find
- the USB data types defined in chapter 9 of the USB specification.
- These data types are used throughout USB, and in APIs including
- this host side API, gadget APIs, and usbfs.
- </para>
-
-!Iinclude/linux/usb/ch9.h
-
- </chapter>
-
-<chapter id="hostside"><title>Host-Side Data Types and Macros</title>
-
- <para>The host side API exposes several layers to drivers, some of
- which are more necessary than others.
- These support lifecycle models for host side drivers
- and devices, and support passing buffers through usbcore to
- some HCD that performs the I/O for the device driver.
- </para>
-
-
-!Iinclude/linux/usb.h
-
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="usbcore"><title>USB Core APIs</title>
-
- <para>There are two basic I/O models in the USB API.
- The most elemental one is asynchronous: drivers submit requests
- in the form of an URB, and the URB's completion callback
- handles the next step.
- All USB transfer types support that model, although there
- are special cases for control URBs (which always have setup
- and status stages, but may not have a data stage) and
- isochronous URBs (which allow large packets and include
- per-packet fault reports).
- Built on top of that is synchronous API support, where a
- driver calls a routine that allocates one or more URBs,
- submits them, and waits until they complete.
- There are synchronous wrappers for single-buffer control
- and bulk transfers (which are awkward to use in some
- driver disconnect scenarios), and for scatterlist based
- streaming i/o (bulk or interrupt).
- </para>
-
- <para>USB drivers need to provide buffers that can be
- used for DMA, although they don't necessarily need to
- provide the DMA mapping themselves.
- There are APIs to use used when allocating DMA buffers,
- which can prevent use of bounce buffers on some systems.
- In some cases, drivers may be able to rely on 64bit DMA
- to eliminate another kind of bounce buffer.
- </para>
-
-!Edrivers/usb/core/urb.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/message.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/file.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/driver.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/usb.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/hub.c
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="hcd"><title>Host Controller APIs</title>
-
- <para>These APIs are only for use by host controller drivers,
- most of which implement standard register interfaces such as
- XHCI, EHCI, OHCI, or UHCI.
- UHCI was one of the first interfaces, designed by Intel and
- also used by VIA; it doesn't do much in hardware.
- OHCI was designed later, to have the hardware do more work
- (bigger transfers, tracking protocol state, and so on).
- EHCI was designed with USB 2.0; its design has features that
- resemble OHCI (hardware does much more work) as well as
- UHCI (some parts of ISO support, TD list processing).
- XHCI was designed with USB 3.0. It continues to shift support
- for functionality into hardware.
- </para>
-
- <para>There are host controllers other than the "big three",
- although most PCI based controllers (and a few non-PCI based
- ones) use one of those interfaces.
- Not all host controllers use DMA; some use PIO, and there
- is also a simulator and a virtual host controller to pipe
- USB over the network.
- </para>
-
- <para>The same basic APIs are available to drivers for all
- those controllers.
- For historical reasons they are in two layers:
- <structname>struct usb_bus</structname> is a rather thin
- layer that became available in the 2.2 kernels, while
- <structname>struct usb_hcd</structname> is a more featureful
- layer that
- lets HCDs share common code, to shrink driver size
- and significantly reduce hcd-specific behaviors.
- </para>
-
-!Edrivers/usb/core/hcd.c
-!Edrivers/usb/core/hcd-pci.c
-!Idrivers/usb/core/buffer.c
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="usbfs">
- <title>The USB Filesystem (usbfs)</title>
-
- <para>This chapter presents the Linux <emphasis>usbfs</emphasis>.
- You may prefer to avoid writing new kernel code for your
- USB driver; that's the problem that usbfs set out to solve.
- User mode device drivers are usually packaged as applications
- or libraries, and may use usbfs through some programming library
- that wraps it. Such libraries include
- <ulink url="http://libusb.sourceforge.net">libusb</ulink>
- for C/C++, and
- <ulink url="http://jUSB.sourceforge.net">jUSB</ulink> for Java.
- </para>
-
- <note><title>Unfinished</title>
- <para>This particular documentation is incomplete,
- especially with respect to the asynchronous mode.
- As of kernel 2.5.66 the code and this (new) documentation
- need to be cross-reviewed.
- </para>
- </note>
-
- <para>Configure usbfs into Linux kernels by enabling the
- <emphasis>USB filesystem</emphasis> option (CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS),
- and you get basic support for user mode USB device drivers.
- Until relatively recently it was often (confusingly) called
- <emphasis>usbdevfs</emphasis> although it wasn't solving what
- <emphasis>devfs</emphasis> was.
- Every USB device will appear in usbfs, regardless of whether or
- not it has a kernel driver.
- </para>
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-files">
- <title>What files are in "usbfs"?</title>
-
- <para>Conventionally mounted at
- <filename>/proc/bus/usb</filename>, usbfs
- features include:
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem><para><filename>/proc/bus/usb/devices</filename>
- ... a text file
- showing each of the USB devices on known to the kernel,
- and their configuration descriptors.
- You can also poll() this to learn about new devices.
- </para></listitem>
- <listitem><para><filename>/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD</filename>
- ... magic files
- exposing the each device's configuration descriptors, and
- supporting a series of ioctls for making device requests,
- including I/O to devices. (Purely for access by programs.)
- </para></listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </para>
-
- <para> Each bus is given a number (BBB) based on when it was
- enumerated; within each bus, each device is given a similar
- number (DDD).
- Those BBB/DDD paths are not "stable" identifiers;
- expect them to change even if you always leave the devices
- plugged in to the same hub port.
- <emphasis>Don't even think of saving these in application
- configuration files.</emphasis>
- Stable identifiers are available, for user mode applications
- that want to use them. HID and networking devices expose
- these stable IDs, so that for example you can be sure that
- you told the right UPS to power down its second server.
- "usbfs" doesn't (yet) expose those IDs.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-fstab">
- <title>Mounting and Access Control</title>
-
- <para>There are a number of mount options for usbfs, which will
- be of most interest to you if you need to override the default
- access control policy.
- That policy is that only root may read or write device files
- (<filename>/proc/bus/BBB/DDD</filename>) although anyone may read
- the <filename>devices</filename>
- or <filename>drivers</filename> files.
- I/O requests to the device also need the CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability,
- </para>
-
- <para>The significance of that is that by default, all user mode
- device drivers need super-user privileges.
- You can change modes or ownership in a driver setup
- when the device hotplugs, or maye just start the
- driver right then, as a privileged server (or some activity
- within one).
- That's the most secure approach for multi-user systems,
- but for single user systems ("trusted" by that user)
- it's more convenient just to grant everyone all access
- (using the <emphasis>devmode=0666</emphasis> option)
- so the driver can start whenever it's needed.
- </para>
-
- <para>The mount options for usbfs, usable in /etc/fstab or
- in command line invocations of <emphasis>mount</emphasis>, are:
-
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry>
- <term><emphasis>busgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB
- directories. (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>busmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB
- directories. (Default: 0555)
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>busuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB
- directories. (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>devgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
- files. (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>devmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
- files. (Default: 0644)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>devuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
- files. (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>listgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
- (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>listmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
- (Default: 0444)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><emphasis>listuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
- <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
- /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
- (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
-
- </para>
-
- <para>Note that many Linux distributions hard-wire the mount options
- for usbfs in their init scripts, such as
- <filename>/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit</filename>,
- rather than making it easy to set this per-system
- policy in <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-devices">
- <title>/proc/bus/usb/devices</title>
-
- <para>This file is handy for status viewing tools in user
- mode, which can scan the text format and ignore most of it.
- More detailed device status (including class and vendor
- status) is available from device-specific files.
- For information about the current format of this file,
- see the
- <filename>Documentation/usb/proc_usb_info.txt</filename>
- file in your Linux kernel sources.
- </para>
-
- <para>This file, in combination with the poll() system call, can
- also be used to detect when devices are added or removed:
-<programlisting>int fd;
-struct pollfd pfd;
-
-fd = open("/proc/bus/usb/devices", O_RDONLY);
-pfd = { fd, POLLIN, 0 };
-for (;;) {
- /* The first time through, this call will return immediately. */
- poll(&pfd, 1, -1);
-
- /* To see what's changed, compare the file's previous and current
- contents or scan the filesystem. (Scanning is more precise.) */
-}</programlisting>
- Note that this behavior is intended to be used for informational
- and debug purposes. It would be more appropriate to use programs
- such as udev or HAL to initialize a device or start a user-mode
- helper program, for instance.
- </para>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-bbbddd">
- <title>/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD</title>
-
- <para>Use these files in one of these basic ways:
- </para>
-
- <para><emphasis>They can be read,</emphasis>
- producing first the device descriptor
- (18 bytes) and then the descriptors for the current configuration.
- See the USB 2.0 spec for details about those binary data formats.
- You'll need to convert most multibyte values from little endian
- format to your native host byte order, although a few of the
- fields in the device descriptor (both of the BCD-encoded fields,
- and the vendor and product IDs) will be byteswapped for you.
- Note that configuration descriptors include descriptors for
- interfaces, altsettings, endpoints, and maybe additional
- class descriptors.
- </para>
-
- <para><emphasis>Perform USB operations</emphasis> using
- <emphasis>ioctl()</emphasis> requests to make endpoint I/O
- requests (synchronously or asynchronously) or manage
- the device.
- These requests need the CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability,
- as well as filesystem access permissions.
- Only one ioctl request can be made on one of these
- device files at a time.
- This means that if you are synchronously reading an endpoint
- from one thread, you won't be able to write to a different
- endpoint from another thread until the read completes.
- This works for <emphasis>half duplex</emphasis> protocols,
- but otherwise you'd use asynchronous i/o requests.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-lifecycle">
- <title>Life Cycle of User Mode Drivers</title>
-
- <para>Such a driver first needs to find a device file
- for a device it knows how to handle.
- Maybe it was told about it because a
- <filename>/sbin/hotplug</filename> event handling agent
- chose that driver to handle the new device.
- Or maybe it's an application that scans all the
- /proc/bus/usb device files, and ignores most devices.
- In either case, it should <function>read()</function> all
- the descriptors from the device file,
- and check them against what it knows how to handle.
- It might just reject everything except a particular
- vendor and product ID, or need a more complex policy.
- </para>
-
- <para>Never assume there will only be one such device
- on the system at a time!
- If your code can't handle more than one device at
- a time, at least detect when there's more than one, and
- have your users choose which device to use.
- </para>
-
- <para>Once your user mode driver knows what device to use,
- it interacts with it in either of two styles.
- The simple style is to make only control requests; some
- devices don't need more complex interactions than those.
- (An example might be software using vendor-specific control
- requests for some initialization or configuration tasks,
- with a kernel driver for the rest.)
- </para>
-
- <para>More likely, you need a more complex style driver:
- one using non-control endpoints, reading or writing data
- and claiming exclusive use of an interface.
- <emphasis>Bulk</emphasis> transfers are easiest to use,
- but only their sibling <emphasis>interrupt</emphasis> transfers
- work with low speed devices.
- Both interrupt and <emphasis>isochronous</emphasis> transfers
- offer service guarantees because their bandwidth is reserved.
- Such "periodic" transfers are awkward to use through usbfs,
- unless you're using the asynchronous calls. However, interrupt
- transfers can also be used in a synchronous "one shot" style.
- </para>
-
- <para>Your user-mode driver should never need to worry
- about cleaning up request state when the device is
- disconnected, although it should close its open file
- descriptors as soon as it starts seeing the ENODEV
- errors.
- </para>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1 id="usbfs-ioctl"><title>The ioctl() Requests</title>
-
- <para>To use these ioctls, you need to include the following
- headers in your userspace program:
-<programlisting>#include <linux/usb.h>
-#include <linux/usbdevice_fs.h>
-#include <asm/byteorder.h></programlisting>
- The standard USB device model requests, from "Chapter 9" of
- the USB 2.0 specification, are automatically included from
- the <filename><linux/usb/ch9.h></filename> header.
- </para>
-
- <para>Unless noted otherwise, the ioctl requests
- described here will
- update the modification time on the usbfs file to which
- they are applied (unless they fail).
- A return of zero indicates success; otherwise, a
- standard USB error code is returned. (These are
- documented in
- <filename>Documentation/usb/error-codes.txt</filename>
- in your kernel sources.)
- </para>
-
- <para>Each of these files multiplexes access to several
- I/O streams, one per endpoint.
- Each device has one control endpoint (endpoint zero)
- which supports a limited RPC style RPC access.
- Devices are configured
- by hub_wq (in the kernel) setting a device-wide
- <emphasis>configuration</emphasis> that affects things
- like power consumption and basic functionality.
- The endpoints are part of USB <emphasis>interfaces</emphasis>,
- which may have <emphasis>altsettings</emphasis>
- affecting things like which endpoints are available.
- Many devices only have a single configuration and interface,
- so drivers for them will ignore configurations and altsettings.
- </para>
-
-
- <sect2 id="usbfs-mgmt">
- <title>Management/Status Requests</title>
-
- <para>A number of usbfs requests don't deal very directly
- with device I/O.
- They mostly relate to device management and status.
- These are all synchronous requests.
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE</term>
- <listitem><para>This is used to force usbfs to
- claim a specific interface,
- which has not previously been claimed by usbfs or any other
- kernel driver.
- The ioctl parameter is an integer holding the number of
- the interface (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor).
- </para><para>
- Note that if your driver doesn't claim an interface
- before trying to use one of its endpoints, and no
- other driver has bound to it, then the interface is
- automatically claimed by usbfs.
- </para><para>
- This claim will be released by a RELEASEINTERFACE ioctl,
- or by closing the file descriptor.
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CONNECTINFO</term>
- <listitem><para>Says whether the device is lowspeed.
- The ioctl parameter points to a structure like this:
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_connectinfo {
- unsigned int devnum;
- unsigned char slow;
-}; </programlisting>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- <emphasis>You can't tell whether a "not slow"
- device is connected at high speed (480 MBit/sec)
- or just full speed (12 MBit/sec).</emphasis>
- You should know the devnum value already,
- it's the DDD value of the device file name.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_GETDRIVER</term>
- <listitem><para>Returns the name of the kernel driver
- bound to a given interface (a string). Parameter
- is a pointer to this structure, which is modified:
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_getdriver {
- unsigned int interface;
- char driver[USBDEVFS_MAXDRIVERNAME + 1];
-};</programlisting>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_IOCTL</term>
- <listitem><para>Passes a request from userspace through
- to a kernel driver that has an ioctl entry in the
- <emphasis>struct usb_driver</emphasis> it registered.
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_ioctl {
- int ifno;
- int ioctl_code;
- void *data;
-};
-
-/* user mode call looks like this.
- * 'request' becomes the driver->ioctl() 'code' parameter.
- * the size of 'param' is encoded in 'request', and that data
- * is copied to or from the driver->ioctl() 'buf' parameter.
- */
-static int
-usbdev_ioctl (int fd, int ifno, unsigned request, void *param)
-{
- struct usbdevfs_ioctl wrapper;
-
- wrapper.ifno = ifno;
- wrapper.ioctl_code = request;
- wrapper.data = param;
-
- return ioctl (fd, USBDEVFS_IOCTL, &wrapper);
-} </programlisting>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- This request lets kernel drivers talk to user mode code
- through filesystem operations even when they don't create
- a character or block special device.
- It's also been used to do things like ask devices what
- device special file should be used.
- Two pre-defined ioctls are used
- to disconnect and reconnect kernel drivers, so
- that user mode code can completely manage binding
- and configuration of devices.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RELEASEINTERFACE</term>
- <listitem><para>This is used to release the claim usbfs
- made on interface, either implicitly or because of a
- USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE call, before the file
- descriptor is closed.
- The ioctl parameter is an integer holding the number of
- the interface (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor);
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><warning><para>
- <emphasis>No security check is made to ensure
- that the task which made the claim is the one
- which is releasing it.
- This means that user mode driver may interfere
- other ones. </emphasis>
- </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RESETEP</term>
- <listitem><para>Resets the data toggle value for an endpoint
- (bulk or interrupt) to DATA0.
- The ioctl parameter is an integer endpoint number
- (1 to 15, as identified in the endpoint descriptor),
- with USB_DIR_IN added if the device's endpoint sends
- data to the host.
- </para><warning><para>
- <emphasis>Avoid using this request.
- It should probably be removed.</emphasis>
- Using it typically means the device and driver will lose
- toggle synchronization. If you really lost synchronization,
- you likely need to completely handshake with the device,
- using a request like CLEAR_HALT
- or SET_INTERFACE.
- </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_DROP_PRIVILEGES</term>
- <listitem><para>This is used to relinquish the ability
- to do certain operations which are considered to be
- privileged on a usbfs file descriptor.
- This includes claiming arbitrary interfaces, resetting
- a device on which there are currently claimed interfaces
- from other users, and issuing USBDEVFS_IOCTL calls.
- The ioctl parameter is a 32 bit mask of interfaces
- the user is allowed to claim on this file descriptor.
- You may issue this ioctl more than one time to narrow
- said mask.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
- </variablelist>
-
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="usbfs-sync">
- <title>Synchronous I/O Support</title>
-
- <para>Synchronous requests involve the kernel blocking
- until the user mode request completes, either by
- finishing successfully or by reporting an error.
- In most cases this is the simplest way to use usbfs,
- although as noted above it does prevent performing I/O
- to more than one endpoint at a time.
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_BULK</term>
- <listitem><para>Issues a bulk read or write request to the
- device.
- The ioctl parameter is a pointer to this structure:
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_bulktransfer {
- unsigned int ep;
- unsigned int len;
- unsigned int timeout; /* in milliseconds */
- void *data;
-};</programlisting>
- </para><para>The "ep" value identifies a
- bulk endpoint number (1 to 15, as identified in an endpoint
- descriptor),
- masked with USB_DIR_IN when referring to an endpoint which
- sends data to the host from the device.
- The length of the data buffer is identified by "len";
- Recent kernels support requests up to about 128KBytes.
- <emphasis>FIXME say how read length is returned,
- and how short reads are handled.</emphasis>.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CLEAR_HALT</term>
- <listitem><para>Clears endpoint halt (stall) and
- resets the endpoint toggle. This is only
- meaningful for bulk or interrupt endpoints.
- The ioctl parameter is an integer endpoint number
- (1 to 15, as identified in an endpoint descriptor),
- masked with USB_DIR_IN when referring to an endpoint which
- sends data to the host from the device.
- </para><para>
- Use this on bulk or interrupt endpoints which have
- stalled, returning <emphasis>-EPIPE</emphasis> status
- to a data transfer request.
- Do not issue the control request directly, since
- that could invalidate the host's record of the
- data toggle.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CONTROL</term>
- <listitem><para>Issues a control request to the device.
- The ioctl parameter points to a structure like this:
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_ctrltransfer {
- __u8 bRequestType;
- __u8 bRequest;
- __u16 wValue;
- __u16 wIndex;
- __u16 wLength;
- __u32 timeout; /* in milliseconds */
- void *data;
-};</programlisting>
- </para><para>
- The first eight bytes of this structure are the contents
- of the SETUP packet to be sent to the device; see the
- USB 2.0 specification for details.
- The bRequestType value is composed by combining a
- USB_TYPE_* value, a USB_DIR_* value, and a
- USB_RECIP_* value (from
- <emphasis><linux/usb.h></emphasis>).
- If wLength is nonzero, it describes the length of the data
- buffer, which is either written to the device
- (USB_DIR_OUT) or read from the device (USB_DIR_IN).
- </para><para>
- At this writing, you can't transfer more than 4 KBytes
- of data to or from a device; usbfs has a limit, and
- some host controller drivers have a limit.
- (That's not usually a problem.)
- <emphasis>Also</emphasis> there's no way to say it's
- not OK to get a short read back from the device.
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RESET</term>
- <listitem><para>Does a USB level device reset.
- The ioctl parameter is ignored.
- After the reset, this rebinds all device interfaces.
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><warning><para>
- <emphasis>Avoid using this call</emphasis>
- until some usbcore bugs get fixed,
- since it does not fully synchronize device, interface,
- and driver (not just usbfs) state.
- </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SETINTERFACE</term>
- <listitem><para>Sets the alternate setting for an
- interface. The ioctl parameter is a pointer to a
- structure like this:
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_setinterface {
- unsigned int interface;
- unsigned int altsetting;
-}; </programlisting>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- Those struct members are from some interface descriptor
- applying to the current configuration.
- The interface number is the bInterfaceNumber value, and
- the altsetting number is the bAlternateSetting value.
- (This resets each endpoint in the interface.)
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SETCONFIGURATION</term>
- <listitem><para>Issues the
- <function>usb_set_configuration</function> call
- for the device.
- The parameter is an integer holding the number of
- a configuration (bConfigurationValue from descriptor).
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><warning><para>
- <emphasis>Avoid using this call</emphasis>
- until some usbcore bugs get fixed,
- since it does not fully synchronize device, interface,
- and driver (not just usbfs) state.
- </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- </variablelist>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="usbfs-async">
- <title>Asynchronous I/O Support</title>
-
- <para>As mentioned above, there are situations where it may be
- important to initiate concurrent operations from user mode code.
- This is particularly important for periodic transfers
- (interrupt and isochronous), but it can be used for other
- kinds of USB requests too.
- In such cases, the asynchronous requests described here
- are essential. Rather than submitting one request and having
- the kernel block until it completes, the blocking is separate.
- </para>
-
- <para>These requests are packaged into a structure that
- resembles the URB used by kernel device drivers.
- (No POSIX Async I/O support here, sorry.)
- It identifies the endpoint type (USBDEVFS_URB_TYPE_*),
- endpoint (number, masked with USB_DIR_IN as appropriate),
- buffer and length, and a user "context" value serving to
- uniquely identify each request.
- (It's usually a pointer to per-request data.)
- Flags can modify requests (not as many as supported for
- kernel drivers).
- </para>
-
- <para>Each request can specify a realtime signal number
- (between SIGRTMIN and SIGRTMAX, inclusive) to request a
- signal be sent when the request completes.
- </para>
-
- <para>When usbfs returns these urbs, the status value
- is updated, and the buffer may have been modified.
- Except for isochronous transfers, the actual_length is
- updated to say how many bytes were transferred; if the
- USBDEVFS_URB_DISABLE_SPD flag is set
- ("short packets are not OK"), if fewer bytes were read
- than were requested then you get an error report.
- </para>
-
-<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc {
- unsigned int length;
- unsigned int actual_length;
- unsigned int status;
-};
-
-struct usbdevfs_urb {
- unsigned char type;
- unsigned char endpoint;
- int status;
- unsigned int flags;
- void *buffer;
- int buffer_length;
- int actual_length;
- int start_frame;
- int number_of_packets;
- int error_count;
- unsigned int signr;
- void *usercontext;
- struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc iso_frame_desc[];
-};</programlisting>
-
- <para> For these asynchronous requests, the file modification
- time reflects when the request was initiated.
- This contrasts with their use with the synchronous requests,
- where it reflects when requests complete.
- </para>
-
- <variablelist>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_DISCARDURB</term>
- <listitem><para>
- <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_DISCSIGNAL</term>
- <listitem><para>
- <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_REAPURB</term>
- <listitem><para>
- <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_REAPURBNDELAY</term>
- <listitem><para>
- <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
- File modification time is not updated by this request.
- </para><para>
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SUBMITURB</term>
- <listitem><para>
- <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
- </para><para>
- </para></listitem></varlistentry>
-
- </variablelist>
- </sect2>
-
- </sect1>
-
- </chapter>
-
-</book>
-<!-- vim:syntax=sgml:sw=4
--->
--- /dev/null
+===========================
+The Linux-USB Host Side API
+===========================
+
+Introduction to USB on Linux
+============================
+
+A Universal Serial Bus (USB) is used to connect a host, such as a PC or
+workstation, to a number of peripheral devices. USB uses a tree
+structure, with the host as the root (the system's master), hubs as
+interior nodes, and peripherals as leaves (and slaves). Modern PCs
+support several such trees of USB devices, usually
+a few USB 3.0 (5 GBit/s) or USB 3.1 (10 GBit/s) and some legacy
+USB 2.0 (480 MBit/s) busses just in case.
+
+That master/slave asymmetry was designed-in for a number of reasons, one
+being ease of use. It is not physically possible to mistake upstream and
+downstream or it does not matter with a type C plug (or they are built into the
+peripheral). Also, the host software doesn't need to deal with
+distributed auto-configuration since the pre-designated master node
+manages all that.
+
+Kernel developers added USB support to Linux early in the 2.2 kernel
+series and have been developing it further since then. Besides support
+for each new generation of USB, various host controllers gained support,
+new drivers for peripherals have been added and advanced features for latency
+measurement and improved power management introduced.
+
+Linux can run inside USB devices as well as on the hosts that control
+the devices. But USB device drivers running inside those peripherals
+don't do the same things as the ones running inside hosts, so they've
+been given a different name: *gadget drivers*. This document does not
+cover gadget drivers.
+
+USB Host-Side API Model
+=======================
+
+Host-side drivers for USB devices talk to the "usbcore" APIs. There are
+two. One is intended for *general-purpose* drivers (exposed through
+driver frameworks), and the other is for drivers that are *part of the
+core*. Such core drivers include the *hub* driver (which manages trees
+of USB devices) and several different kinds of *host controller
+drivers*, which control individual busses.
+
+The device model seen by USB drivers is relatively complex.
+
+- USB supports four kinds of data transfers (control, bulk, interrupt,
+ and isochronous). Two of them (control and bulk) use bandwidth as
+ it's available, while the other two (interrupt and isochronous) are
+ scheduled to provide guaranteed bandwidth.
+
+- The device description model includes one or more "configurations"
+ per device, only one of which is active at a time. Devices are supposed
+ to be capable of operating at lower than their top
+ speeds and may provide a BOS descriptor showing the lowest speed they
+ remain fully operational at.
+
+- From USB 3.0 on configurations have one or more "functions", which
+ provide a common functionality and are grouped together for purposes
+ of power management.
+
+- Configurations or functions have one or more "interfaces", each of which may have
+ "alternate settings". Interfaces may be standardized by USB "Class"
+ specifications, or may be specific to a vendor or device.
+
+ USB device drivers actually bind to interfaces, not devices. Think of
+ them as "interface drivers", though you may not see many devices
+ where the distinction is important. *Most USB devices are simple,
+ with only one function, one configuration, one interface, and one alternate
+ setting.*
+
+- Interfaces have one or more "endpoints", each of which supports one
+ type and direction of data transfer such as "bulk out" or "interrupt
+ in". The entire configuration may have up to sixteen endpoints in
+ each direction, allocated as needed among all the interfaces.
+
+- Data transfer on USB is packetized; each endpoint has a maximum
+ packet size. Drivers must often be aware of conventions such as
+ flagging the end of bulk transfers using "short" (including zero
+ length) packets.
+
+- The Linux USB API supports synchronous calls for control and bulk
+ messages. It also supports asynchronous calls for all kinds of data
+ transfer, using request structures called "URBs" (USB Request
+ Blocks).
+
+Accordingly, the USB Core API exposed to device drivers covers quite a
+lot of territory. You'll probably need to consult the USB 3.0
+specification, available online from www.usb.org at no cost, as well as
+class or device specifications.
+
+The only host-side drivers that actually touch hardware (reading/writing
+registers, handling IRQs, and so on) are the HCDs. In theory, all HCDs
+provide the same functionality through the same API. In practice, that's
+becoming more true, but there are still differences
+that crop up especially with fault handling on the less common controllers.
+Different controllers don't
+necessarily report the same aspects of failures, and recovery from
+faults (including software-induced ones like unlinking an URB) isn't yet
+fully consistent. Device driver authors should make a point of doing
+disconnect testing (while the device is active) with each different host
+controller driver, to make sure drivers don't have bugs of their own as
+well as to make sure they aren't relying on some HCD-specific behavior.
+
+USB-Standard Types
+==================
+
+In ``<linux/usb/ch9.h>`` you will find the USB data types defined in
+chapter 9 of the USB specification. These data types are used throughout
+USB, and in APIs including this host side API, gadget APIs, and usbfs.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/usb/ch9.h
+ :internal:
+
+Host-Side Data Types and Macros
+===============================
+
+The host side API exposes several layers to drivers, some of which are
+more necessary than others. These support lifecycle models for host side
+drivers and devices, and support passing buffers through usbcore to some
+HCD that performs the I/O for the device driver.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/usb.h
+ :internal:
+
+USB Core APIs
+=============
+
+There are two basic I/O models in the USB API. The most elemental one is
+asynchronous: drivers submit requests in the form of an URB, and the
+URB's completion callback handles the next step. All USB transfer types
+support that model, although there are special cases for control URBs
+(which always have setup and status stages, but may not have a data
+stage) and isochronous URBs (which allow large packets and include
+per-packet fault reports). Built on top of that is synchronous API
+support, where a driver calls a routine that allocates one or more URBs,
+submits them, and waits until they complete. There are synchronous
+wrappers for single-buffer control and bulk transfers (which are awkward
+to use in some driver disconnect scenarios), and for scatterlist based
+streaming i/o (bulk or interrupt).
+
+USB drivers need to provide buffers that can be used for DMA, although
+they don't necessarily need to provide the DMA mapping themselves. There
+are APIs to use used when allocating DMA buffers, which can prevent use
+of bounce buffers on some systems. In some cases, drivers may be able to
+rely on 64bit DMA to eliminate another kind of bounce buffer.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/urb.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/message.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/file.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/driver.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/usb.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/hub.c
+ :export:
+
+Host Controller APIs
+====================
+
+These APIs are only for use by host controller drivers, most of which
+implement standard register interfaces such as XHCI, EHCI, OHCI, or UHCI. UHCI
+was one of the first interfaces, designed by Intel and also used by VIA;
+it doesn't do much in hardware. OHCI was designed later, to have the
+hardware do more work (bigger transfers, tracking protocol state, and so
+on). EHCI was designed with USB 2.0; its design has features that
+resemble OHCI (hardware does much more work) as well as UHCI (some parts
+of ISO support, TD list processing). XHCI was designed with USB 3.0. It
+continues to shift support for functionality into hardware.
+
+There are host controllers other than the "big three", although most PCI
+based controllers (and a few non-PCI based ones) use one of those
+interfaces. Not all host controllers use DMA; some use PIO, and there is
+also a simulator and a virtual host controller to pipe USB over the network.
+
+The same basic APIs are available to drivers for all those controllers.
+For historical reasons they are in two layers: :c:type:`struct
+usb_bus <usb_bus>` is a rather thin layer that became available
+in the 2.2 kernels, while :c:type:`struct usb_hcd <usb_hcd>`
+is a more featureful layer
+that lets HCDs share common code, to shrink driver size and
+significantly reduce hcd-specific behaviors.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/hcd.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/hcd-pci.c
+ :export:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/usb/core/buffer.c
+ :internal:
+
+The USB Filesystem (usbfs)
+==========================
+
+This chapter presents the Linux *usbfs*. You may prefer to avoid writing
+new kernel code for your USB driver; that's the problem that usbfs set
+out to solve. User mode device drivers are usually packaged as
+applications or libraries, and may use usbfs through some programming
+library that wraps it. Such libraries include
+`libusb <http://libusb.sourceforge.net>`__ for C/C++, and
+`jUSB <http://jUSB.sourceforge.net>`__ for Java.
+
+ **Note**
+
+ This particular documentation is incomplete, especially with respect
+ to the asynchronous mode. As of kernel 2.5.66 the code and this
+ (new) documentation need to be cross-reviewed.
+
+Configure usbfs into Linux kernels by enabling the *USB filesystem*
+option (CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS), and you get basic support for user mode
+USB device drivers. Until relatively recently it was often (confusingly)
+called *usbdevfs* although it wasn't solving what *devfs* was. Every USB
+device will appear in usbfs, regardless of whether or not it has a
+kernel driver.
+
+What files are in "usbfs"?
+--------------------------
+
+Conventionally mounted at ``/proc/bus/usb``, usbfs features include:
+
+- ``/proc/bus/usb/devices`` ... a text file showing each of the USB
+ devices on known to the kernel, and their configuration descriptors.
+ You can also poll() this to learn about new devices.
+
+- ``/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD`` ... magic files exposing the each device's
+ configuration descriptors, and supporting a series of ioctls for
+ making device requests, including I/O to devices. (Purely for access
+ by programs.)
+
+Each bus is given a number (BBB) based on when it was enumerated; within
+each bus, each device is given a similar number (DDD). Those BBB/DDD
+paths are not "stable" identifiers; expect them to change even if you
+always leave the devices plugged in to the same hub port. *Don't even
+think of saving these in application configuration files.* Stable
+identifiers are available, for user mode applications that want to use
+them. HID and networking devices expose these stable IDs, so that for
+example you can be sure that you told the right UPS to power down its
+second server. "usbfs" doesn't (yet) expose those IDs.
+
+Mounting and Access Control
+---------------------------
+
+There are a number of mount options for usbfs, which will be of most
+interest to you if you need to override the default access control
+policy. That policy is that only root may read or write device files
+(``/proc/bus/BBB/DDD``) although anyone may read the ``devices`` or
+``drivers`` files. I/O requests to the device also need the
+CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability,
+
+The significance of that is that by default, all user mode device
+drivers need super-user privileges. You can change modes or ownership in
+a driver setup when the device hotplugs, or maye just start the driver
+right then, as a privileged server (or some activity within one). That's
+the most secure approach for multi-user systems, but for single user
+systems ("trusted" by that user) it's more convenient just to grant
+everyone all access (using the *devmode=0666* option) so the driver can
+start whenever it's needed.
+
+The mount options for usbfs, usable in /etc/fstab or in command line
+invocations of *mount*, are:
+
+*busgid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the GID used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB directories.
+ (Default: 0)
+
+*busmode*\ =MMM
+ Controls the file mode used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB directories.
+ (Default: 0555)
+
+*busuid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the UID used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB directories.
+ (Default: 0)
+
+*devgid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the GID used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD files. (Default:
+ 0)
+
+*devmode*\ =MMM
+ Controls the file mode used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD files.
+ (Default: 0644)
+
+*devuid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the UID used for the /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD files. (Default:
+ 0)
+
+*listgid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the GID used for the /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers
+ files. (Default: 0)
+
+*listmode*\ =MMM
+ Controls the file mode used for the /proc/bus/usb/devices and
+ drivers files. (Default: 0444)
+
+*listuid*\ =NNNNN
+ Controls the UID used for the /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers
+ files. (Default: 0)
+
+Note that many Linux distributions hard-wire the mount options for usbfs
+in their init scripts, such as ``/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit``, rather than
+making it easy to set this per-system policy in ``/etc/fstab``.
+
+/proc/bus/usb/devices
+---------------------
+
+This file is handy for status viewing tools in user mode, which can scan
+the text format and ignore most of it. More detailed device status
+(including class and vendor status) is available from device-specific
+files. For information about the current format of this file, see the
+``Documentation/usb/proc_usb_info.txt`` file in your Linux kernel
+sources.
+
+This file, in combination with the poll() system call, can also be used
+to detect when devices are added or removed:
+
+::
+
+ int fd;
+ struct pollfd pfd;
+
+ fd = open("/proc/bus/usb/devices", O_RDONLY);
+ pfd = { fd, POLLIN, 0 };
+ for (;;) {
+ /* The first time through, this call will return immediately. */
+ poll(&pfd, 1, -1);
+
+ /* To see what's changed, compare the file's previous and current
+ contents or scan the filesystem. (Scanning is more precise.) */
+ }
+
+Note that this behavior is intended to be used for informational and
+debug purposes. It would be more appropriate to use programs such as
+udev or HAL to initialize a device or start a user-mode helper program,
+for instance.
+
+/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
+---------------------
+
+Use these files in one of these basic ways:
+
+*They can be read,* producing first the device descriptor (18 bytes) and
+then the descriptors for the current configuration. See the USB 2.0 spec
+for details about those binary data formats. You'll need to convert most
+multibyte values from little endian format to your native host byte
+order, although a few of the fields in the device descriptor (both of
+the BCD-encoded fields, and the vendor and product IDs) will be
+byteswapped for you. Note that configuration descriptors include
+descriptors for interfaces, altsettings, endpoints, and maybe additional
+class descriptors.
+
+*Perform USB operations* using *ioctl()* requests to make endpoint I/O
+requests (synchronously or asynchronously) or manage the device. These
+requests need the CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability, as well as filesystem
+access permissions. Only one ioctl request can be made on one of these
+device files at a time. This means that if you are synchronously reading
+an endpoint from one thread, you won't be able to write to a different
+endpoint from another thread until the read completes. This works for
+*half duplex* protocols, but otherwise you'd use asynchronous i/o
+requests.
+
+Life Cycle of User Mode Drivers
+-------------------------------
+
+Such a driver first needs to find a device file for a device it knows
+how to handle. Maybe it was told about it because a ``/sbin/hotplug``
+event handling agent chose that driver to handle the new device. Or
+maybe it's an application that scans all the /proc/bus/usb device files,
+and ignores most devices. In either case, it should :c:func:`read()`
+all the descriptors from the device file, and check them against what it
+knows how to handle. It might just reject everything except a particular
+vendor and product ID, or need a more complex policy.
+
+Never assume there will only be one such device on the system at a time!
+If your code can't handle more than one device at a time, at least
+detect when there's more than one, and have your users choose which
+device to use.
+
+Once your user mode driver knows what device to use, it interacts with
+it in either of two styles. The simple style is to make only control
+requests; some devices don't need more complex interactions than those.
+(An example might be software using vendor-specific control requests for
+some initialization or configuration tasks, with a kernel driver for the
+rest.)
+
+More likely, you need a more complex style driver: one using non-control
+endpoints, reading or writing data and claiming exclusive use of an
+interface. *Bulk* transfers are easiest to use, but only their sibling
+*interrupt* transfers work with low speed devices. Both interrupt and
+*isochronous* transfers offer service guarantees because their bandwidth
+is reserved. Such "periodic" transfers are awkward to use through usbfs,
+unless you're using the asynchronous calls. However, interrupt transfers
+can also be used in a synchronous "one shot" style.
+
+Your user-mode driver should never need to worry about cleaning up
+request state when the device is disconnected, although it should close
+its open file descriptors as soon as it starts seeing the ENODEV errors.
+
+The ioctl() Requests
+--------------------
+
+To use these ioctls, you need to include the following headers in your
+userspace program:
+
+::
+
+ #include <linux/usb.h>
+ #include <linux/usbdevice_fs.h>
+ #include <asm/byteorder.h>
+
+The standard USB device model requests, from "Chapter 9" of the USB 2.0
+specification, are automatically included from the ``<linux/usb/ch9.h>``
+header.
+
+Unless noted otherwise, the ioctl requests described here will update
+the modification time on the usbfs file to which they are applied
+(unless they fail). A return of zero indicates success; otherwise, a
+standard USB error code is returned. (These are documented in
+``Documentation/usb/error-codes.txt`` in your kernel sources.)
+
+Each of these files multiplexes access to several I/O streams, one per
+endpoint. Each device has one control endpoint (endpoint zero) which
+supports a limited RPC style RPC access. Devices are configured by
+hub_wq (in the kernel) setting a device-wide *configuration* that
+affects things like power consumption and basic functionality. The
+endpoints are part of USB *interfaces*, which may have *altsettings*
+affecting things like which endpoints are available. Many devices only
+have a single configuration and interface, so drivers for them will
+ignore configurations and altsettings.
+
+Management/Status Requests
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+A number of usbfs requests don't deal very directly with device I/O.
+They mostly relate to device management and status. These are all
+synchronous requests.
+
+USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE
+ This is used to force usbfs to claim a specific interface, which has
+ not previously been claimed by usbfs or any other kernel driver. The
+ ioctl parameter is an integer holding the number of the interface
+ (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor).
+
+ Note that if your driver doesn't claim an interface before trying to
+ use one of its endpoints, and no other driver has bound to it, then
+ the interface is automatically claimed by usbfs.
+
+ This claim will be released by a RELEASEINTERFACE ioctl, or by
+ closing the file descriptor. File modification time is not updated
+ by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_CONNECTINFO
+ Says whether the device is lowspeed. The ioctl parameter points to a
+ structure like this:
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_connectinfo {
+ unsigned int devnum;
+ unsigned char slow;
+ };
+
+ File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+ *You can't tell whether a "not slow" device is connected at high
+ speed (480 MBit/sec) or just full speed (12 MBit/sec).* You should
+ know the devnum value already, it's the DDD value of the device file
+ name.
+
+USBDEVFS_GETDRIVER
+ Returns the name of the kernel driver bound to a given interface (a
+ string). Parameter is a pointer to this structure, which is
+ modified:
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_getdriver {
+ unsigned int interface;
+ char driver[USBDEVFS_MAXDRIVERNAME + 1];
+ };
+
+ File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_IOCTL
+ Passes a request from userspace through to a kernel driver that has
+ an ioctl entry in the *struct usb_driver* it registered.
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_ioctl {
+ int ifno;
+ int ioctl_code;
+ void *data;
+ };
+
+ /* user mode call looks like this.
+ * 'request' becomes the driver->ioctl() 'code' parameter.
+ * the size of 'param' is encoded in 'request', and that data
+ * is copied to or from the driver->ioctl() 'buf' parameter.
+ */
+ static int
+ usbdev_ioctl (int fd, int ifno, unsigned request, void *param)
+ {
+ struct usbdevfs_ioctl wrapper;
+
+ wrapper.ifno = ifno;
+ wrapper.ioctl_code = request;
+ wrapper.data = param;
+
+ return ioctl (fd, USBDEVFS_IOCTL, &wrapper);
+ }
+
+ File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+ This request lets kernel drivers talk to user mode code through
+ filesystem operations even when they don't create a character or
+ block special device. It's also been used to do things like ask
+ devices what device special file should be used. Two pre-defined
+ ioctls are used to disconnect and reconnect kernel drivers, so that
+ user mode code can completely manage binding and configuration of
+ devices.
+
+USBDEVFS_RELEASEINTERFACE
+ This is used to release the claim usbfs made on interface, either
+ implicitly or because of a USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE call, before the
+ file descriptor is closed. The ioctl parameter is an integer holding
+ the number of the interface (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor); File
+ modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+ **Warning**
+
+ *No security check is made to ensure that the task which made
+ the claim is the one which is releasing it. This means that user
+ mode driver may interfere other ones.*
+
+USBDEVFS_RESETEP
+ Resets the data toggle value for an endpoint (bulk or interrupt) to
+ DATA0. The ioctl parameter is an integer endpoint number (1 to 15,
+ as identified in the endpoint descriptor), with USB_DIR_IN added
+ if the device's endpoint sends data to the host.
+
+ **Warning**
+
+ *Avoid using this request. It should probably be removed.* Using
+ it typically means the device and driver will lose toggle
+ synchronization. If you really lost synchronization, you likely
+ need to completely handshake with the device, using a request
+ like CLEAR_HALT or SET_INTERFACE.
+
+USBDEVFS_DROP_PRIVILEGES
+ This is used to relinquish the ability to do certain operations
+ which are considered to be privileged on a usbfs file descriptor.
+ This includes claiming arbitrary interfaces, resetting a device on
+ which there are currently claimed interfaces from other users, and
+ issuing USBDEVFS_IOCTL calls. The ioctl parameter is a 32 bit mask
+ of interfaces the user is allowed to claim on this file descriptor.
+ You may issue this ioctl more than one time to narrow said mask.
+
+Synchronous I/O Support
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Synchronous requests involve the kernel blocking until the user mode
+request completes, either by finishing successfully or by reporting an
+error. In most cases this is the simplest way to use usbfs, although as
+noted above it does prevent performing I/O to more than one endpoint at
+a time.
+
+USBDEVFS_BULK
+ Issues a bulk read or write request to the device. The ioctl
+ parameter is a pointer to this structure:
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_bulktransfer {
+ unsigned int ep;
+ unsigned int len;
+ unsigned int timeout; /* in milliseconds */
+ void *data;
+ };
+
+ The "ep" value identifies a bulk endpoint number (1 to 15, as
+ identified in an endpoint descriptor), masked with USB_DIR_IN when
+ referring to an endpoint which sends data to the host from the
+ device. The length of the data buffer is identified by "len"; Recent
+ kernels support requests up to about 128KBytes. *FIXME say how read
+ length is returned, and how short reads are handled.*.
+
+USBDEVFS_CLEAR_HALT
+ Clears endpoint halt (stall) and resets the endpoint toggle. This is
+ only meaningful for bulk or interrupt endpoints. The ioctl parameter
+ is an integer endpoint number (1 to 15, as identified in an endpoint
+ descriptor), masked with USB_DIR_IN when referring to an endpoint
+ which sends data to the host from the device.
+
+ Use this on bulk or interrupt endpoints which have stalled,
+ returning *-EPIPE* status to a data transfer request. Do not issue
+ the control request directly, since that could invalidate the host's
+ record of the data toggle.
+
+USBDEVFS_CONTROL
+ Issues a control request to the device. The ioctl parameter points
+ to a structure like this:
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_ctrltransfer {
+ __u8 bRequestType;
+ __u8 bRequest;
+ __u16 wValue;
+ __u16 wIndex;
+ __u16 wLength;
+ __u32 timeout; /* in milliseconds */
+ void *data;
+ };
+
+ The first eight bytes of this structure are the contents of the
+ SETUP packet to be sent to the device; see the USB 2.0 specification
+ for details. The bRequestType value is composed by combining a
+ USB_TYPE_\* value, a USB_DIR_\* value, and a USB_RECIP_\*
+ value (from *<linux/usb.h>*). If wLength is nonzero, it describes
+ the length of the data buffer, which is either written to the device
+ (USB_DIR_OUT) or read from the device (USB_DIR_IN).
+
+ At this writing, you can't transfer more than 4 KBytes of data to or
+ from a device; usbfs has a limit, and some host controller drivers
+ have a limit. (That's not usually a problem.) *Also* there's no way
+ to say it's not OK to get a short read back from the device.
+
+USBDEVFS_RESET
+ Does a USB level device reset. The ioctl parameter is ignored. After
+ the reset, this rebinds all device interfaces. File modification
+ time is not updated by this request.
+
+ **Warning**
+
+ *Avoid using this call* until some usbcore bugs get fixed, since
+ it does not fully synchronize device, interface, and driver (not
+ just usbfs) state.
+
+USBDEVFS_SETINTERFACE
+ Sets the alternate setting for an interface. The ioctl parameter is
+ a pointer to a structure like this:
+
+ ::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_setinterface {
+ unsigned int interface;
+ unsigned int altsetting;
+ };
+
+ File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+ Those struct members are from some interface descriptor applying to
+ the current configuration. The interface number is the
+ bInterfaceNumber value, and the altsetting number is the
+ bAlternateSetting value. (This resets each endpoint in the
+ interface.)
+
+USBDEVFS_SETCONFIGURATION
+ Issues the :c:func:`usb_set_configuration()` call for the
+ device. The parameter is an integer holding the number of a
+ configuration (bConfigurationValue from descriptor). File
+ modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+ **Warning**
+
+ *Avoid using this call* until some usbcore bugs get fixed, since
+ it does not fully synchronize device, interface, and driver (not
+ just usbfs) state.
+
+Asynchronous I/O Support
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+As mentioned above, there are situations where it may be important to
+initiate concurrent operations from user mode code. This is particularly
+important for periodic transfers (interrupt and isochronous), but it can
+be used for other kinds of USB requests too. In such cases, the
+asynchronous requests described here are essential. Rather than
+submitting one request and having the kernel block until it completes,
+the blocking is separate.
+
+These requests are packaged into a structure that resembles the URB used
+by kernel device drivers. (No POSIX Async I/O support here, sorry.) It
+identifies the endpoint type (USBDEVFS_URB_TYPE_\*), endpoint
+(number, masked with USB_DIR_IN as appropriate), buffer and length,
+and a user "context" value serving to uniquely identify each request.
+(It's usually a pointer to per-request data.) Flags can modify requests
+(not as many as supported for kernel drivers).
+
+Each request can specify a realtime signal number (between SIGRTMIN and
+SIGRTMAX, inclusive) to request a signal be sent when the request
+completes.
+
+When usbfs returns these urbs, the status value is updated, and the
+buffer may have been modified. Except for isochronous transfers, the
+actual_length is updated to say how many bytes were transferred; if the
+USBDEVFS_URB_DISABLE_SPD flag is set ("short packets are not OK"), if
+fewer bytes were read than were requested then you get an error report.
+
+::
+
+ struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc {
+ unsigned int length;
+ unsigned int actual_length;
+ unsigned int status;
+ };
+
+ struct usbdevfs_urb {
+ unsigned char type;
+ unsigned char endpoint;
+ int status;
+ unsigned int flags;
+ void *buffer;
+ int buffer_length;
+ int actual_length;
+ int start_frame;
+ int number_of_packets;
+ int error_count;
+ unsigned int signr;
+ void *usercontext;
+ struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc iso_frame_desc[];
+ };
+
+For these asynchronous requests, the file modification time reflects
+when the request was initiated. This contrasts with their use with the
+synchronous requests, where it reflects when requests complete.
+
+USBDEVFS_DISCARDURB
+ *TBS* File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_DISCSIGNAL
+ *TBS* File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_REAPURB
+ *TBS* File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_REAPURBNDELAY
+ *TBS* File modification time is not updated by this request.
+
+USBDEVFS_SUBMITURB
+ *TBS*