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authorDJ Lucas <dj@linuxfromscratch.org>2016-05-30 04:13:45 +0000
committerDJ Lucas <dj@linuxfromscratch.org>2016-05-30 04:13:45 +0000
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tree515d7d526b7bbcf8e178f6d99ec42c4d85124391 /chapter07/udevd.xml
parent5bffab17609f2ff3788d10ef0bd07b0f89a08ab2 (diff)
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git-svn-id: http://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/LFS/trunk/BOOK@11083 4aa44e1e-78dd-0310-a6d2-fbcd4c07a689
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-<?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" revision="systemd">
- <?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 Udev
- from the systemd source 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">devtmpfs</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 &ndash; due to a lack of maintenance &ndash; 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 a
- <systemitem class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> (devtmpfs internally)
- 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 /sys),
- data which the drivers register with <systemitem
- class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> are available to userspace
- processes and to udevd for processing (including modifications to device
- nodes).</para>
-
- </sect3>
-
- <sect3>
- <title>Device Node Creation</title>
-
- <para>Device files are created by the kernel by the <systemitem
- class="filesystem">devtmpfs</systemitem> filesystem. Any driver that
- wishes to register a device node will go through <systemitem
- class="filesystem">devtmpfs</systemitem> (via the driver core) to do it.
- When a <systemitem class="filesystem">devtmpfs</systemitem> instance is
- mounted on <filename class="directory">/dev</filename>, the device node
- will initially be created with a fixed name, permissions, and
- owner.</para>
-
- <para>A short time later, the kernel will send a uevent to <command>
- udevd</command>. Based on the rules specified in the files within the
- <filename class="directory">/etc/udev/rules.d</filename>, <filename
- class="directory">/lib/udev/rules.d</filename>, and <filename
- class="directory">/run/udev/rules.d</filename> directories, <command>
- udevd</command> will create additional symlinks to the device node, or
- change its permissions, owner, or group, or modify the internal
- <command>udevd</command> database entry (name) for that object.</para>
-
- <para>The rules in these three directories are numbered in a similar
- fashion to the LFS-Bootscripts package and all three directories are
- merged together. If <command>udevd</command> can't find a rule for the
- device it is creating, it will leave the permissions and ownership at
- whatever <systemitem class="filesystem">devtmpfs</systemitem> used
- initially.</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 a <quote>softdep</quote> line in any
- <filename>/etc/modprobe.d/<replaceable>&lt;filename&gt;</replaceable>.conf</filename>
- file. For example:</para>
-
-<screen role="nodump"><literal>softdep snd-pcm post: snd-pcm-oss</literal></screen>
-
- <para>Note that the <quote>softdep</quote> command also allows
- <literal>pre:</literal> dependencies, or a mixture of both
- <literal>pre:</literal> and <literal>post:</literal>. See the
- <filename>modprobe.d(5)</filename> manual page for more information
- on <quote>softdep</quote> syntax and capabilities.</para>
-
- <para>If the module in question is not a wrapper and is useful by itself,
- configure the <command>modules</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 a
- <filename>/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.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-written 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>udev</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>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>