Linux Format forums

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

einonm — Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:42 pm

Author: einonm

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:42 pm

In my experience, USB ID's are defined in the kernel driver itself (in a struct usb_device_id), and on inserting a usb device, the usb system probes the driver if it thinks it supports it (which I think assigning a udev rule for the IDs helps with).

However, if no driver is found that supports the given vendor and product IDs, then a driver for the device will not be loaded, and hence never found in ifconfig.

Searching a fairly recent kernel source I have lying around (3.3.0), there doesn't seem to be any USB ids listed for this vendor, and definitely not in the plusb driver (drivers/net/usb/plusb.c) - only VIDs 0x067b (prolific) and 0x050d (Belkin) are listed. So there's no chance that this device will work with this kernel (and probably not with the one you're using too).

I suggest that you either have a go at getting the source for your kernel and adding your device IDs to the plusb driver ID table, if you're happy doing that, or searching/posting on the USB/netdev kernel mailing lists to see if the device is known and getting a developer to add the device to the correct driver...I realise this may be out of your comfort zone though!

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Thu Apr 26, 2012 1:08 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 1:08 am

Thank you for the suggestion. I have now tried that both before plugging the device in, and after plugging in it. Either way ifconfig -a is not showing an extra network interface.

Kevin

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

PCNetSpec — Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:30 pm

Author: PCNetSpec

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:30 pm

Have you tried:-

Code:

modprobe plusb
echo 238b 0a11 > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/plusb/new_id

Then re-plugging the device.

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:26 am

Author: ferrari

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:26 am

You're welcome. Good luck!

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:24 am

Author: ferrari

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:24 am

I had a quick check of the product and vendor codes here:

http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids

You device is not listed. I would have expected the vendor code (238b) to be valid at least. (That doesn't bode well for support with a Linux driver, since the kernel depends on these for device recognition).

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:00 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:00 am

I think I'm at the upstream, lack of paddle place, and in way over my head!

I've posted a job on oDesk in a bid to get a resolution.

Thank you VERY much for all your help.

Kevin

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Wed Apr 25, 2012 9:45 am

Author: ferrari

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 9:45 am

Quote:

lsmod is showing the drivers being loaded, but ifconfig -a is not showing any new interfaces being added.

I'm at the limits of my knowledge here (especially as I don't have such a device to play with).

1. Is your device one of these?

http://linuxusbguide.sourceforge.net/USB-guide-1.0.9/x540.html

That was the basis for considering the plusb driver. If not, we're probably trying to go upstream without a paddle

Otherwise, try loading the plusb driver manually

Code:

modprobe plusb

and check if plusb0 exists with the ifconfig command again.

2. BTW, how are you trying to use this device? The following post hints at this device (driver) only working between two Linux machines

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/prolific-usb-pl2302-linux-windows-699382/

So, I assume you're not trying to plug it into a router for example?

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Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Wed Apr 25, 2012 1:05 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 1:05 am

Thanks again for the help so far!

lsmod is showing the drivers being loaded, but ifconfig -a is not showing any new interfaces being added.

Is there a way to add an interface and map it to the driver?

Kevin

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:55 am

Author: ferrari

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:55 am

Code:

[ 91.398819] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[ 91.400398] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
[ 91.401664] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

This looks promising. The cdc_ether driver depends on usbnet being loaded anyway. The rndis_host driver depends on cdc_ether, and rndis_wlan depends on rndis_host. You can check what is loaded with

Code:

lsmod |grep rndis

Check what network interface are present

Code:

ifconfig -a

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:31 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:31 am

Here's the output from dmesg after plugging the USB device in:
[ 87.004106] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device number 2 using uhci_hcd
[ 87.128067] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 87.356082] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 87.572077] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device number 3 using uhci_hcd
[ 87.696123] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 87.924079] usb 4-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 88.084104] hub 4-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
[ 91.088101] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device number 5 using uhci_hcd
[ 91.398819] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[ 91.400398] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
[ 91.401664] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

And this is what lsusb shows (just the one line relating to that device):
Bus 004 Device 005: ID 238b:0a11

I think I need to tell the usbnet driver to recognised the "238b:0a11" id somehow?

Regards,

Kevin

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:28 pm

Author: ferrari

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:28 pm

Quote:

I'm trying to load the plusb (Prolific USB Network) driver on a proprietary device that I am told should work with said driver.

You may not need to do anything explicitly for this device. Plug in your device and post the output of

Code:

dmesg|tail

That will tell us what the kernel makes of it (if anything).

If there is no ethernet device evident, you could try loading the driver manually

Code:

modprobe plusb

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:44 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:44 am

Now that looks good!

I'm trying to load the plusb (Prolific USB Network) driver on a proprietary device that I am told should work with said driver.

However, given the output below I don't think the driver will accept the PID/VID override?

Code:

modinfo plusb
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/usb/plusb.ko
license: GPL
description: Prolific PL-2301/2302 USB Host to Host Link Driver
author: David Brownell
alias: usb:v067Bp0001d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
alias: usb:v067Bp0000d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
depends: usbnet,usbcore
vermagic: 2.6.32-5-amd64 SMP mod_unload modversions

In fact... I may only need the usbnet driver:

Code:

modinfo usbnet
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/usb/usbnet.ko
license: GPL
description: USB network driver framework
author: David Brownell
depends: mii,usbcore
vermagic: 2.6.32-5-amd64 SMP mod_unload modversions
parm: msg_level:Override default message level (int)

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

ferrari — Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:34 am

Author: ferrari

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:34 am

Without knowing anything about the driver concerned, in general you can use the 'modinfo' command (or man page if one exists) to determine any driver options available. For example, the usbserial driver can be loaded with particular vendor and product IDs

Code:

modinfo usbserial
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.37.6-0.11-desktop/kernel/drivers/usb/serial/usbserial.ko
license: GPL
description: USB Serial Driver core
author: Greg Kroah-Hartman, greg@kroah.com, http://www.kroah.com/linux/
srcversion: 3F51183D19FC4ACD9619988
depends:
vermagic: 2.6.37.6-0.11-desktop SMP preempt mod_unload modversions
parm: vendor:User specified USB idVendor (ushort)
parm: product:User specified USB idProduct (ushort)
parm: debug:Debug enabled or not (bool)

As you can see, this driver has options to parse a specific chipset. So, one might have a particular hardware device that requires this driver to load via a udev rule eg

Code:

SUBSYSTEM==�usb�, \
SYSFS{idVendor}==�19d2″, \
SYSFS{idProduct}==�0001″, \
RUN+=�/sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0�0001″

You will need to determine what module options are available to you.

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

kgolding — Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:22 am

Author: kgolding

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:22 am

Thank you for the reply. I have been reading up on udev, and I can see how to add a rule for my device, but I can not see how to force the use of a particular driver?

Kevin

Re: Mapping an unknown USB device to a given driver

Dutch_Master — Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:42 am

Author: Dutch_Master

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:42 am

You can, but:
1) you really need to know what you're doing and
2) it involves writing some udev rules (that require a certain syntax)

Run

Code:

man udev

for more details on the latter. Note it might break other devices if you associate the driver wrongly....