3 The name "usbmon" in lowercase refers to a facility in kernel which is
4 used to collect traces of I/O on the USB bus. This function is analogous
5 to a packet socket used by network monitoring tools such as tcpdump(1)
6 or Ethereal. Similarly, it is expected that a tool such as usbdump or
7 USBMon (with uppercase letters) is used to examine raw traces produced
10 The usbmon reports requests made by peripheral-specific drivers to Host
11 Controller Drivers (HCD). So, if HCD is buggy, the traces reported by
12 usbmon may not correspond to bus transactions precisely. This is the same
13 situation as with tcpdump.
15 * How to use usbmon to collect raw text traces
17 Unlike the packet socket, usbmon has an interface which provides traces
18 in a text format. This is used for two purposes. First, it serves as a
19 common trace exchange format for tools while more sophisticated formats
20 are finalized. Second, humans can read it in case tools are not available.
22 To collect a raw text trace, execute following steps.
26 Mount debugfs (it has to be enabled in your kernel configuration), and
27 load the usbmon module (if built as module). The second step is skipped
28 if usbmon is built into the kernel.
30 # mount -t debugfs none_debugs /sys/kernel/debug
34 Verify that bus sockets are present.
36 # ls /sys/kernel/debug/usbmon
37 1s 1t 1u 2s 2t 2u 3s 3t 3u 4s 4t 4u
40 2. Find which bus connects to the desired device
42 Run "cat /proc/bus/usb/devices", and find the T-line which corresponds to
43 the device. Usually you do it by looking for the vendor string. If you have
44 many similar devices, unplug one and compare two /proc/bus/usb/devices outputs.
45 The T-line will have a bus number. Example:
47 T: Bus=03 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
48 D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
49 P: Vendor=0557 ProdID=2004 Rev= 1.00
51 S: Product=UC100KM V2.00
53 Bus=03 means it's bus 3.
57 # cat /sys/kernel/debug/usbmon/3u > /tmp/1.mon.out
59 This process will be reading until killed. Naturally, the output can be
60 redirected to a desirable location. This is preferred, because it is going
63 4. Perform the desired operation on the USB bus
65 This is where you do something that creates the traffic: plug in a flash key,
66 copy files, control a webcam, etc.
70 Usually it's done with a keyboard interrupt (Control-C).
72 At this point the output file (/tmp/1.mon.out in this example) can be saved,
73 sent by e-mail, or inspected with a text editor. In the last case make sure
74 that the file size is not excessive for your favourite editor.
76 * Raw text data format
78 Two formats are supported currently: the original, or '1t' format, and
79 the '1u' format. The '1t' format is deprecated in kernel 2.6.21. The '1u'
80 format adds a few fields, such as ISO frame descriptors, interval, etc.
81 It produces slightly longer lines, but otherwise is a perfect superset
84 If it is desired to recognize one from the other in a program, look at the
85 "address" word (see below), where '1u' format adds a bus number. If 2 colons
86 are present, it's the '1t' format, otherwise '1u'.
88 Any text format data consists of a stream of events, such as URB submission,
89 URB callback, submission error. Every event is a text line, which consists
90 of whitespace separated words. The number or position of words may depend
91 on the event type, but there is a set of words, common for all types.
93 Here is the list of words, from left to right:
95 - URB Tag. This is used to identify URBs is normally a kernel mode address
96 of the URB structure in hexadecimal.
98 - Timestamp in microseconds, a decimal number. The timestamp's resolution
99 depends on available clock, and so it can be much worse than a microsecond
100 (if the implementation uses jiffies, for example).
102 - Event Type. This type refers to the format of the event, not URB type.
103 Available types are: S - submission, C - callback, E - submission error.
105 - "Address" word (formerly a "pipe"). It consists of four fields, separated by
106 colons: URB type and direction, Bus number, Device address, Endpoint number.
107 Type and direction are encoded with two bytes in the following manner:
108 Ci Co Control input and output
109 Zi Zo Isochronous input and output
110 Ii Io Interrupt input and output
111 Bi Bo Bulk input and output
112 Bus number, Device address, and Endpoint are decimal numbers, but they may
113 have leading zeros, for the sake of human readers.
115 - URB Status word. This is either a letter, or several numbers separated
116 by colons: URB status, interval, start frame, and error count. Unlike the
117 "address" word, all fields save the status are optional. Interval is printed
118 only for interrupt and isochronous URBs. Start frame is printed only for
119 isochronous URBs. Error count is printed only for isochronous callback
122 The status field is a decimal number, sometimes negative, which represents
123 a "status" field of the URB. This field makes no sense for submissions, but
124 is present anyway to help scripts with parsing. When an error occurs, the
125 field contains the error code.
127 In case of a submission of a Control packet, this field contains a Setup Tag
128 instead of an group of numbers. It is easy to tell whether the Setup Tag is
129 present because it is never a number. Thus if scripts find a set of numbers
130 in this word, they proceed to read Data Length (except for isochronous URBs).
131 If they find something else, like a letter, they read the setup packet before
132 reading the Data Length or isochronous descriptors.
134 - Setup packet, if present, consists of 5 words: one of each for bmRequestType,
135 bRequest, wValue, wIndex, wLength, as specified by the USB Specification 2.0.
136 These words are safe to decode if Setup Tag was 's'. Otherwise, the setup
137 packet was present, but not captured, and the fields contain filler.
139 - Number of isochronous frame descriptors and descriptors themselves.
140 If an Isochronous transfer event has a set of descriptors, a total number
141 of them in an URB is printed first, then a word per descriptor, up to a
142 total of 5. The word consists of 3 colon-separated decimal numbers for
143 status, offset, and length respectively. For submissions, initial length
144 is reported. For callbacks, actual length is reported.
146 - Data Length. For submissions, this is the requested length. For callbacks,
147 this is the actual length.
149 - Data tag. The usbmon may not always capture data, even if length is nonzero.
150 The data words are present only if this tag is '='.
152 - Data words follow, in big endian hexadecimal format. Notice that they are
153 not machine words, but really just a byte stream split into words to make
154 it easier to read. Thus, the last word may contain from one to four bytes.
155 The length of collected data is limited and can be less than the data length
156 report in Data Length word.
158 Here is an example of code to read the data stream in a well known programming
162 int data_len; /* Available length of data */
165 void parseData(StringTokenizer st) {
166 int availwords = st.countTokens();
167 data = new byte[availwords * 4];
169 while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
170 String data_str = st.nextToken();
171 int len = data_str.length() / 2;
173 int b; // byte is signed, apparently?! XXX
174 for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
175 // data[data_len] = Byte.parseByte(
176 // data_str.substring(i*2, i*2 + 2),
178 b = Integer.parseInt(
179 data_str.substring(i*2, i*2 + 2),
183 data[data_len] = (byte) b;
192 An input control transfer to get a port status.
194 d5ea89a0 3575914555 S Ci:1:001:0 s a3 00 0000 0003 0004 4 <
195 d5ea89a0 3575914560 C Ci:1:001:0 0 4 = 01050000
197 An output bulk transfer to send a SCSI command 0x5E in a 31-byte Bulk wrapper
198 to a storage device at address 5:
200 dd65f0e8 4128379752 S Bo:1:005:2 -115 31 = 55534243 5e000000 00000000 00000600 00000000 00000000 00000000 000000
201 dd65f0e8 4128379808 C Bo:1:005:2 0 31 >
203 * Raw binary format and API
205 The overall architecture of the API is about the same as the one above,
206 only the events are delivered in binary format. Each event is sent in
207 the following structure (its name is made up, so that we can refer to it):
209 struct usbmon_packet {
210 u64 id; /* 0: URB ID - from submission to callback */
211 unsigned char type; /* 8: Same as text; extensible. */
212 unsigned char xfer_type; /* ISO (0), Intr, Control, Bulk (3) */
213 unsigned char epnum; /* Endpoint number and transfer direction */
214 unsigned char devnum; /* Device address */
215 u16 busnum; /* 12: Bus number */
216 char flag_setup; /* 14: Same as text */
217 char flag_data; /* 15: Same as text; Binary zero is OK. */
218 s64 ts_sec; /* 16: gettimeofday */
219 s32 ts_usec; /* 24: gettimeofday */
220 int status; /* 28: */
221 unsigned int length; /* 32: Length of data (submitted or actual) */
222 unsigned int len_cap; /* 36: Delivered length */
223 unsigned char setup[8]; /* 40: Only for Control 'S' */
224 }; /* 48 bytes total */
226 These events can be received from a character device by reading with read(2),
227 with an ioctl(2), or by accessing the buffer with mmap.
229 The character device is usually called /dev/usbmonN, where N is the USB bus
230 number. Number zero (/dev/usbmon0) is special and means "all buses".
231 However, this feature is not implemented yet. Note that specific naming
232 policy is set by your Linux distribution.
234 If you create /dev/usbmon0 by hand, make sure that it is owned by root
235 and has mode 0600. Otherwise, unpriviledged users will be able to snoop
238 The following ioctl calls are available, with MON_IOC_MAGIC 0x92:
240 MON_IOCQ_URB_LEN, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 1)
242 This call returns the length of data in the next event. Note that majority of
243 events contain no data, so if this call returns zero, it does not mean that
244 no events are available.
246 MON_IOCG_STATS, defined as _IOR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 3, struct mon_bin_stats)
248 The argument is a pointer to the following structure:
250 struct mon_bin_stats {
255 The member "queued" refers to the number of events currently queued in the
256 buffer (and not to the number of events processed since the last reset).
258 The member "dropped" is the number of events lost since the last call
261 MON_IOCT_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 4)
263 This call sets the buffer size. The argument is the size in bytes.
264 The size may be rounded down to the next chunk (or page). If the requested
265 size is out of [unspecified] bounds for this kernel, the call fails with
268 MON_IOCQ_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 5)
270 This call returns the current size of the buffer in bytes.
272 MON_IOCX_GET, defined as _IOW(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 6, struct mon_get_arg)
274 This call waits for events to arrive if none were in the kernel buffer,
275 then returns the first event. Its argument is a pointer to the following
279 struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
281 size_t alloc; /* Length of data (can be zero) */
284 Before the call, hdr, data, and alloc should be filled. Upon return, the area
285 pointed by hdr contains the next event structure, and the data buffer contains
286 the data, if any. The event is removed from the kernel buffer.
288 MON_IOCX_MFETCH, defined as _IOWR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 7, struct mon_mfetch_arg)
290 This ioctl is primarily used when the application accesses the buffer
291 with mmap(2). Its argument is a pointer to the following structure:
293 struct mon_mfetch_arg {
294 uint32_t *offvec; /* Vector of events fetched */
295 uint32_t nfetch; /* Number of events to fetch (out: fetched) */
296 uint32_t nflush; /* Number of events to flush */
299 The ioctl operates in 3 stages.
301 First, it removes and discards up to nflush events from the kernel buffer.
302 The actual number of events discarded is returned in nflush.
304 Second, it waits for an event to be present in the buffer, unless the pseudo-
305 device is open with O_NONBLOCK.
307 Third, it extracts up to nfetch offsets into the mmap buffer, and stores
308 them into the offvec. The actual number of event offsets is stored into
311 MON_IOCH_MFLUSH, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 8)
313 This call removes a number of events from the kernel buffer. Its argument
314 is the number of events to remove. If the buffer contains fewer events
315 than requested, all events present are removed, and no error is reported.
316 This works when no events are available too.
320 The ioctl FIONBIO may be implemented in the future, if there's a need.
322 In addition to ioctl(2) and read(2), the special file of binary API can
323 be polled with select(2) and poll(2). But lseek(2) does not work.
325 * Memory-mapped access of the kernel buffer for the binary API
327 The basic idea is simple:
329 To prepare, map the buffer by getting the current size, then using mmap(2).
330 Then, execute a loop similar to the one written in pseudo-code below:
332 struct mon_mfetch_arg fetch;
333 struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
336 fetch.offvec = vec; // Has N 32-bit words
337 fetch.nfetch = N; // Or less than N
338 fetch.nflush = nflush;
339 ioctl(fd, MON_IOCX_MFETCH, &fetch); // Process errors, too
340 nflush = fetch.nfetch; // This many packets to flush when done
341 for (i = 0; i < nflush; i++) {
342 hdr = (struct ubsmon_packet *) &mmap_area[vec[i]];
343 if (hdr->type == '@') // Filler packet
345 caddr_t data = &mmap_area[vec[i]] + 64;
346 process_packet(hdr, data);
350 Thus, the main idea is to execute only one ioctl per N events.
352 Although the buffer is circular, the returned headers and data do not cross
353 the end of the buffer, so the above pseudo-code does not need any gathering.