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System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems     Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Information Library
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Document Information

About This Book

1.  Managing Removable Media (Overview)

2.  Managing Removable Media (Tasks)

3.  Accessing Removable Media (Tasks)

4.  Writing CDs and DVDs (Tasks)

5.  Managing Devices (Overview/Tasks)

6.  Dynamically Configuring Devices (Tasks)

7.  Using USB Devices (Overview)

What's New in USB Devices?

EHCI Isochronous Transfer Support

Support for CDC ACM Devices

Changed USB Device Hotpluggable Behavior

Oracle Solaris ZFS Support on USB Devices

Support for Prolific and Keyspan Serial Adapters

USB Power Budgeting

x86: Support for USB CDs and DVDs in GRUB-Based Booting

USB Virtual Keyboard and Mouse Support

vold Provides Awareness of Hot-Plugged USB Devices

Oracle Solaris Support for USB Devices

Overview of USB Devices

Commonly Used USB Acronyms

USB Bus Description

USB Devices and Drivers

USB Driver Enhancements

The EHCI, OHCI, and UHCI Drivers

Oracle Solaris USB Architecture (USBA)

About USB in the Oracle Solaris OS

USB 2.0 Features

USB 2.0 Device Features and Compatibility Issues

Bus-Powered Devices

USB Keyboards and Mouse Devices

USB Wheel Mouse Support

USB Host Controller and Hubs

USB Hub Devices

SPARC: USB Power Management

Guidelines for USB Cables

8.  Using USB Devices (Tasks)

9.  Using InfiniBand Devices (Overview/Tasks)

10.  Managing Disks (Overview)

11.  Administering Disks (Tasks)

12.  SPARC: Setting Up Disks (Tasks)

13.  x86: Setting Up Disks (Tasks)

14.  Configuring Oracle Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators (Tasks)

15.  The format Utility (Reference)

16.  Managing File Systems (Overview)

17.  Creating and Mounting File Systems (Tasks)

18.  Using The CacheFS File System (Tasks)

19.  Configuring Additional Swap Space (Tasks)

20.  Checking UFS File System Consistency (Tasks)

21.  UFS File System (Reference)

22.  Backing Up and Restoring UFS File Systems (Overview)

23.  Backing Up UFS Files and File Systems (Tasks)

24.  Using UFS Snapshots (Tasks)

25.  Restoring UFS Files and File Systems (Tasks)

26.  UFS Backup and Restore Commands (Reference)

27.  Copying Files and File Systems (Tasks)

28.  Managing Tape Drives (Tasks)

Index

Overview of USB Devices

Universal Serial Bus (USB) was developed by the PC industry to provide a low-cost solution for attaching peripheral devices, such as keyboards, mouse devices, and printers, to a system.

USB connectors are designed to fit only one type of cable, in one way. The primary design motivation for USB was to alleviate the need for multiple connector types for different devices. This design reduces the clutter on the back panel of a system.

Devices connect to USB ports on external USB hubs, or on a root hub that is located on the computer itself. Since hubs have several ports, several branches of a device tree can stem from a hub.

For more information, see usba(7D) or go to the following site:

http://www.usb.org/home

Commonly Used USB Acronyms

The following table describes the USB acronyms that are used in the Oracle Solaris OS. For a complete description of USB components and acronyms, go to:

http://www.usb.org/home

Acronym
Definition
For More Information
UGEN
USB generic driver
USB
Universal Serial Bus
USBA
Universal Serial Bus Architecture (Solaris)
USBAI
USBA Client Driver Interface (Solaris)
N/A
HCD
USB host controller driver
N/A
EHCI
Enhanced Host Controller Interface
OHCI
Open Host Controller Interface
UHCI
Universal Host Controller Interface

USB Bus Description

The USB specification is openly available and free of royalties. The specification defines the electrical and mechanical interfaces of the bus and the connectors.

USB employs a topology in which hubs provide attachment points for USB devices. The host controller contains the root hub, which is the origin of all USB ports in the system. For more information about hubs, see USB Host Controller and Hubs.

Figure 7-1 USB Physical Device Hierarchy

image:Diagram shows a system with three active USB ports that includes a compound device (hub and printer) and composite device (keyboard and mouse).

Figure 7-1 shows a system with three active USB ports. The first USB port connects a USB memory stick. The second USB port connects an external hub, which in turn, connects a cdrw device and a composite keyboard/mouse device. As a composite device, this keyboard contains a USB controller, which operates both the keyboard and an attached mouse. The keyboard and the mouse share a common USB bus address because they are directed by the same USB controller.

Figure 7-1 also shows an example of a hub and a printer as a compound device. The hub is an external hub that is enclosed in the same casing as the printer. The printer is permanently connected to the hub. The hub and printer have separate USB bus addresses.

The device tree path name for some of the devices that are displayed in Figure 7-1 are listed here.

Memory stick

/pci@1f,4000/usb@5/storage@1

Keyboard

/pci@1f,4000/usb@5/hub@2/device@1/keyboard@0

Mouse

/pci@1f,4000/usb@5/hub@2/device@1/mouse@1

cdrw device

/pci@1f,4000/usb@5/hub@2/storage@3

Printer

/pci@1f,4000/usb@5/hub@3/printer@1

USB Devices and Drivers

USB devices with similar attributes and services are grouped into device classes. Each device class has a corresponding driver. Devices within a class are managed by the same device driver pair. However, the USB specification also allows for vendor-specific devices that are not part of a specific class.

The Human Interface Device (HID) class contains devices that are user-controlled such as the following devices:

The Communication Device class includes the following devices:

Other device classes include the following classes:

Each USB device contains descriptors that reflect the class of the device. A device class specifies how its members should behave in configuration and data transfer. You can obtain additional class information from:

http://www.usb.org/home

For more information about USB devices supported in the Oracle Solaris release, see usb(7D).

USB Driver Enhancements

The following USB driver enhancements are included.

The EHCI, OHCI, and UHCI Drivers

Features of the EHCI driver include:

Use the prtconf command output to identify whether your system supports USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 devices. For example:

# prtconf  -D | egrep "ehci|ohci|uhci"

If your prtconf output identifies an EHCI controller, your system supports USB 2.0 devices.

If your prtconf output identifies an OHCI or UHCI controller, your system supports USB 1.1 devices.

Oracle Solaris USB Architecture (USBA)

USB devices can be represented as two levels of device tree nodes. A device node represents the entire USB device. One or more child interface nodes represent the individual USB interfaces on the device.

Driver binding is achieved by using the compatible name properties. For more information, refer to 3.2.2.1 of the IEEE 1275 USB binding and Writing Device Drivers. A driver can either bind to the entire device and control all the interfaces, or can bind to just one interface. If no vendor or class driver claims the entire device, a generic USB multi-interface driver is bound to the device-level node. This driver attempts to bind drivers to each interface by using compatible names properties, as defined in section 3.3.2.1 of the IEEE 1275 binding specification.

The Oracle Solaris USB Architecture (USBA) adheres to the USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 specifications and is part of the Oracle Solaris Device Driver Interface (DDI). The USBA model is similar to Sun Common SCSI Architecture (SCSA). As the following figure shows, the USBA is a thin layer that provides a generic USB transport-layer abstraction to client drivers, providing them with services that implement core generic USB functionality.

Figure 7-2 Oracle Solaris USB Architecture (USBA)

image:Diagram shows the relationship between client drivers, USBA framework, host controller drivers, and the device bus.