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4
5<book id="Linux-USB-API">
6 <bookinfo>
7  <title>The Linux-USB Host Side API</title>
8  
9  <legalnotice>
10   <para>
11     This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
12     it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
13     License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
14     version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
15     version.
16   </para>
17      
18   <para>
19     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
20     useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
21     warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
22     See the GNU General Public License for more details.
23   </para>
24      
25   <para>
26     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
27     License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
28     Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
29     MA 02111-1307 USA
30   </para>
31      
32   <para>
33     For more details see the file COPYING in the source
34     distribution of Linux.
35   </para>
36  </legalnotice>
37 </bookinfo>
38
39<toc></toc>
40
41<chapter id="intro">
42    <title>Introduction to USB on Linux</title>
43
44    <para>A Universal Serial Bus (USB) is used to connect a host,
45    such as a PC or workstation, to a number of peripheral
46    devices.  USB uses a tree structure, with the host as the
47    root (the system's master), hubs as interior nodes, and
48    peripherals as leaves (and slaves).
49    Modern PCs support several such trees of USB devices, usually
50    one USB 2.0 tree (480 Mbit/sec each) with
51    a few USB 1.1 trees (12 Mbit/sec each) that are used when you
52    connect a USB 1.1 device directly to the machine's "root hub".
53    </para>
54
55    <para>That master/slave asymmetry was designed-in for a number of
56    reasons, one being ease of use.  It is not physically possible to
57    assemble (legal) USB cables incorrectly:  all upstream "to the host"
58    connectors are the rectangular type (matching the sockets on
59    root hubs), and all downstream connectors are the squarish type
60    (or they are built into the peripheral).
61    Also, the host software doesn't need to deal with distributed
62    auto-configuration since the pre-designated master node manages all that.
63    And finally, at the electrical level, bus protocol overhead is reduced by
64    eliminating arbitration and moving scheduling into the host software.
65    </para>
66
67    <para>USB 1.0 was announced in January 1996 and was revised
68    as USB 1.1 (with improvements in hub specification and
69    support for interrupt-out transfers) in September 1998.
70    USB 2.0 was released in April 2000, adding high-speed
71    transfers and transaction-translating hubs (used for USB 1.1
72    and 1.0 backward compatibility).
73    </para>
74
75    <para>Kernel developers added USB support to Linux early in the 2.2 kernel
76    series, shortly before 2.3 development forked.  Updates from 2.3 were
77    regularly folded back into 2.2 releases, which improved reliability and
78    brought <filename>/sbin/hotplug</filename> support as well more drivers.
79    Such improvements were continued in the 2.5 kernel series, where they added
80    USB 2.0 support, improved performance, and made the host controller drivers
81    (HCDs) more consistent.  They also simplified the API (to make bugs less
82    likely) and added internal "kerneldoc" documentation.
83    </para>
84
85    <para>Linux can run inside USB devices as well as on
86    the hosts that control the devices.
87    But USB device drivers running inside those peripherals
88    don't do the same things as the ones running inside hosts,
89    so they've been given a different name:
90    <emphasis>gadget drivers</emphasis>.
91    This document does not cover gadget drivers.
92    </para>
93
94    </chapter>
95
96<chapter id="host">
97    <title>USB Host-Side API Model</title>
98
99    <para>Host-side drivers for USB devices talk to the "usbcore" APIs.
100    There are two.  One is intended for
101    <emphasis>general-purpose</emphasis> drivers (exposed through
102    driver frameworks), and the other is for drivers that are
103    <emphasis>part of the core</emphasis>.
104    Such core drivers include the <emphasis>hub</emphasis> driver
105    (which manages trees of USB devices) and several different kinds
106    of <emphasis>host controller drivers</emphasis>,
107    which control individual busses.
108    </para>
109
110    <para>The device model seen by USB drivers is relatively complex.
111    </para>
112     
113    <itemizedlist>
114
115	<listitem><para>USB supports four kinds of data transfers
116	(control, bulk, interrupt, and isochronous).  Two of them (control
117	and bulk) use bandwidth as it's available,
118	while the other two (interrupt and isochronous)
119	are scheduled to provide guaranteed bandwidth.
120	</para></listitem>
121
122	<listitem><para>The device description model includes one or more
123	"configurations" per device, only one of which is active at a time.
124	Devices that are capable of high-speed operation must also support
125	full-speed configurations, along with a way to ask about the
126	"other speed" configurations which might be used.
127	</para></listitem>
128
129	<listitem><para>Configurations have one or more "interfaces", each
130	of which may have "alternate settings".  Interfaces may be
131	standardized by USB "Class" specifications, or may be specific to
132	a vendor or device.</para>
133
134	<para>USB device drivers actually bind to interfaces, not devices.
135	Think of them as "interface drivers", though you
136	may not see many devices where the distinction is important.
137	<emphasis>Most USB devices are simple, with only one configuration,
138	one interface, and one alternate setting.</emphasis>
139	</para></listitem>
140
141	<listitem><para>Interfaces have one or more "endpoints", each of
142	which supports one type and direction of data transfer such as
143	"bulk out" or "interrupt in".  The entire configuration may have
144	up to sixteen endpoints in each direction, allocated as needed
145	among all the interfaces.
146	</para></listitem>
147
148	<listitem><para>Data transfer on USB is packetized; each endpoint
149	has a maximum packet size.
150	Drivers must often be aware of conventions such as flagging the end
151	of bulk transfers using "short" (including zero length) packets.
152	</para></listitem>
153
154	<listitem><para>The Linux USB API supports synchronous calls for
155	control and bulk messages.
156	It also supports asynchronous calls for all kinds of data transfer,
157	using request structures called "URBs" (USB Request Blocks).
158	</para></listitem>
159
160    </itemizedlist>
161
162    <para>Accordingly, the USB Core API exposed to device drivers
163    covers quite a lot of territory.  You'll probably need to consult
164    the USB 2.0 specification, available online from www.usb.org at
165    no cost, as well as class or device specifications.
166    </para>
167
168    <para>The only host-side drivers that actually touch hardware
169    (reading/writing registers, handling IRQs, and so on) are the HCDs.
170    In theory, all HCDs provide the same functionality through the same
171    API.  In practice, that's becoming more true on the 2.5 kernels,
172    but there are still differences that crop up especially with
173    fault handling.  Different controllers don't necessarily report
174    the same aspects of failures, and recovery from faults (including
175    software-induced ones like unlinking an URB) isn't yet fully
176    consistent.
177    Device driver authors should make a point of doing disconnect
178    testing (while the device is active) with each different host
179    controller driver, to make sure drivers don't have bugs of
180    their own as well as to make sure they aren't relying on some
181    HCD-specific behavior.
182    (You will need external USB 1.1 and/or
183    USB 2.0 hubs to perform all those tests.)
184    </para>
185
186    </chapter>
187
188<chapter id="types"><title>USB-Standard Types</title>
189
190    <para>In <filename>&lt;linux/usb/ch9.h&gt;</filename> you will find
191    the USB data types defined in chapter 9 of the USB specification.
192    These data types are used throughout USB, and in APIs including
193    this host side API, gadget APIs, and usbfs.
194    </para>
195
196!Iinclude/linux/usb/ch9.h
197
198    </chapter>
199
200<chapter id="hostside"><title>Host-Side Data Types and Macros</title>
201
202    <para>The host side API exposes several layers to drivers, some of
203    which are more necessary than others.
204    These support lifecycle models for host side drivers
205    and devices, and support passing buffers through usbcore to
206    some HCD that performs the I/O for the device driver.
207    </para>
208
209
210!Iinclude/linux/usb.h
211
212    </chapter>
213
214    <chapter id="usbcore"><title>USB Core APIs</title>
215
216    <para>There are two basic I/O models in the USB API.
217    The most elemental one is asynchronous:  drivers submit requests
218    in the form of an URB, and the URB's completion callback
219    handle the next step.
220    All USB transfer types support that model, although there
221    are special cases for control URBs (which always have setup
222    and status stages, but may not have a data stage) and
223    isochronous URBs (which allow large packets and include
224    per-packet fault reports).
225    Built on top of that is synchronous API support, where a
226    driver calls a routine that allocates one or more URBs,
227    submits them, and waits until they complete.
228    There are synchronous wrappers for single-buffer control
229    and bulk transfers (which are awkward to use in some
230    driver disconnect scenarios), and for scatterlist based
231    streaming i/o (bulk or interrupt).
232    </para>
233
234    <para>USB drivers need to provide buffers that can be
235    used for DMA, although they don't necessarily need to
236    provide the DMA mapping themselves.
237    There are APIs to use used when allocating DMA buffers,
238    which can prevent use of bounce buffers on some systems.
239    In some cases, drivers may be able to rely on 64bit DMA
240    to eliminate another kind of bounce buffer.
241    </para>
242
243!Edrivers/usb/core/urb.c
244!Edrivers/usb/core/message.c
245!Edrivers/usb/core/file.c
246!Edrivers/usb/core/driver.c
247!Edrivers/usb/core/usb.c
248!Edrivers/usb/core/hub.c
249    </chapter>
250
251    <chapter id="hcd"><title>Host Controller APIs</title>
252
253    <para>These APIs are only for use by host controller drivers,
254    most of which implement standard register interfaces such as
255    EHCI, OHCI, or UHCI.
256    UHCI was one of the first interfaces, designed by Intel and
257    also used by VIA; it doesn't do much in hardware.
258    OHCI was designed later, to have the hardware do more work
259    (bigger transfers, tracking protocol state, and so on).
260    EHCI was designed with USB 2.0; its design has features that
261    resemble OHCI (hardware does much more work) as well as
262    UHCI (some parts of ISO support, TD list processing).
263    </para>
264
265    <para>There are host controllers other than the "big three",
266    although most PCI based controllers (and a few non-PCI based
267    ones) use one of those interfaces.
268    Not all host controllers use DMA; some use PIO, and there
269    is also a simulator.
270    </para>
271
272    <para>The same basic APIs are available to drivers for all
273    those controllers.  
274    For historical reasons they are in two layers:
275    <structname>struct usb_bus</structname> is a rather thin
276    layer that became available in the 2.2 kernels, while
277    <structname>struct usb_hcd</structname> is a more featureful
278    layer (available in later 2.4 kernels and in 2.5) that
279    lets HCDs share common code, to shrink driver size
280    and significantly reduce hcd-specific behaviors.
281    </para>
282
283!Edrivers/usb/core/hcd.c
284!Edrivers/usb/core/hcd-pci.c
285!Idrivers/usb/core/buffer.c
286    </chapter>
287
288    <chapter id="usbfs">
289	<title>The USB Filesystem (usbfs)</title>
290
291	<para>This chapter presents the Linux <emphasis>usbfs</emphasis>.
292	You may prefer to avoid writing new kernel code for your
293	USB driver; that's the problem that usbfs set out to solve.
294	User mode device drivers are usually packaged as applications
295	or libraries, and may use usbfs through some programming library
296	that wraps it.  Such libraries include
297	<ulink url="http://libusb.sourceforge.net">libusb</ulink>
298	for C/C++, and
299	<ulink url="http://jUSB.sourceforge.net">jUSB</ulink> for Java.
300	</para>
301
302	<note><title>Unfinished</title>
303	    <para>This particular documentation is incomplete,
304	    especially with respect to the asynchronous mode.
305	    As of kernel 2.5.66 the code and this (new) documentation
306	    need to be cross-reviewed.
307	    </para>
308	    </note>
309
310	<para>Configure usbfs into Linux kernels by enabling the
311	<emphasis>USB filesystem</emphasis> option (CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS),
312	and you get basic support for user mode USB device drivers.
313	Until relatively recently it was often (confusingly) called
314	<emphasis>usbdevfs</emphasis> although it wasn't solving what
315	<emphasis>devfs</emphasis> was.
316	Every USB device will appear in usbfs, regardless of whether or
317	not it has a kernel driver.
318	</para>
319
320	<sect1 id="usbfs-files">
321	    <title>What files are in "usbfs"?</title>
322
323	    <para>Conventionally mounted at
324	    <filename>/proc/bus/usb</filename>, usbfs 
325	    features include:
326	    <itemizedlist>
327		<listitem><para><filename>/proc/bus/usb/devices</filename>
328		    ... a text file
329		    showing each of the USB devices on known to the kernel,
330		    and their configuration descriptors.
331		    You can also poll() this to learn about new devices.
332		    </para></listitem>
333		<listitem><para><filename>/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD</filename>
334		    ... magic files
335		    exposing the each device's configuration descriptors, and
336		    supporting a series of ioctls for making device requests,
337		    including I/O to devices.  (Purely for access by programs.)
338		    </para></listitem>
339	    </itemizedlist>
340	    </para>
341
342	    <para> Each bus is given a number (BBB) based on when it was
343	    enumerated; within each bus, each device is given a similar
344	    number (DDD).
345	    Those BBB/DDD paths are not "stable" identifiers;
346	    expect them to change even if you always leave the devices
347	    plugged in to the same hub port.
348	    <emphasis>Don't even think of saving these in application
349	    configuration files.</emphasis>
350	    Stable identifiers are available, for user mode applications
351	    that want to use them.  HID and networking devices expose
352	    these stable IDs, so that for example you can be sure that
353	    you told the right UPS to power down its second server.
354	    "usbfs" doesn't (yet) expose those IDs.
355	    </para>
356
357	</sect1>
358
359	<sect1 id="usbfs-fstab">
360	    <title>Mounting and Access Control</title>
361
362	    <para>There are a number of mount options for usbfs, which will
363	    be of most interest to you if you need to override the default
364	    access control policy.
365	    That policy is that only root may read or write device files
366	    (<filename>/proc/bus/BBB/DDD</filename>) although anyone may read
367	    the <filename>devices</filename>
368	    or <filename>drivers</filename> files.
369	    I/O requests to the device also need the CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability,
370	    </para>
371
372	    <para>The significance of that is that by default, all user mode
373	    device drivers need super-user privileges.
374	    You can change modes or ownership in a driver setup
375	    when the device hotplugs, or maye just start the
376	    driver right then, as a privileged server (or some activity
377	    within one).
378	    That's the most secure approach for multi-user systems,
379	    but for single user systems ("trusted" by that user)
380	    it's more convenient just to grant everyone all access
381	    (using the <emphasis>devmode=0666</emphasis> option)
382	    so the driver can start whenever it's needed.
383	    </para>
384
385	    <para>The mount options for usbfs, usable in /etc/fstab or
386	    in command line invocations of <emphasis>mount</emphasis>, are:
387
388	    <variablelist>
389		<varlistentry>
390		    <term><emphasis>busgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
391		    <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
392		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB
393		    directories.  (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
394		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>busmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
395		    <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
396		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB
397		    directories.  (Default: 0555)
398		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
399		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>busuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
400		    <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
401		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB
402		    directories.  (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
403
404		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>devgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
405		    <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
406		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
407		    files.  (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
408		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>devmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
409		    <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
410		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
411		    files.  (Default: 0644)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
412		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>devuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
413		    <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
414		    /proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD
415		    files.  (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
416
417		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>listgid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
418		    <listitem><para>Controls the GID used for the
419		    /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
420		    (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
421		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>listmode</emphasis>=MMM</term>
422		    <listitem><para>Controls the file mode used for the
423		    /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
424		    (Default: 0444)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
425		<varlistentry><term><emphasis>listuid</emphasis>=NNNNN</term>
426		    <listitem><para>Controls the UID used for the
427		    /proc/bus/usb/devices and drivers files.
428		    (Default: 0)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
429	    </variablelist>
430
431	    </para>
432
433	    <para>Note that many Linux distributions hard-wire the mount options
434	    for usbfs in their init scripts, such as
435	    <filename>/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit</filename>,
436	    rather than making it easy to set this per-system
437	    policy in <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>.
438	    </para>
439
440	</sect1>
441
442	<sect1 id="usbfs-devices">
443	    <title>/proc/bus/usb/devices</title>
444
445	    <para>This file is handy for status viewing tools in user
446	    mode, which can scan the text format and ignore most of it.
447	    More detailed device status (including class and vendor
448	    status) is available from device-specific files.
449	    For information about the current format of this file,
450	    see the
451	    <filename>Documentation/usb/proc_usb_info.txt</filename>
452	    file in your Linux kernel sources.
453	    </para>
454
455	    <para>This file, in combination with the poll() system call, can
456	    also be used to detect when devices are added or removed:
457<programlisting>int fd;
458struct pollfd pfd;
459
460fd = open("/proc/bus/usb/devices", O_RDONLY);
461pfd = { fd, POLLIN, 0 };
462for (;;) {
463	/* The first time through, this call will return immediately. */
464	poll(&amp;pfd, 1, -1);
465
466	/* To see what's changed, compare the file's previous and current
467	   contents or scan the filesystem.  (Scanning is more precise.) */
468}</programlisting>
469	    Note that this behavior is intended to be used for informational
470	    and debug purposes.  It would be more appropriate to use programs
471	    such as udev or HAL to initialize a device or start a user-mode
472	    helper program, for instance.
473	    </para>
474	</sect1>
475
476	<sect1 id="usbfs-bbbddd">
477	    <title>/proc/bus/usb/BBB/DDD</title>
478
479	    <para>Use these files in one of these basic ways:
480	    </para>
481
482	    <para><emphasis>They can be read,</emphasis>
483	    producing first the device descriptor
484	    (18 bytes) and then the descriptors for the current configuration.
485	    See the USB 2.0 spec for details about those binary data formats.
486	    You'll need to convert most multibyte values from little endian
487	    format to your native host byte order, although a few of the
488	    fields in the device descriptor (both of the BCD-encoded fields,
489	    and the vendor and product IDs) will be byteswapped for you.
490	    Note that configuration descriptors include descriptors for
491	    interfaces, altsettings, endpoints, and maybe additional
492	    class descriptors.
493	    </para>
494
495	    <para><emphasis>Perform USB operations</emphasis> using 
496	    <emphasis>ioctl()</emphasis> requests to make endpoint I/O
497	    requests (synchronously or asynchronously) or manage
498	    the device.
499	    These requests need the CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability,
500	    as well as filesystem access permissions.
501	    Only one ioctl request can be made on one of these
502	    device files at a time.
503	    This means that if you are synchronously reading an endpoint
504	    from one thread, you won't be able to write to a different
505	    endpoint from another thread until the read completes.
506	    This works for <emphasis>half duplex</emphasis> protocols,
507	    but otherwise you'd use asynchronous i/o requests. 
508	    </para>
509
510	    </sect1>
511
512
513	<sect1 id="usbfs-lifecycle">
514	    <title>Life Cycle of User Mode Drivers</title>
515
516	    <para>Such a driver first needs to find a device file
517	    for a device it knows how to handle.
518	    Maybe it was told about it because a
519	    <filename>/sbin/hotplug</filename> event handling agent
520	    chose that driver to handle the new device.
521	    Or maybe it's an application that scans all the
522	    /proc/bus/usb device files, and ignores most devices.
523	    In either case, it should <function>read()</function> all
524	    the descriptors from the device file,
525	    and check them against what it knows how to handle.
526	    It might just reject everything except a particular
527	    vendor and product ID, or need a more complex policy.
528	    </para>
529
530	    <para>Never assume there will only be one such device
531	    on the system at a time!
532	    If your code can't handle more than one device at
533	    a time, at least detect when there's more than one, and
534	    have your users choose which device to use.
535	    </para>
536
537	    <para>Once your user mode driver knows what device to use,
538	    it interacts with it in either of two styles.
539	    The simple style is to make only control requests; some
540	    devices don't need more complex interactions than those.
541	    (An example might be software using vendor-specific control
542	    requests for some initialization or configuration tasks,
543	    with a kernel driver for the rest.)
544	    </para>
545
546	    <para>More likely, you need a more complex style driver:
547	    one using non-control endpoints, reading or writing data
548	    and claiming exclusive use of an interface.
549	    <emphasis>Bulk</emphasis> transfers are easiest to use,
550	    but only their sibling <emphasis>interrupt</emphasis> transfers 
551	    work with low speed devices.
552	    Both interrupt and <emphasis>isochronous</emphasis> transfers
553	    offer service guarantees because their bandwidth is reserved.
554	    Such "periodic" transfers are awkward to use through usbfs,
555	    unless you're using the asynchronous calls.  However, interrupt
556	    transfers can also be used in a synchronous "one shot" style.
557	    </para>
558
559	    <para>Your user-mode driver should never need to worry
560	    about cleaning up request state when the device is
561	    disconnected, although it should close its open file
562	    descriptors as soon as it starts seeing the ENODEV
563	    errors.
564	    </para>
565
566	    </sect1>
567
568	<sect1 id="usbfs-ioctl"><title>The ioctl() Requests</title>
569
570	    <para>To use these ioctls, you need to include the following
571	    headers in your userspace program:
572<programlisting>#include &lt;linux/usb.h&gt;
573#include &lt;linux/usbdevice_fs.h&gt;
574#include &lt;asm/byteorder.h&gt;</programlisting>
575	    The standard USB device model requests, from "Chapter 9" of
576	    the USB 2.0 specification, are automatically included from
577	    the <filename>&lt;linux/usb/ch9.h&gt;</filename> header.
578	    </para>
579
580	    <para>Unless noted otherwise, the ioctl requests
581	    described here will
582	    update the modification time on the usbfs file to which
583	    they are applied (unless they fail).
584	    A return of zero indicates success; otherwise, a
585	    standard USB error code is returned.  (These are
586	    documented in
587	    <filename>Documentation/usb/error-codes.txt</filename>
588	    in your kernel sources.)
589	    </para>
590
591	    <para>Each of these files multiplexes access to several
592	    I/O streams, one per endpoint.
593	    Each device has one control endpoint (endpoint zero)
594	    which supports a limited RPC style RPC access.
595	    Devices are configured
596	    by hub_wq (in the kernel) setting a device-wide
597	    <emphasis>configuration</emphasis> that affects things
598	    like power consumption and basic functionality.
599	    The endpoints are part of USB <emphasis>interfaces</emphasis>,
600	    which may have <emphasis>altsettings</emphasis>
601	    affecting things like which endpoints are available.
602	    Many devices only have a single configuration and interface,
603	    so drivers for them will ignore configurations and altsettings.
604	    </para>
605
606
607	    <sect2 id="usbfs-mgmt">
608		<title>Management/Status Requests</title>
609
610		<para>A number of usbfs requests don't deal very directly
611		with device I/O.
612		They mostly relate to device management and status.
613		These are all synchronous requests.
614		</para>
615
616		<variablelist>
617
618		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE</term>
619		    <listitem><para>This is used to force usbfs to
620		    claim a specific interface,
621		    which has not previously been claimed by usbfs or any other
622		    kernel driver.
623		    The ioctl parameter is an integer holding the number of
624		    the interface (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor).
625		    </para><para>
626		    Note that if your driver doesn't claim an interface
627		    before trying to use one of its endpoints, and no
628		    other driver has bound to it, then the interface is
629		    automatically claimed by usbfs.
630		    </para><para>
631		    This claim will be released by a RELEASEINTERFACE ioctl,
632		    or by closing the file descriptor.
633		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
634		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
635
636		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CONNECTINFO</term>
637		    <listitem><para>Says whether the device is lowspeed.
638		    The ioctl parameter points to a structure like this:
639<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_connectinfo {
640        unsigned int   devnum;
641        unsigned char  slow;
642}; </programlisting>
643		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
644		    </para><para>
645		    <emphasis>You can't tell whether a "not slow"
646		    device is connected at high speed (480 MBit/sec)
647		    or just full speed (12 MBit/sec).</emphasis>
648		    You should know the devnum value already,
649		    it's the DDD value of the device file name.
650		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
651
652		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_GETDRIVER</term>
653		    <listitem><para>Returns the name of the kernel driver
654		    bound to a given interface (a string).  Parameter
655		    is a pointer to this structure, which is modified:
656<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_getdriver {
657        unsigned int  interface;
658        char          driver[USBDEVFS_MAXDRIVERNAME + 1];
659};</programlisting>
660		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
661		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
662
663		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_IOCTL</term>
664		    <listitem><para>Passes a request from userspace through
665		    to a kernel driver that has an ioctl entry in the
666		    <emphasis>struct usb_driver</emphasis> it registered.
667<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_ioctl {
668        int     ifno;
669        int     ioctl_code;
670        void    *data;
671};
672
673/* user mode call looks like this.
674 * 'request' becomes the driver->ioctl() 'code' parameter.
675 * the size of 'param' is encoded in 'request', and that data
676 * is copied to or from the driver->ioctl() 'buf' parameter.
677 */
678static int
679usbdev_ioctl (int fd, int ifno, unsigned request, void *param)
680{
681        struct usbdevfs_ioctl	wrapper;
682
683        wrapper.ifno = ifno;
684        wrapper.ioctl_code = request;
685        wrapper.data = param;
686
687        return ioctl (fd, USBDEVFS_IOCTL, &amp;wrapper);
688} </programlisting>
689		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
690		    </para><para>
691		    This request lets kernel drivers talk to user mode code
692		    through filesystem operations even when they don't create
693		    a character or block special device.
694		    It's also been used to do things like ask devices what
695		    device special file should be used.
696		    Two pre-defined ioctls are used
697		    to disconnect and reconnect kernel drivers, so
698		    that user mode code can completely manage binding
699		    and configuration of devices.
700		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
701
702		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RELEASEINTERFACE</term>
703		    <listitem><para>This is used to release the claim usbfs
704		    made on interface, either implicitly or because of a
705		    USBDEVFS_CLAIMINTERFACE call, before the file
706		    descriptor is closed.
707		    The ioctl parameter is an integer holding the number of
708		    the interface (bInterfaceNumber from descriptor);
709		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
710		    </para><warning><para>
711		    <emphasis>No security check is made to ensure
712		    that the task which made the claim is the one
713		    which is releasing it.
714		    This means that user mode driver may interfere
715		    other ones.  </emphasis>
716		    </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
717
718		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RESETEP</term>
719		    <listitem><para>Resets the data toggle value for an endpoint
720		    (bulk or interrupt) to DATA0.
721		    The ioctl parameter is an integer endpoint number
722		    (1 to 15, as identified in the endpoint descriptor),
723		    with USB_DIR_IN added if the device's endpoint sends
724		    data to the host.
725		    </para><warning><para>
726		    <emphasis>Avoid using this request.
727		    It should probably be removed.</emphasis>
728		    Using it typically means the device and driver will lose
729		    toggle synchronization.  If you really lost synchronization,
730		    you likely need to completely handshake with the device,
731		    using a request like CLEAR_HALT
732		    or SET_INTERFACE.
733		    </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
734
735		</variablelist>
736
737		</sect2>
738
739	    <sect2 id="usbfs-sync">
740		<title>Synchronous I/O Support</title>
741
742		<para>Synchronous requests involve the kernel blocking
743		until the user mode request completes, either by
744		finishing successfully or by reporting an error.
745		In most cases this is the simplest way to use usbfs,
746		although as noted above it does prevent performing I/O
747		to more than one endpoint at a time.
748		</para>
749
750		<variablelist>
751
752		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_BULK</term>
753		    <listitem><para>Issues a bulk read or write request to the
754		    device.
755		    The ioctl parameter is a pointer to this structure:
756<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_bulktransfer {
757        unsigned int  ep;
758        unsigned int  len;
759        unsigned int  timeout; /* in milliseconds */
760        void          *data;
761};</programlisting>
762		    </para><para>The "ep" value identifies a
763		    bulk endpoint number (1 to 15, as identified in an endpoint
764		    descriptor),
765		    masked with USB_DIR_IN when referring to an endpoint which
766		    sends data to the host from the device.
767		    The length of the data buffer is identified by "len";
768		    Recent kernels support requests up to about 128KBytes.
769		    <emphasis>FIXME say how read length is returned,
770		    and how short reads are handled.</emphasis>.
771		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
772
773		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CLEAR_HALT</term>
774		    <listitem><para>Clears endpoint halt (stall) and
775		    resets the endpoint toggle.  This is only
776		    meaningful for bulk or interrupt endpoints.
777		    The ioctl parameter is an integer endpoint number
778		    (1 to 15, as identified in an endpoint descriptor),
779		    masked with USB_DIR_IN when referring to an endpoint which
780		    sends data to the host from the device.
781		    </para><para>
782		    Use this on bulk or interrupt endpoints which have
783		    stalled, returning <emphasis>-EPIPE</emphasis> status
784		    to a data transfer request.
785		    Do not issue the control request directly, since
786		    that could invalidate the host's record of the
787		    data toggle.
788		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
789
790		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_CONTROL</term>
791		    <listitem><para>Issues a control request to the device.
792		    The ioctl parameter points to a structure like this:
793<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_ctrltransfer {
794        __u8   bRequestType;
795        __u8   bRequest;
796        __u16  wValue;
797        __u16  wIndex;
798        __u16  wLength;
799        __u32  timeout;  /* in milliseconds */
800        void   *data;
801};</programlisting>
802		    </para><para>
803		    The first eight bytes of this structure are the contents
804		    of the SETUP packet to be sent to the device; see the
805		    USB 2.0 specification for details.
806		    The bRequestType value is composed by combining a
807		    USB_TYPE_* value, a USB_DIR_* value, and a
808		    USB_RECIP_* value (from
809		    <emphasis>&lt;linux/usb.h&gt;</emphasis>).
810		    If wLength is nonzero, it describes the length of the data
811		    buffer, which is either written to the device
812		    (USB_DIR_OUT) or read from the device (USB_DIR_IN).
813		    </para><para>
814		    At this writing, you can't transfer more than 4 KBytes
815		    of data to or from a device; usbfs has a limit, and
816		    some host controller drivers have a limit.
817		    (That's not usually a problem.)
818		    <emphasis>Also</emphasis> there's no way to say it's
819		    not OK to get a short read back from the device.
820		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
821
822		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_RESET</term>
823		    <listitem><para>Does a USB level device reset.
824		    The ioctl parameter is ignored.
825		    After the reset, this rebinds all device interfaces.
826		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
827		    </para><warning><para>
828		    <emphasis>Avoid using this call</emphasis>
829		    until some usbcore bugs get fixed,
830		    since it does not fully synchronize device, interface,
831		    and driver (not just usbfs) state.
832		    </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
833	    
834		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SETINTERFACE</term>
835		    <listitem><para>Sets the alternate setting for an
836		    interface.  The ioctl parameter is a pointer to a
837		    structure like this:
838<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_setinterface {
839        unsigned int  interface;
840        unsigned int  altsetting;
841}; </programlisting>
842		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
843		    </para><para>
844		    Those struct members are from some interface descriptor
845		    applying to the current configuration.
846		    The interface number is the bInterfaceNumber value, and
847		    the altsetting number is the bAlternateSetting value.
848		    (This resets each endpoint in the interface.)
849		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
850
851		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SETCONFIGURATION</term>
852		    <listitem><para>Issues the
853		    <function>usb_set_configuration</function> call
854		    for the device.
855		    The parameter is an integer holding the number of
856		    a configuration (bConfigurationValue from descriptor).
857		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
858		    </para><warning><para>
859		    <emphasis>Avoid using this call</emphasis>
860		    until some usbcore bugs get fixed,
861		    since it does not fully synchronize device, interface,
862		    and driver (not just usbfs) state.
863		    </para></warning></listitem></varlistentry>
864
865		</variablelist>
866	    </sect2>
867
868	    <sect2 id="usbfs-async">
869		<title>Asynchronous I/O Support</title>
870
871		<para>As mentioned above, there are situations where it may be
872		important to initiate concurrent operations from user mode code.
873		This is particularly important for periodic transfers
874		(interrupt and isochronous), but it can be used for other
875		kinds of USB requests too.
876		In such cases, the asynchronous requests described here
877		are essential.  Rather than submitting one request and having
878		the kernel block until it completes, the blocking is separate.
879		</para>
880
881		<para>These requests are packaged into a structure that
882		resembles the URB used by kernel device drivers.
883		(No POSIX Async I/O support here, sorry.)
884		It identifies the endpoint type (USBDEVFS_URB_TYPE_*),
885		endpoint (number, masked with USB_DIR_IN as appropriate),
886		buffer and length, and a user "context" value serving to
887		uniquely identify each request.
888		(It's usually a pointer to per-request data.)
889		Flags can modify requests (not as many as supported for
890		kernel drivers).
891		</para>
892
893		<para>Each request can specify a realtime signal number
894		(between SIGRTMIN and SIGRTMAX, inclusive) to request a
895		signal be sent when the request completes.
896		</para>
897
898		<para>When usbfs returns these urbs, the status value
899		is updated, and the buffer may have been modified.
900		Except for isochronous transfers, the actual_length is
901		updated to say how many bytes were transferred; if the
902		USBDEVFS_URB_DISABLE_SPD flag is set
903		("short packets are not OK"), if fewer bytes were read
904		than were requested then you get an error report.
905		</para>
906
907<programlisting>struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc {
908        unsigned int                     length;
909        unsigned int                     actual_length;
910        unsigned int                     status;
911};
912
913struct usbdevfs_urb {
914        unsigned char                    type;
915        unsigned char                    endpoint;
916        int                              status;
917        unsigned int                     flags;
918        void                             *buffer;
919        int                              buffer_length;
920        int                              actual_length;
921        int                              start_frame;
922        int                              number_of_packets;
923        int                              error_count;
924        unsigned int                     signr;
925        void                             *usercontext;
926        struct usbdevfs_iso_packet_desc  iso_frame_desc[];
927};</programlisting>
928
929		<para> For these asynchronous requests, the file modification
930		time reflects when the request was initiated.
931		This contrasts with their use with the synchronous requests,
932		where it reflects when requests complete.
933		</para>
934
935		<variablelist>
936
937		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_DISCARDURB</term>
938		    <listitem><para>
939		    <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
940		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
941		    </para><para>
942		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
943
944		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_DISCSIGNAL</term>
945		    <listitem><para>
946		    <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
947		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
948		    </para><para>
949		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
950
951		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_REAPURB</term>
952		    <listitem><para>
953		    <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
954		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
955		    </para><para>
956		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
957
958		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_REAPURBNDELAY</term>
959		    <listitem><para>
960		    <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
961		    File modification time is not updated by this request.
962		    </para><para>
963		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
964
965		<varlistentry><term>USBDEVFS_SUBMITURB</term>
966		    <listitem><para>
967		    <emphasis>TBS</emphasis>
968		    </para><para>
969		    </para></listitem></varlistentry>
970
971		</variablelist>
972	    </sect2>
973
974	</sect1>
975
976    </chapter>
977
978</book>
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