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0001 ======
0002 usbmon
0003 ======
0004 
0005 Introduction
0006 ============
0007 
0008 The name "usbmon" in lowercase refers to a facility in kernel which is
0009 used to collect traces of I/O on the USB bus. This function is analogous
0010 to a packet socket used by network monitoring tools such as tcpdump(1)
0011 or Ethereal. Similarly, it is expected that a tool such as usbdump or
0012 USBMon (with uppercase letters) is used to examine raw traces produced
0013 by usbmon.
0014 
0015 The usbmon reports requests made by peripheral-specific drivers to Host
0016 Controller Drivers (HCD). So, if HCD is buggy, the traces reported by
0017 usbmon may not correspond to bus transactions precisely. This is the same
0018 situation as with tcpdump.
0019 
0020 Two APIs are currently implemented: "text" and "binary". The binary API
0021 is available through a character device in /dev namespace and is an ABI.
0022 The text API is deprecated since 2.6.35, but available for convenience.
0023 
0024 How to use usbmon to collect raw text traces
0025 ============================================
0026 
0027 Unlike the packet socket, usbmon has an interface which provides traces
0028 in a text format. This is used for two purposes. First, it serves as a
0029 common trace exchange format for tools while more sophisticated formats
0030 are finalized. Second, humans can read it in case tools are not available.
0031 
0032 To collect a raw text trace, execute following steps.
0033 
0034 1. Prepare
0035 ----------
0036 
0037 Mount debugfs (it has to be enabled in your kernel configuration), and
0038 load the usbmon module (if built as module). The second step is skipped
0039 if usbmon is built into the kernel::
0040 
0041         # mount -t debugfs none_debugs /sys/kernel/debug
0042         # modprobe usbmon
0043         #
0044 
0045 Verify that bus sockets are present::
0046 
0047         # ls /sys/kernel/debug/usb/usbmon
0048         0s  0u  1s  1t  1u  2s  2t  2u  3s  3t  3u  4s  4t  4u
0049         #
0050 
0051 Now you can choose to either use the socket '0u' (to capture packets on all
0052 buses), and skip to step #3, or find the bus used by your device with step #2.
0053 This allows to filter away annoying devices that talk continuously.
0054 
0055 2. Find which bus connects to the desired device
0056 ------------------------------------------------
0057 
0058 Run "cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices", and find the T-line which corresponds
0059 to the device. Usually you do it by looking for the vendor string. If you have
0060 many similar devices, unplug one and compare the two
0061 /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices outputs. The T-line will have a bus number.
0062 
0063 Example::
0064 
0065   T:  Bus=03 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
0066   D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
0067   P:  Vendor=0557 ProdID=2004 Rev= 1.00
0068   S:  Manufacturer=ATEN
0069   S:  Product=UC100KM V2.00
0070 
0071 "Bus=03" means it's bus 3. Alternatively, you can look at the output from
0072 "lsusb" and get the bus number from the appropriate line. Example:
0073 
0074 Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0557:2004 ATEN UC100KM V2.00
0075 
0076 3. Start 'cat'
0077 --------------
0078 
0079 ::
0080 
0081         # cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/usbmon/3u > /tmp/1.mon.out
0082 
0083 to listen on a single bus, otherwise, to listen on all buses, type::
0084 
0085         # cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/usbmon/0u > /tmp/1.mon.out
0086 
0087 This process will read until it is killed. Naturally, the output can be
0088 redirected to a desirable location. This is preferred, because it is going
0089 to be quite long.
0090 
0091 4. Perform the desired operation on the USB bus
0092 -----------------------------------------------
0093 
0094 This is where you do something that creates the traffic: plug in a flash key,
0095 copy files, control a webcam, etc.
0096 
0097 5. Kill cat
0098 -----------
0099 
0100 Usually it's done with a keyboard interrupt (Control-C).
0101 
0102 At this point the output file (/tmp/1.mon.out in this example) can be saved,
0103 sent by e-mail, or inspected with a text editor. In the last case make sure
0104 that the file size is not excessive for your favourite editor.
0105 
0106 Raw text data format
0107 ====================
0108 
0109 Two formats are supported currently: the original, or '1t' format, and
0110 the '1u' format. The '1t' format is deprecated in kernel 2.6.21. The '1u'
0111 format adds a few fields, such as ISO frame descriptors, interval, etc.
0112 It produces slightly longer lines, but otherwise is a perfect superset
0113 of '1t' format.
0114 
0115 If it is desired to recognize one from the other in a program, look at the
0116 "address" word (see below), where '1u' format adds a bus number. If 2 colons
0117 are present, it's the '1t' format, otherwise '1u'.
0118 
0119 Any text format data consists of a stream of events, such as URB submission,
0120 URB callback, submission error. Every event is a text line, which consists
0121 of whitespace separated words. The number or position of words may depend
0122 on the event type, but there is a set of words, common for all types.
0123 
0124 Here is the list of words, from left to right:
0125 
0126 - URB Tag. This is used to identify URBs, and is normally an in-kernel address
0127   of the URB structure in hexadecimal, but can be a sequence number or any
0128   other unique string, within reason.
0129 
0130 - Timestamp in microseconds, a decimal number. The timestamp's resolution
0131   depends on available clock, and so it can be much worse than a microsecond
0132   (if the implementation uses jiffies, for example).
0133 
0134 - Event Type. This type refers to the format of the event, not URB type.
0135   Available types are: S - submission, C - callback, E - submission error.
0136 
0137 - "Address" word (formerly a "pipe"). It consists of four fields, separated by
0138   colons: URB type and direction, Bus number, Device address, Endpoint number.
0139   Type and direction are encoded with two bytes in the following manner:
0140 
0141     == ==   =============================
0142     Ci Co   Control input and output
0143     Zi Zo   Isochronous input and output
0144     Ii Io   Interrupt input and output
0145     Bi Bo   Bulk input and output
0146     == ==   =============================
0147 
0148   Bus number, Device address, and Endpoint are decimal numbers, but they may
0149   have leading zeros, for the sake of human readers.
0150 
0151 - URB Status word. This is either a letter, or several numbers separated
0152   by colons: URB status, interval, start frame, and error count. Unlike the
0153   "address" word, all fields save the status are optional. Interval is printed
0154   only for interrupt and isochronous URBs. Start frame is printed only for
0155   isochronous URBs. Error count is printed only for isochronous callback
0156   events.
0157 
0158   The status field is a decimal number, sometimes negative, which represents
0159   a "status" field of the URB. This field makes no sense for submissions, but
0160   is present anyway to help scripts with parsing. When an error occurs, the
0161   field contains the error code.
0162 
0163   In case of a submission of a Control packet, this field contains a Setup Tag
0164   instead of an group of numbers. It is easy to tell whether the Setup Tag is
0165   present because it is never a number. Thus if scripts find a set of numbers
0166   in this word, they proceed to read Data Length (except for isochronous URBs).
0167   If they find something else, like a letter, they read the setup packet before
0168   reading the Data Length or isochronous descriptors.
0169 
0170 - Setup packet, if present, consists of 5 words: one of each for bmRequestType,
0171   bRequest, wValue, wIndex, wLength, as specified by the USB Specification 2.0.
0172   These words are safe to decode if Setup Tag was 's'. Otherwise, the setup
0173   packet was present, but not captured, and the fields contain filler.
0174 
0175 - Number of isochronous frame descriptors and descriptors themselves.
0176   If an Isochronous transfer event has a set of descriptors, a total number
0177   of them in an URB is printed first, then a word per descriptor, up to a
0178   total of 5. The word consists of 3 colon-separated decimal numbers for
0179   status, offset, and length respectively. For submissions, initial length
0180   is reported. For callbacks, actual length is reported.
0181 
0182 - Data Length. For submissions, this is the requested length. For callbacks,
0183   this is the actual length.
0184 
0185 - Data tag. The usbmon may not always capture data, even if length is nonzero.
0186   The data words are present only if this tag is '='.
0187 
0188 - Data words follow, in big endian hexadecimal format. Notice that they are
0189   not machine words, but really just a byte stream split into words to make
0190   it easier to read. Thus, the last word may contain from one to four bytes.
0191   The length of collected data is limited and can be less than the data length
0192   reported in the Data Length word. In the case of an Isochronous input (Zi)
0193   completion where the received data is sparse in the buffer, the length of
0194   the collected data can be greater than the Data Length value (because Data
0195   Length counts only the bytes that were received whereas the Data words
0196   contain the entire transfer buffer).
0197 
0198 Examples:
0199 
0200 An input control transfer to get a port status::
0201 
0202   d5ea89a0 3575914555 S Ci:1:001:0 s a3 00 0000 0003 0004 4 <
0203   d5ea89a0 3575914560 C Ci:1:001:0 0 4 = 01050000
0204 
0205 An output bulk transfer to send a SCSI command 0x28 (READ_10) in a 31-byte
0206 Bulk wrapper to a storage device at address 5::
0207 
0208   dd65f0e8 4128379752 S Bo:1:005:2 -115 31 = 55534243 ad000000 00800000 80010a28 20000000 20000040 00000000 000000
0209   dd65f0e8 4128379808 C Bo:1:005:2 0 31 >
0210 
0211 Raw binary format and API
0212 =========================
0213 
0214 The overall architecture of the API is about the same as the one above,
0215 only the events are delivered in binary format. Each event is sent in
0216 the following structure (its name is made up, so that we can refer to it)::
0217 
0218   struct usbmon_packet {
0219         u64 id;                 /*  0: URB ID - from submission to callback */
0220         unsigned char type;     /*  8: Same as text; extensible. */
0221         unsigned char xfer_type; /*    ISO (0), Intr, Control, Bulk (3) */
0222         unsigned char epnum;    /*     Endpoint number and transfer direction */
0223         unsigned char devnum;   /*     Device address */
0224         u16 busnum;             /* 12: Bus number */
0225         char flag_setup;        /* 14: Same as text */
0226         char flag_data;         /* 15: Same as text; Binary zero is OK. */
0227         s64 ts_sec;             /* 16: gettimeofday */
0228         s32 ts_usec;            /* 24: gettimeofday */
0229         int status;             /* 28: */
0230         unsigned int length;    /* 32: Length of data (submitted or actual) */
0231         unsigned int len_cap;   /* 36: Delivered length */
0232         union {                 /* 40: */
0233                 unsigned char setup[SETUP_LEN]; /* Only for Control S-type */
0234                 struct iso_rec {                /* Only for ISO */
0235                         int error_count;
0236                         int numdesc;
0237                 } iso;
0238         } s;
0239         int interval;           /* 48: Only for Interrupt and ISO */
0240         int start_frame;        /* 52: For ISO */
0241         unsigned int xfer_flags; /* 56: copy of URB's transfer_flags */
0242         unsigned int ndesc;     /* 60: Actual number of ISO descriptors */
0243   };                            /* 64 total length */
0244 
0245 These events can be received from a character device by reading with read(2),
0246 with an ioctl(2), or by accessing the buffer with mmap. However, read(2)
0247 only returns first 48 bytes for compatibility reasons.
0248 
0249 The character device is usually called /dev/usbmonN, where N is the USB bus
0250 number. Number zero (/dev/usbmon0) is special and means "all buses".
0251 Note that specific naming policy is set by your Linux distribution.
0252 
0253 If you create /dev/usbmon0 by hand, make sure that it is owned by root
0254 and has mode 0600. Otherwise, unprivileged users will be able to snoop
0255 keyboard traffic.
0256 
0257 The following ioctl calls are available, with MON_IOC_MAGIC 0x92:
0258 
0259  MON_IOCQ_URB_LEN, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 1)
0260 
0261 This call returns the length of data in the next event. Note that majority of
0262 events contain no data, so if this call returns zero, it does not mean that
0263 no events are available.
0264 
0265  MON_IOCG_STATS, defined as _IOR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 3, struct mon_bin_stats)
0266 
0267 The argument is a pointer to the following structure::
0268 
0269   struct mon_bin_stats {
0270         u32 queued;
0271         u32 dropped;
0272   };
0273 
0274 The member "queued" refers to the number of events currently queued in the
0275 buffer (and not to the number of events processed since the last reset).
0276 
0277 The member "dropped" is the number of events lost since the last call
0278 to MON_IOCG_STATS.
0279 
0280  MON_IOCT_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 4)
0281 
0282 This call sets the buffer size. The argument is the size in bytes.
0283 The size may be rounded down to the next chunk (or page). If the requested
0284 size is out of [unspecified] bounds for this kernel, the call fails with
0285 -EINVAL.
0286 
0287  MON_IOCQ_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 5)
0288 
0289 This call returns the current size of the buffer in bytes.
0290 
0291  MON_IOCX_GET, defined as _IOW(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 6, struct mon_get_arg)
0292  MON_IOCX_GETX, defined as _IOW(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 10, struct mon_get_arg)
0293 
0294 These calls wait for events to arrive if none were in the kernel buffer,
0295 then return the first event. The argument is a pointer to the following
0296 structure::
0297 
0298   struct mon_get_arg {
0299         struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
0300         void *data;
0301         size_t alloc;           /* Length of data (can be zero) */
0302   };
0303 
0304 Before the call, hdr, data, and alloc should be filled. Upon return, the area
0305 pointed by hdr contains the next event structure, and the data buffer contains
0306 the data, if any. The event is removed from the kernel buffer.
0307 
0308 The MON_IOCX_GET copies 48 bytes to hdr area, MON_IOCX_GETX copies 64 bytes.
0309 
0310  MON_IOCX_MFETCH, defined as _IOWR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 7, struct mon_mfetch_arg)
0311 
0312 This ioctl is primarily used when the application accesses the buffer
0313 with mmap(2). Its argument is a pointer to the following structure::
0314 
0315   struct mon_mfetch_arg {
0316         uint32_t *offvec;       /* Vector of events fetched */
0317         uint32_t nfetch;        /* Number of events to fetch (out: fetched) */
0318         uint32_t nflush;        /* Number of events to flush */
0319   };
0320 
0321 The ioctl operates in 3 stages.
0322 
0323 First, it removes and discards up to nflush events from the kernel buffer.
0324 The actual number of events discarded is returned in nflush.
0325 
0326 Second, it waits for an event to be present in the buffer, unless the pseudo-
0327 device is open with O_NONBLOCK.
0328 
0329 Third, it extracts up to nfetch offsets into the mmap buffer, and stores
0330 them into the offvec. The actual number of event offsets is stored into
0331 the nfetch.
0332 
0333  MON_IOCH_MFLUSH, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 8)
0334 
0335 This call removes a number of events from the kernel buffer. Its argument
0336 is the number of events to remove. If the buffer contains fewer events
0337 than requested, all events present are removed, and no error is reported.
0338 This works when no events are available too.
0339 
0340  FIONBIO
0341 
0342 The ioctl FIONBIO may be implemented in the future, if there's a need.
0343 
0344 In addition to ioctl(2) and read(2), the special file of binary API can
0345 be polled with select(2) and poll(2). But lseek(2) does not work.
0346 
0347 * Memory-mapped access of the kernel buffer for the binary API
0348 
0349 The basic idea is simple:
0350 
0351 To prepare, map the buffer by getting the current size, then using mmap(2).
0352 Then, execute a loop similar to the one written in pseudo-code below::
0353 
0354    struct mon_mfetch_arg fetch;
0355    struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
0356    int nflush = 0;
0357    for (;;) {
0358       fetch.offvec = vec; // Has N 32-bit words
0359       fetch.nfetch = N;   // Or less than N
0360       fetch.nflush = nflush;
0361       ioctl(fd, MON_IOCX_MFETCH, &fetch);   // Process errors, too
0362       nflush = fetch.nfetch;       // This many packets to flush when done
0363       for (i = 0; i < nflush; i++) {
0364          hdr = (struct ubsmon_packet *) &mmap_area[vec[i]];
0365          if (hdr->type == '@')     // Filler packet
0366             continue;
0367          caddr_t data = &mmap_area[vec[i]] + 64;
0368          process_packet(hdr, data);
0369       }
0370    }
0371 
0372 Thus, the main idea is to execute only one ioctl per N events.
0373 
0374 Although the buffer is circular, the returned headers and data do not cross
0375 the end of the buffer, so the above pseudo-code does not need any gathering.