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1 | UHID - User-space I/O driver support for HID subsystem | ||
2 | ======================================================== | ||
3 | |||
4 | The HID subsystem needs two kinds of drivers. In this document we call them: | ||
5 | |||
6 | 1. The "HID I/O Driver" is the driver that performs raw data I/O to the | ||
7 | low-level device. Internally, they register an hid_ll_driver structure with | ||
8 | the HID core. They perform device setup, read raw data from the device and | ||
9 | push it into the HID subsystem and they provide a callback so the HID | ||
10 | subsystem can send data to the device. | ||
11 | |||
12 | 2. The "HID Device Driver" is the driver that parses HID reports and reacts on | ||
13 | them. There are generic drivers like "generic-usb" and "generic-bluetooth" | ||
14 | which adhere to the HID specification and provide the standardizes features. | ||
15 | But there may be special drivers and quirks for each non-standard device out | ||
16 | there. Internally, they use the hid_driver structure. | ||
17 | |||
18 | Historically, the USB stack was the first subsystem to provide an HID I/O | ||
19 | Driver. However, other standards like Bluetooth have adopted the HID specs and | ||
20 | may provide HID I/O Drivers, too. The UHID driver allows to implement HID I/O | ||
21 | Drivers in user-space and feed the data into the kernel HID-subsystem. | ||
22 | |||
23 | This allows user-space to operate on the same level as USB-HID, Bluetooth-HID | ||
24 | and similar. It does not provide a way to write HID Device Drivers, though. Use | ||
25 | hidraw for this purpose. | ||
26 | |||
27 | There is an example user-space application in ./samples/uhid/uhid-example.c | ||
28 | |||
29 | The UHID API | ||
30 | ------------ | ||
31 | |||
32 | UHID is accessed through a character misc-device. The minor-number is allocated | ||
33 | dynamically so you need to rely on udev (or similar) to create the device node. | ||
34 | This is /dev/uhid by default. | ||
35 | |||
36 | If a new device is detected by your HID I/O Driver and you want to register this | ||
37 | device with the HID subsystem, then you need to open /dev/uhid once for each | ||
38 | device you want to register. All further communication is done by read()'ing or | ||
39 | write()'ing "struct uhid_event" objects. Non-blocking operations are supported | ||
40 | by setting O_NONBLOCK. | ||
41 | |||
42 | struct uhid_event { | ||
43 | __u32 type; | ||
44 | union { | ||
45 | struct uhid_create_req create; | ||
46 | struct uhid_data_req data; | ||
47 | ... | ||
48 | } u; | ||
49 | }; | ||
50 | |||
51 | The "type" field contains the ID of the event. Depending on the ID different | ||
52 | payloads are sent. You must not split a single event across multiple read()'s or | ||
53 | multiple write()'s. A single event must always be sent as a whole. Furthermore, | ||
54 | only a single event can be sent per read() or write(). Pending data is ignored. | ||
55 | If you want to handle multiple events in a single syscall, then use vectored | ||
56 | I/O with readv()/writev(). | ||
57 | |||
58 | The first thing you should do is sending an UHID_CREATE event. This will | ||
59 | register the device. UHID will respond with an UHID_START event. You can now | ||
60 | start sending data to and reading data from UHID. However, unless UHID sends the | ||
61 | UHID_OPEN event, the internally attached HID Device Driver has no user attached. | ||
62 | That is, you might put your device asleep unless you receive the UHID_OPEN | ||
63 | event. If you receive the UHID_OPEN event, you should start I/O. If the last | ||
64 | user closes the HID device, you will receive an UHID_CLOSE event. This may be | ||
65 | followed by an UHID_OPEN event again and so on. There is no need to perform | ||
66 | reference-counting in user-space. That is, you will never receive multiple | ||
67 | UHID_OPEN events without an UHID_CLOSE event. The HID subsystem performs | ||
68 | ref-counting for you. | ||
69 | You may decide to ignore UHID_OPEN/UHID_CLOSE, though. I/O is allowed even | ||
70 | though the device may have no users. | ||
71 | |||
72 | If you want to send data to the HID subsystem, you send an HID_INPUT event with | ||
73 | your raw data payload. If the kernel wants to send data to the device, you will | ||
74 | read an UHID_OUTPUT or UHID_OUTPUT_EV event. | ||
75 | |||
76 | If your device disconnects, you should send an UHID_DESTROY event. This will | ||
77 | unregister the device. You can now send UHID_CREATE again to register a new | ||
78 | device. | ||
79 | If you close() the fd, the device is automatically unregistered and destroyed | ||
80 | internally. | ||
81 | |||
82 | write() | ||
83 | ------- | ||
84 | write() allows you to modify the state of the device and feed input data into | ||
85 | the kernel. The following types are supported: UHID_CREATE, UHID_DESTROY and | ||
86 | UHID_INPUT. The kernel will parse the event immediately and if the event ID is | ||
87 | not supported, it will return -EOPNOTSUPP. If the payload is invalid, then | ||
88 | -EINVAL is returned, otherwise, the amount of data that was read is returned and | ||
89 | the request was handled successfully. | ||
90 | |||
91 | UHID_CREATE: | ||
92 | This creates the internal HID device. No I/O is possible until you send this | ||
93 | event to the kernel. The payload is of type struct uhid_create_req and | ||
94 | contains information about your device. You can start I/O now. | ||
95 | |||
96 | UHID_DESTROY: | ||
97 | This destroys the internal HID device. No further I/O will be accepted. There | ||
98 | may still be pending messages that you can receive with read() but no further | ||
99 | UHID_INPUT events can be sent to the kernel. | ||
100 | You can create a new device by sending UHID_CREATE again. There is no need to | ||
101 | reopen the character device. | ||
102 | |||
103 | UHID_INPUT: | ||
104 | You must send UHID_CREATE before sending input to the kernel! This event | ||
105 | contains a data-payload. This is the raw data that you read from your device. | ||
106 | The kernel will parse the HID reports and react on it. | ||
107 | |||
108 | UHID_FEATURE_ANSWER: | ||
109 | If you receive a UHID_FEATURE request you must answer with this request. You | ||
110 | must copy the "id" field from the request into the answer. Set the "err" field | ||
111 | to 0 if no error occured or to EIO if an I/O error occurred. | ||
112 | If "err" is 0 then you should fill the buffer of the answer with the results | ||
113 | of the feature request and set "size" correspondingly. | ||
114 | |||
115 | read() | ||
116 | ------ | ||
117 | read() will return a queued ouput report. These output reports can be of type | ||
118 | UHID_START, UHID_STOP, UHID_OPEN, UHID_CLOSE, UHID_OUTPUT or UHID_OUTPUT_EV. No | ||
119 | reaction is required to any of them but you should handle them according to your | ||
120 | needs. Only UHID_OUTPUT and UHID_OUTPUT_EV have payloads. | ||
121 | |||
122 | UHID_START: | ||
123 | This is sent when the HID device is started. Consider this as an answer to | ||
124 | UHID_CREATE. This is always the first event that is sent. | ||
125 | |||
126 | UHID_STOP: | ||
127 | This is sent when the HID device is stopped. Consider this as an answer to | ||
128 | UHID_DESTROY. | ||
129 | If the kernel HID device driver closes the device manually (that is, you | ||
130 | didn't send UHID_DESTROY) then you should consider this device closed and send | ||
131 | an UHID_DESTROY event. You may want to reregister your device, though. This is | ||
132 | always the last message that is sent to you unless you reopen the device with | ||
133 | UHID_CREATE. | ||
134 | |||
135 | UHID_OPEN: | ||
136 | This is sent when the HID device is opened. That is, the data that the HID | ||
137 | device provides is read by some other process. You may ignore this event but | ||
138 | it is useful for power-management. As long as you haven't received this event | ||
139 | there is actually no other process that reads your data so there is no need to | ||
140 | send UHID_INPUT events to the kernel. | ||
141 | |||
142 | UHID_CLOSE: | ||
143 | This is sent when there are no more processes which read the HID data. It is | ||
144 | the counterpart of UHID_OPEN and you may as well ignore this event. | ||
145 | |||
146 | UHID_OUTPUT: | ||
147 | This is sent if the HID device driver wants to send raw data to the I/O | ||
148 | device. You should read the payload and forward it to the device. The payload | ||
149 | is of type "struct uhid_data_req". | ||
150 | This may be received even though you haven't received UHID_OPEN, yet. | ||
151 | |||
152 | UHID_OUTPUT_EV: | ||
153 | Same as UHID_OUTPUT but this contains a "struct input_event" as payload. This | ||
154 | is called for force-feedback, LED or similar events which are received through | ||
155 | an input device by the HID subsystem. You should convert this into raw reports | ||
156 | and send them to your device similar to events of type UHID_OUTPUT. | ||
157 | |||
158 | UHID_FEATURE: | ||
159 | This event is sent if the kernel driver wants to perform a feature request as | ||
160 | described in the HID specs. The report-type and report-number are available in | ||
161 | the payload. | ||
162 | The kernel serializes feature requests so there will never be two in parallel. | ||
163 | However, if you fail to respond with a UHID_FEATURE_ANSWER in a time-span of 5 | ||
164 | seconds, then the requests will be dropped and a new one might be sent. | ||
165 | Therefore, the payload also contains an "id" field that identifies every | ||
166 | request. | ||
167 | |||
168 | Document by: | ||
169 | David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@googlemail.com> | ||