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 0s 0u 1s 1t 1u 2s 2t 2u 3s 3t 3u 4s 4t 4u
40 Now you can choose to either use the socket '0u' (to capture packets on all
41 buses), and skip to step #3, or find the bus used by your device with step #2.
42 This allows to filter away annoying devices that talk continuously.
44 2. Find which bus connects to the desired device
46 Run "cat /proc/bus/usb/devices", and find the T-line which corresponds to
47 the device. Usually you do it by looking for the vendor string. If you have
48 many similar devices, unplug one and compare two /proc/bus/usb/devices outputs.
49 The T-line will have a bus number. Example:
51 T: Bus=03 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
52 D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
53 P: Vendor=0557 ProdID=2004 Rev= 1.00
55 S: Product=UC100KM V2.00
57 Bus=03 means it's bus 3.
61 # cat /sys/kernel/debug/usbmon/3u > /tmp/1.mon.out
63 to listen on a single bus, otherwise, to listen on all buses, type:
65 # cat /sys/kernel/debug/usbmon/0u > /tmp/1.mon.out
67 This process will be reading until killed. Naturally, the output can be
68 redirected to a desirable location. This is preferred, because it is going
71 4. Perform the desired operation on the USB bus
73 This is where you do something that creates the traffic: plug in a flash key,
74 copy files, control a webcam, etc.
78 Usually it's done with a keyboard interrupt (Control-C).
80 At this point the output file (/tmp/1.mon.out in this example) can be saved,
81 sent by e-mail, or inspected with a text editor. In the last case make sure
82 that the file size is not excessive for your favourite editor.
84 * Raw text data format
86 Two formats are supported currently: the original, or '1t' format, and
87 the '1u' format. The '1t' format is deprecated in kernel 2.6.21. The '1u'
88 format adds a few fields, such as ISO frame descriptors, interval, etc.
89 It produces slightly longer lines, but otherwise is a perfect superset
92 If it is desired to recognize one from the other in a program, look at the
93 "address" word (see below), where '1u' format adds a bus number. If 2 colons
94 are present, it's the '1t' format, otherwise '1u'.
96 Any text format data consists of a stream of events, such as URB submission,
97 URB callback, submission error. Every event is a text line, which consists
98 of whitespace separated words. The number or position of words may depend
99 on the event type, but there is a set of words, common for all types.
101 Here is the list of words, from left to right:
103 - URB Tag. This is used to identify URBs, and is normally an in-kernel address
104 of the URB structure in hexadecimal, but can be a sequence number or any
105 other unique string, within reason.
107 - Timestamp in microseconds, a decimal number. The timestamp's resolution
108 depends on available clock, and so it can be much worse than a microsecond
109 (if the implementation uses jiffies, for example).
111 - Event Type. This type refers to the format of the event, not URB type.
112 Available types are: S - submission, C - callback, E - submission error.
114 - "Address" word (formerly a "pipe"). It consists of four fields, separated by
115 colons: URB type and direction, Bus number, Device address, Endpoint number.
116 Type and direction are encoded with two bytes in the following manner:
117 Ci Co Control input and output
118 Zi Zo Isochronous input and output
119 Ii Io Interrupt input and output
120 Bi Bo Bulk input and output
121 Bus number, Device address, and Endpoint are decimal numbers, but they may
122 have leading zeros, for the sake of human readers.
124 - URB Status word. This is either a letter, or several numbers separated
125 by colons: URB status, interval, start frame, and error count. Unlike the
126 "address" word, all fields save the status are optional. Interval is printed
127 only for interrupt and isochronous URBs. Start frame is printed only for
128 isochronous URBs. Error count is printed only for isochronous callback
131 The status field is a decimal number, sometimes negative, which represents
132 a "status" field of the URB. This field makes no sense for submissions, but
133 is present anyway to help scripts with parsing. When an error occurs, the
134 field contains the error code.
136 In case of a submission of a Control packet, this field contains a Setup Tag
137 instead of an group of numbers. It is easy to tell whether the Setup Tag is
138 present because it is never a number. Thus if scripts find a set of numbers
139 in this word, they proceed to read Data Length (except for isochronous URBs).
140 If they find something else, like a letter, they read the setup packet before
141 reading the Data Length or isochronous descriptors.
143 - Setup packet, if present, consists of 5 words: one of each for bmRequestType,
144 bRequest, wValue, wIndex, wLength, as specified by the USB Specification 2.0.
145 These words are safe to decode if Setup Tag was 's'. Otherwise, the setup
146 packet was present, but not captured, and the fields contain filler.
148 - Number of isochronous frame descriptors and descriptors themselves.
149 If an Isochronous transfer event has a set of descriptors, a total number
150 of them in an URB is printed first, then a word per descriptor, up to a
151 total of 5. The word consists of 3 colon-separated decimal numbers for
152 status, offset, and length respectively. For submissions, initial length
153 is reported. For callbacks, actual length is reported.
155 - Data Length. For submissions, this is the requested length. For callbacks,
156 this is the actual length.
158 - Data tag. The usbmon may not always capture data, even if length is nonzero.
159 The data words are present only if this tag is '='.
161 - Data words follow, in big endian hexadecimal format. Notice that they are
162 not machine words, but really just a byte stream split into words to make
163 it easier to read. Thus, the last word may contain from one to four bytes.
164 The length of collected data is limited and can be less than the data length
165 report in Data Length word.
167 Here is an example of code to read the data stream in a well known programming
171 int data_len; /* Available length of data */
174 void parseData(StringTokenizer st) {
175 int availwords = st.countTokens();
176 data = new byte[availwords * 4];
178 while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
179 String data_str = st.nextToken();
180 int len = data_str.length() / 2;
182 int b; // byte is signed, apparently?! XXX
183 for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
184 // data[data_len] = Byte.parseByte(
185 // data_str.substring(i*2, i*2 + 2),
187 b = Integer.parseInt(
188 data_str.substring(i*2, i*2 + 2),
192 data[data_len] = (byte) b;
201 An input control transfer to get a port status.
203 d5ea89a0 3575914555 S Ci:1:001:0 s a3 00 0000 0003 0004 4 <
204 d5ea89a0 3575914560 C Ci:1:001:0 0 4 = 01050000
206 An output bulk transfer to send a SCSI command 0x5E in a 31-byte Bulk wrapper
207 to a storage device at address 5:
209 dd65f0e8 4128379752 S Bo:1:005:2 -115 31 = 55534243 5e000000 00000000 00000600 00000000 00000000 00000000 000000
210 dd65f0e8 4128379808 C Bo:1:005:2 0 31 >
212 * Raw binary format and API
214 The overall architecture of the API is about the same as the one above,
215 only the events are delivered in binary format. Each event is sent in
216 the following structure (its name is made up, so that we can refer to it):
218 struct usbmon_packet {
219 u64 id; /* 0: URB ID - from submission to callback */
220 unsigned char type; /* 8: Same as text; extensible. */
221 unsigned char xfer_type; /* ISO (0), Intr, Control, Bulk (3) */
222 unsigned char epnum; /* Endpoint number and transfer direction */
223 unsigned char devnum; /* Device address */
224 u16 busnum; /* 12: Bus number */
225 char flag_setup; /* 14: Same as text */
226 char flag_data; /* 15: Same as text; Binary zero is OK. */
227 s64 ts_sec; /* 16: gettimeofday */
228 s32 ts_usec; /* 24: gettimeofday */
229 int status; /* 28: */
230 unsigned int length; /* 32: Length of data (submitted or actual) */
231 unsigned int len_cap; /* 36: Delivered length */
232 unsigned char setup[8]; /* 40: Only for Control 'S' */
233 }; /* 48 bytes total */
235 These events can be received from a character device by reading with read(2),
236 with an ioctl(2), or by accessing the buffer with mmap.
238 The character device is usually called /dev/usbmonN, where N is the USB bus
239 number. Number zero (/dev/usbmon0) is special and means "all buses".
240 However, this feature is not implemented yet. Note that specific naming
241 policy is set by your Linux distribution.
243 If you create /dev/usbmon0 by hand, make sure that it is owned by root
244 and has mode 0600. Otherwise, unpriviledged users will be able to snoop
247 The following ioctl calls are available, with MON_IOC_MAGIC 0x92:
249 MON_IOCQ_URB_LEN, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 1)
251 This call returns the length of data in the next event. Note that majority of
252 events contain no data, so if this call returns zero, it does not mean that
253 no events are available.
255 MON_IOCG_STATS, defined as _IOR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 3, struct mon_bin_stats)
257 The argument is a pointer to the following structure:
259 struct mon_bin_stats {
264 The member "queued" refers to the number of events currently queued in the
265 buffer (and not to the number of events processed since the last reset).
267 The member "dropped" is the number of events lost since the last call
270 MON_IOCT_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 4)
272 This call sets the buffer size. The argument is the size in bytes.
273 The size may be rounded down to the next chunk (or page). If the requested
274 size is out of [unspecified] bounds for this kernel, the call fails with
277 MON_IOCQ_RING_SIZE, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 5)
279 This call returns the current size of the buffer in bytes.
281 MON_IOCX_GET, defined as _IOW(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 6, struct mon_get_arg)
283 This call waits for events to arrive if none were in the kernel buffer,
284 then returns the first event. Its argument is a pointer to the following
288 struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
290 size_t alloc; /* Length of data (can be zero) */
293 Before the call, hdr, data, and alloc should be filled. Upon return, the area
294 pointed by hdr contains the next event structure, and the data buffer contains
295 the data, if any. The event is removed from the kernel buffer.
297 MON_IOCX_MFETCH, defined as _IOWR(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 7, struct mon_mfetch_arg)
299 This ioctl is primarily used when the application accesses the buffer
300 with mmap(2). Its argument is a pointer to the following structure:
302 struct mon_mfetch_arg {
303 uint32_t *offvec; /* Vector of events fetched */
304 uint32_t nfetch; /* Number of events to fetch (out: fetched) */
305 uint32_t nflush; /* Number of events to flush */
308 The ioctl operates in 3 stages.
310 First, it removes and discards up to nflush events from the kernel buffer.
311 The actual number of events discarded is returned in nflush.
313 Second, it waits for an event to be present in the buffer, unless the pseudo-
314 device is open with O_NONBLOCK.
316 Third, it extracts up to nfetch offsets into the mmap buffer, and stores
317 them into the offvec. The actual number of event offsets is stored into
320 MON_IOCH_MFLUSH, defined as _IO(MON_IOC_MAGIC, 8)
322 This call removes a number of events from the kernel buffer. Its argument
323 is the number of events to remove. If the buffer contains fewer events
324 than requested, all events present are removed, and no error is reported.
325 This works when no events are available too.
329 The ioctl FIONBIO may be implemented in the future, if there's a need.
331 In addition to ioctl(2) and read(2), the special file of binary API can
332 be polled with select(2) and poll(2). But lseek(2) does not work.
334 * Memory-mapped access of the kernel buffer for the binary API
336 The basic idea is simple:
338 To prepare, map the buffer by getting the current size, then using mmap(2).
339 Then, execute a loop similar to the one written in pseudo-code below:
341 struct mon_mfetch_arg fetch;
342 struct usbmon_packet *hdr;
345 fetch.offvec = vec; // Has N 32-bit words
346 fetch.nfetch = N; // Or less than N
347 fetch.nflush = nflush;
348 ioctl(fd, MON_IOCX_MFETCH, &fetch); // Process errors, too
349 nflush = fetch.nfetch; // This many packets to flush when done
350 for (i = 0; i < nflush; i++) {
351 hdr = (struct ubsmon_packet *) &mmap_area[vec[i]];
352 if (hdr->type == '@') // Filler packet
354 caddr_t data = &mmap_area[vec[i]] + 64;
355 process_packet(hdr, data);
359 Thus, the main idea is to execute only one ioctl per N events.
361 Although the buffer is circular, the returned headers and data do not cross
362 the end of the buffer, so the above pseudo-code does not need any gathering.