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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-07 18:49:45 +0000
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+.. _writing-usb-driver:
+
+==========================
+Writing USB Device Drivers
+==========================
+
+:Author: Greg Kroah-Hartman
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+The Linux USB subsystem has grown from supporting only two different
+types of devices in the 2.2.7 kernel (mice and keyboards), to over 20
+different types of devices in the 2.4 kernel. Linux currently supports
+almost all USB class devices (standard types of devices like keyboards,
+mice, modems, printers and speakers) and an ever-growing number of
+vendor-specific devices (such as USB to serial converters, digital
+cameras, Ethernet devices and MP3 players). For a full list of the
+different USB devices currently supported, see Resources.
+
+The remaining kinds of USB devices that do not have support on Linux are
+almost all vendor-specific devices. Each vendor decides to implement a
+custom protocol to talk to their device, so a custom driver usually
+needs to be created. Some vendors are open with their USB protocols and
+help with the creation of Linux drivers, while others do not publish
+them, and developers are forced to reverse-engineer. See Resources for
+some links to handy reverse-engineering tools.
+
+Because each different protocol causes a new driver to be created, I
+have written a generic USB driver skeleton, modelled after the
+pci-skeleton.c file in the kernel source tree upon which many PCI
+network drivers have been based. This USB skeleton can be found at
+drivers/usb/usb-skeleton.c in the kernel source tree. In this article I
+will walk through the basics of the skeleton driver, explaining the
+different pieces and what needs to be done to customize it to your
+specific device.
+
+Linux USB Basics
+================
+
+If you are going to write a Linux USB driver, please become familiar
+with the USB protocol specification. It can be found, along with many
+other useful documents, at the USB home page (see Resources). An
+excellent introduction to the Linux USB subsystem can be found at the
+USB Working Devices List (see Resources). It explains how the Linux USB
+subsystem is structured and introduces the reader to the concept of USB
+urbs (USB Request Blocks), which are essential to USB drivers.
+
+The first thing a Linux USB driver needs to do is register itself with
+the Linux USB subsystem, giving it some information about which devices
+the driver supports and which functions to call when a device supported
+by the driver is inserted or removed from the system. All of this
+information is passed to the USB subsystem in the :c:type:`usb_driver`
+structure. The skeleton driver declares a :c:type:`usb_driver` as::
+
+ static struct usb_driver skel_driver = {
+ .name = "skeleton",
+ .probe = skel_probe,
+ .disconnect = skel_disconnect,
+ .suspend = skel_suspend,
+ .resume = skel_resume,
+ .pre_reset = skel_pre_reset,
+ .post_reset = skel_post_reset,
+ .id_table = skel_table,
+ .supports_autosuspend = 1,
+ };
+
+
+The variable name is a string that describes the driver. It is used in
+informational messages printed to the system log. The probe and
+disconnect function pointers are called when a device that matches the
+information provided in the ``id_table`` variable is either seen or
+removed.
+
+The fops and minor variables are optional. Most USB drivers hook into
+another kernel subsystem, such as the SCSI, network or TTY subsystem.
+These types of drivers register themselves with the other kernel
+subsystem, and any user-space interactions are provided through that
+interface. But for drivers that do not have a matching kernel subsystem,
+such as MP3 players or scanners, a method of interacting with user space
+is needed. The USB subsystem provides a way to register a minor device
+number and a set of :c:type:`file_operations` function pointers that enable
+this user-space interaction. The skeleton driver needs this kind of
+interface, so it provides a minor starting number and a pointer to its
+:c:type:`file_operations` functions.
+
+The USB driver is then registered with a call to usb_register(),
+usually in the driver's init function, as shown here::
+
+ static int __init usb_skel_init(void)
+ {
+ int result;
+
+ /* register this driver with the USB subsystem */
+ result = usb_register(&skel_driver);
+ if (result < 0) {
+ pr_err("usb_register failed for the %s driver. Error number %d\n",
+ skel_driver.name, result);
+ return -1;
+ }
+
+ return 0;
+ }
+ module_init(usb_skel_init);
+
+
+When the driver is unloaded from the system, it needs to deregister
+itself with the USB subsystem. This is done with usb_deregister()
+function::
+
+ static void __exit usb_skel_exit(void)
+ {
+ /* deregister this driver with the USB subsystem */
+ usb_deregister(&skel_driver);
+ }
+ module_exit(usb_skel_exit);
+
+
+To enable the linux-hotplug system to load the driver automatically when
+the device is plugged in, you need to create a ``MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE``.
+The following code tells the hotplug scripts that this module supports a
+single device with a specific vendor and product ID::
+
+ /* table of devices that work with this driver */
+ static struct usb_device_id skel_table [] = {
+ { USB_DEVICE(USB_SKEL_VENDOR_ID, USB_SKEL_PRODUCT_ID) },
+ { } /* Terminating entry */
+ };
+ MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE (usb, skel_table);
+
+
+There are other macros that can be used in describing a struct
+:c:type:`usb_device_id` for drivers that support a whole class of USB
+drivers. See :ref:`usb.h <usb_header>` for more information on this.
+
+Device operation
+================
+
+When a device is plugged into the USB bus that matches the device ID
+pattern that your driver registered with the USB core, the probe
+function is called. The :c:type:`usb_device` structure, interface number and
+the interface ID are passed to the function::
+
+ static int skel_probe(struct usb_interface *interface,
+ const struct usb_device_id *id)
+
+
+The driver now needs to verify that this device is actually one that it
+can accept. If so, it returns 0. If not, or if any error occurs during
+initialization, an errorcode (such as ``-ENOMEM`` or ``-ENODEV``) is
+returned from the probe function.
+
+In the skeleton driver, we determine what end points are marked as
+bulk-in and bulk-out. We create buffers to hold the data that will be
+sent and received from the device, and a USB urb to write data to the
+device is initialized.
+
+Conversely, when the device is removed from the USB bus, the disconnect
+function is called with the device pointer. The driver needs to clean
+any private data that has been allocated at this time and to shut down
+any pending urbs that are in the USB system.
+
+Now that the device is plugged into the system and the driver is bound
+to the device, any of the functions in the :c:type:`file_operations` structure
+that were passed to the USB subsystem will be called from a user program
+trying to talk to the device. The first function called will be open, as
+the program tries to open the device for I/O. We increment our private
+usage count and save a pointer to our internal structure in the file
+structure. This is done so that future calls to file operations will
+enable the driver to determine which device the user is addressing. All
+of this is done with the following code::
+
+ /* increment our usage count for the device */
+ kref_get(&dev->kref);
+
+ /* save our object in the file's private structure */
+ file->private_data = dev;
+
+
+After the open function is called, the read and write functions are
+called to receive and send data to the device. In the ``skel_write``
+function, we receive a pointer to some data that the user wants to send
+to the device and the size of the data. The function determines how much
+data it can send to the device based on the size of the write urb it has
+created (this size depends on the size of the bulk out end point that
+the device has). Then it copies the data from user space to kernel
+space, points the urb to the data and submits the urb to the USB
+subsystem. This can be seen in the following code::
+
+ /* we can only write as much as 1 urb will hold */
+ size_t writesize = min_t(size_t, count, MAX_TRANSFER);
+
+ /* copy the data from user space into our urb */
+ copy_from_user(buf, user_buffer, writesize);
+
+ /* set up our urb */
+ usb_fill_bulk_urb(urb,
+ dev->udev,
+ usb_sndbulkpipe(dev->udev, dev->bulk_out_endpointAddr),
+ buf,
+ writesize,
+ skel_write_bulk_callback,
+ dev);
+
+ /* send the data out the bulk port */
+ retval = usb_submit_urb(urb, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (retval) {
+ dev_err(&dev->interface->dev,
+ "%s - failed submitting write urb, error %d\n",
+ __func__, retval);
+ }
+
+
+When the write urb is filled up with the proper information using the
+:c:func:`usb_fill_bulk_urb` function, we point the urb's completion callback
+to call our own ``skel_write_bulk_callback`` function. This function is
+called when the urb is finished by the USB subsystem. The callback
+function is called in interrupt context, so caution must be taken not to
+do very much processing at that time. Our implementation of
+``skel_write_bulk_callback`` merely reports if the urb was completed
+successfully or not and then returns.
+
+The read function works a bit differently from the write function in
+that we do not use an urb to transfer data from the device to the
+driver. Instead we call the :c:func:`usb_bulk_msg` function, which can be used
+to send or receive data from a device without having to create urbs and
+handle urb completion callback functions. We call the :c:func:`usb_bulk_msg`
+function, giving it a buffer into which to place any data received from
+the device and a timeout value. If the timeout period expires without
+receiving any data from the device, the function will fail and return an
+error message. This can be shown with the following code::
+
+ /* do an immediate bulk read to get data from the device */
+ retval = usb_bulk_msg (skel->dev,
+ usb_rcvbulkpipe (skel->dev,
+ skel->bulk_in_endpointAddr),
+ skel->bulk_in_buffer,
+ skel->bulk_in_size,
+ &count, 5000);
+ /* if the read was successful, copy the data to user space */
+ if (!retval) {
+ if (copy_to_user (buffer, skel->bulk_in_buffer, count))
+ retval = -EFAULT;
+ else
+ retval = count;
+ }
+
+
+The :c:func:`usb_bulk_msg` function can be very useful for doing single reads
+or writes to a device; however, if you need to read or write constantly to
+a device, it is recommended to set up your own urbs and submit them to
+the USB subsystem.
+
+When the user program releases the file handle that it has been using to
+talk to the device, the release function in the driver is called. In
+this function we decrement our private usage count and wait for possible
+pending writes::
+
+ /* decrement our usage count for the device */
+ --skel->open_count;
+
+
+One of the more difficult problems that USB drivers must be able to
+handle smoothly is the fact that the USB device may be removed from the
+system at any point in time, even if a program is currently talking to
+it. It needs to be able to shut down any current reads and writes and
+notify the user-space programs that the device is no longer there. The
+following code (function ``skel_delete``) is an example of how to do
+this::
+
+ static inline void skel_delete (struct usb_skel *dev)
+ {
+ kfree (dev->bulk_in_buffer);
+ if (dev->bulk_out_buffer != NULL)
+ usb_free_coherent (dev->udev, dev->bulk_out_size,
+ dev->bulk_out_buffer,
+ dev->write_urb->transfer_dma);
+ usb_free_urb (dev->write_urb);
+ kfree (dev);
+ }
+
+
+If a program currently has an open handle to the device, we reset the
+flag ``device_present``. For every read, write, release and other
+functions that expect a device to be present, the driver first checks
+this flag to see if the device is still present. If not, it releases
+that the device has disappeared, and a ``-ENODEV`` error is returned to the
+user-space program. When the release function is eventually called, it
+determines if there is no device and if not, it does the cleanup that
+the ``skel_disconnect`` function normally does if there are no open files
+on the device (see Listing 5).
+
+Isochronous Data
+================
+
+This usb-skeleton driver does not have any examples of interrupt or
+isochronous data being sent to or from the device. Interrupt data is
+sent almost exactly as bulk data is, with a few minor exceptions.
+Isochronous data works differently with continuous streams of data being
+sent to or from the device. The audio and video camera drivers are very
+good examples of drivers that handle isochronous data and will be useful
+if you also need to do this.
+
+Conclusion
+==========
+
+Writing Linux USB device drivers is not a difficult task as the
+usb-skeleton driver shows. This driver, combined with the other current
+USB drivers, should provide enough examples to help a beginning author
+create a working driver in a minimal amount of time. The linux-usb-devel
+mailing list archives also contain a lot of helpful information.
+
+Resources
+=========
+
+The Linux USB Project:
+http://www.linux-usb.org/
+
+Linux Hotplug Project:
+http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/
+
+linux-usb Mailing List Archives:
+https://lore.kernel.org/linux-usb/
+
+Programming Guide for Linux USB Device Drivers:
+https://lmu.web.psi.ch/docu/manuals/software_manuals/linux_sl/usb_linux_programming_guide.pdf
+
+USB Home Page: https://www.usb.org