<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [ <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent"> %general-entities; ]> <sect1 id="ch-scripts-udev"> <?dbhtml filename="udev.html"?> <title>Device and Module Handling on an LFS System</title> <indexterm zone="ch-scripts-udev"> <primary sortas="a-Udev">Udev</primary> <secondary>usage</secondary> </indexterm> <para>In <xref linkend="chapter-building-system"/>, we installed the Udev package. Before we go into the details regarding how this works, a brief history of previous methods of handling devices is in order.</para> <para>Linux systems in general traditionally use a static device creation method, whereby a great many device nodes are created under <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> (sometimes literally thousands of nodes), regardless of whether the corresponding hardware devices actually exist. This is typically done via a <command>MAKEDEV</command> script, which contains a number of calls to the <command>mknod</command> program with the relevant major and minor device numbers for every possible device that might exist in the world.</para> <para>Using the Udev method, only those devices which are detected by the kernel get device nodes created for them. Because these device nodes will be created each time the system boots, they will be stored on a <systemitem class="filesystem">tmpfs</systemitem> file system (a virtual file system that resides entirely in system memory). Device nodes do not require much space, so the memory that is used is negligible.</para> <sect2> <title>History</title> <para>In February 2000, a new filesystem called <systemitem class="filesystem">devfs</systemitem> was merged into the 2.3.46 kernel and was made available during the 2.4 series of stable kernels. Although it was present in the kernel source itself, this method of creating devices dynamically never received overwhelming support from the core kernel developers.</para> <para>The main problem with the approach adopted by <systemitem class="filesystem">devfs</systemitem> was the way it handled device detection, creation, and naming. The latter issue, that of device node naming, was perhaps the most critical. It is generally accepted that if device names are allowed to be configurable, then the device naming policy should be up to a system administrator, not imposed on them by any particular developer(s). The <systemitem class="filesystem">devfs</systemitem> file system also suffers from race conditions that are inherent in its design and cannot be fixed without a substantial revision to the kernel. It was marked as deprecated for a long period – due to a lack of maintenance – and was finally removed from the kernel in June, 2006.</para> <para>With the development of the unstable 2.5 kernel tree, later released as the 2.6 series of stable kernels, a new virtual filesystem called <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> came to be. The job of <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> is to export a view of the system's hardware configuration to userspace processes. With this userspace-visible representation, the possibility of seeing a userspace replacement for <systemitem class="filesystem">devfs</systemitem> became much more realistic.</para> </sect2> <sect2> <title>Udev Implementation</title> <sect3> <title>Sysfs</title> <para>The <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> filesystem was mentioned briefly above. One may wonder how <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> knows about the devices present on a system and what device numbers should be used for them. Drivers that have been compiled into the kernel directly register their objects with <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> as they are detected by the kernel. For drivers compiled as modules, this registration will happen when the module is loaded. Once the <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> filesystem is mounted (on <filename class="directory">/sys</filename>), data which the built-in drivers registered with <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> are available to userspace processes and to <command>udevd</command> for device node creation.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Udev Bootscript</title> <para>The <command>S10udev</command> initscript takes care of creating device nodes when Linux is booted. The script unsets the uevent handler from the default of <command>/sbin/hotplug</command>. This is done because the kernel no longer needs to call out to an external binary. Instead <command>udevd</command> will listen on a netlink socket for uevents that the kernel raises. Next, the bootscript copies any static device nodes that exist in <filename class="directory">/lib/udev/devices</filename> to <filename class="directory">/dev</filename>. This is necessary because some devices, directories, and symlinks are needed before the dynamic device handling processes are available during the early stages of booting a system, or are required by <command>udevd</command> itself. Creating static device nodes in <filename class="directory">/lib/udev/devices</filename> also provides an easy workaround for devices that are not supported by the dynamic device handling infrastructure. The bootscript then starts the Udev daemon, <command>udevd</command>, which will act on any uevents it receives. Finally, the bootscript forces the kernel to replay uevents for any devices that have already been registered and then waits for <command>udevd</command> to handle them.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Device Node Creation</title> <para>To obtain the right major and minor number for a device, Udev relies on the information provided by <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> in <filename class="directory">/sys</filename>. For example, <filename>/sys/class/tty/vcs/dev</filename> contains the string <quote>7:0</quote>. This string is used by <command>udevd</command> to create a device node with major number <emphasis>7</emphasis> and minor <emphasis>0</emphasis>. The names and permissions of the nodes created under the <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> directory are determined by rules specified in the files within the <filename class="directory">/etc/udev/rules.d/</filename> directory. These are numbered in a similar fashion to the LFS-Bootscripts package. If <command>udevd</command> can't find a rule for the device it is creating, it will default permissions to <emphasis>660</emphasis> and ownership to <emphasis>root:root</emphasis>. Documentation on the syntax of the Udev rules configuration files are available in <filename>/usr/share/doc/udev-&udev-version;/index.html</filename></para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Module Loading</title> <para>Device drivers compiled as modules may have aliases built into them. Aliases are visible in the output of the <command>modinfo</command> program and are usually related to the bus-specific identifiers of devices supported by a module. For example, the <emphasis>snd-fm801</emphasis> driver supports PCI devices with vendor ID 0x1319 and device ID 0x0801, and has an alias of <quote>pci:v00001319d00000801sv*sd*bc04sc01i*</quote>. For most devices, the bus driver exports the alias of the driver that would handle the device via <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem>. E.g., the <filename>/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:0d.0/modalias</filename> file might contain the string <quote>pci:v00001319d00000801sv00001319sd00001319bc04sc01i00</quote>. The default rules provided with Udev will cause <command>udevd</command> to call out to <command>/sbin/modprobe</command> with the contents of the <envar>MODALIAS</envar> uevent environment variable (which should be the same as the contents of the <filename>modalias</filename> file in sysfs), thus loading all modules whose aliases match this string after wildcard expansion.</para> <para>In this example, this means that, in addition to <emphasis>snd-fm801</emphasis>, the obsolete (and unwanted) <emphasis>forte</emphasis> driver will be loaded if it is available. See below for ways in which the loading of unwanted drivers can be prevented.</para> <para>The kernel itself is also able to load modules for network protocols, filesystems and NLS support on demand.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Handling Hotpluggable/Dynamic Devices</title> <para>When you plug in a device, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) MP3 player, the kernel recognizes that the device is now connected and generates a uevent. This uevent is then handled by <command>udevd</command> as described above.</para> </sect3> </sect2> <sect2> <title>Problems with Loading Modules and Creating Devices</title> <para>There are a few possible problems when it comes to automatically creating device nodes.</para> <sect3> <title>A kernel module is not loaded automatically</title> <para>Udev will only load a module if it has a bus-specific alias and the bus driver properly exports the necessary aliases to <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem>. In other cases, one should arrange module loading by other means. With Linux-&linux-version;, Udev is known to load properly-written drivers for INPUT, IDE, PCI, USB, SCSI, SERIO and FireWire devices.</para> <para>To determine if the device driver you require has the necessary support for Udev, run <command>modinfo</command> with the module name as the argument. Now try locating the device directory under <filename class="directory">/sys/bus</filename> and check whether there is a <filename>modalias</filename> file there.</para> <para>If the <filename>modalias</filename> file exists in <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem>, the driver supports the device and can talk to it directly, but doesn't have the alias, it is a bug in the driver. Load the driver without the help from Udev and expect the issue to be fixed later.</para> <para>If there is no <filename>modalias</filename> file in the relevant directory under <filename class="directory">/sys/bus</filename>, this means that the kernel developers have not yet added modalias support to this bus type. With Linux-&linux-version;, this is the case with ISA busses. Expect this issue to be fixed in later kernel versions.</para> <para>Udev is not intended to load <quote>wrapper</quote> drivers such as <emphasis>snd-pcm-oss</emphasis> and non-hardware drivers such as <emphasis>loop</emphasis> at all.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>A kernel module is not loaded automatically, and Udev is not intended to load it</title> <para>If the <quote>wrapper</quote> module only enhances the functionality provided by some other module (e.g., <emphasis>snd-pcm-oss</emphasis> enhances the functionality of <emphasis>snd-pcm</emphasis> by making the sound cards available to OSS applications), configure <command>modprobe</command> to load the wrapper after Udev loads the wrapped module. To do this, add an <quote>install</quote> line in <filename>/etc/modprobe.conf</filename>. For example:</para> <screen role="nodump"><literal>install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe -i snd-pcm ; \ /sbin/modprobe snd-pcm-oss ; true</literal></screen> <para>If the module in question is not a wrapper and is useful by itself, configure the <command>S05modules</command> bootscript to load this module on system boot. To do this, add the module name to the <filename>/etc/sysconfig/modules</filename> file on a separate line. This works for wrapper modules too, but is suboptimal in that case.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Udev loads some unwanted module</title> <para>Either don't build the module, or blacklist it in <filename>/etc/modprobe.conf</filename> file as done with the <emphasis>forte</emphasis> module in the example below:</para> <screen role="nodump"><literal>blacklist forte</literal></screen> <para>Blacklisted modules can still be loaded manually with the explicit <command>modprobe</command> command.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Udev creates a device incorrectly, or makes a wrong symlink</title> <para>This usually happens if a rule unexpectedly matches a device. For example, a poorly-writen rule can match both a SCSI disk (as desired) and the corresponding SCSI generic device (incorrectly) by vendor. Find the offending rule and make it more specific, with the help of the <command>udevadm info</command> command.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Udev rule works unreliably</title> <para>This may be another manifestation of the previous problem. If not, and your rule uses <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> attributes, it may be a kernel timing issue, to be fixed in later kernels. For now, you can work around it by creating a rule that waits for the used <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> attribute and appending it to the <filename>/etc/udev/rules.d/10-wait_for_sysfs.rules</filename> file (create this file if it does not exist). Please notify the LFS Development list if you do so and it helps.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Udev does not create a device</title> <para>Further text assumes that the driver is built statically into the kernel or already loaded as a module, and that you have already checked that Udev doesn't create a misnamed device.</para> <para>Udev has no information needed to create a device node if a kernel driver does not export its data to <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem>. This is most common with third party drivers from outside the kernel tree. Create a static device node in <filename>/lib/udev/devices</filename> with the appropriate major/minor numbers (see the file <filename>devices.txt</filename> inside the kernel documentation or the documentation provided by the third party driver vendor). The static device node will be copied to <filename class="directory">/dev</filename> by the <command>S10udev</command> bootscript.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Device naming order changes randomly after rebooting</title> <para>This is due to the fact that Udev, by design, handles uevents and loads modules in parallel, and thus in an unpredictable order. This will never be <quote>fixed</quote>. You should not rely upon the kernel device names being stable. Instead, create your own rules that make symlinks with stable names based on some stable attributes of the device, such as a serial number or the output of various *_id utilities installed by Udev. See <xref linkend="ch-scripts-symlinks"/> and <xref linkend="ch-scripts-network"/> for examples.</para> </sect3> </sect2> <sect2> <title>Useful Reading</title> <para>Additional helpful documentation is available at the following sites:</para> <itemizedlist> <listitem> <para>A Userspace Implementation of <systemitem class="filesystem">devfs</systemitem> <ulink url="http://www.kroah.com/linux/talks/ols_2003_udev_paper/Reprint-Kroah-Hartman-OLS2003.pdf"/></para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>udev FAQ <ulink url="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev-FAQ"/></para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>The <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> Filesystem <ulink url="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/mochel/doc/papers/ols-2005/mochel.pdf"/></para> </listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect2> </sect1>