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126 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
126 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
-------------
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MDEV Primer
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-------------
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For those of us who know how to use mdev, a primer might seem lame. For
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everyone else, mdev is a weird black box that they hear is awesome, but can't
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seem to get their head around how it works. Thus, a primer.
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-----------
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Basic Use
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-----------
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Mdev has two primary uses: initial population and dynamic updates. Both
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require sysfs support in the kernel and have it mounted at /sys. For dynamic
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updates, you also need to have hotplugging enabled in your kernel.
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Here's a typical code snippet from the init script:
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[0] mount -t proc proc /proc
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[1] mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys
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[2] echo /bin/mdev > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug
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[3] mdev -s
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Alternatively, without procfs the above becomes:
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[1] mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys
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[2] sysctl -w kernel.hotplug=/bin/mdev
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[3] mdev -s
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Of course, a more "full" setup would entail executing this before the previous
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code snippet:
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[4] mount -t tmpfs -o size=64k,mode=0755 tmpfs /dev
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[5] mkdir /dev/pts
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[6] mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts
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The simple explanation here is that [1] you need to have /sys mounted before
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executing mdev. Then you [2] instruct the kernel to execute /bin/mdev whenever
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a device is added or removed so that the device node can be created or
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destroyed. Then you [3] seed /dev with all the device nodes that were created
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while the system was booting.
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For the "full" setup, you want to [4] make sure /dev is a tmpfs filesystem
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(assuming you're running out of flash). Then you want to [5] create the
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/dev/pts mount point and finally [6] mount the devpts filesystem on it.
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-------------
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MDEV Config (/etc/mdev.conf)
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-------------
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Mdev has an optional config file for controlling ownership/permissions of
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device nodes if your system needs something more than the default root/root
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660 permissions.
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The file has the format:
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<device regex> <uid>:<gid> <octal permissions>
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For example:
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hd[a-z][0-9]* 0:3 660
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The config file parsing stops at the first matching line. If no line is
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matched, then the default of 0:0 660 is used. To set your own default, simply
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create your own total match like so:
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.* 1:1 777
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You can rename/move device nodes by using the next optional field.
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<device regex> <uid>:<gid> <octal permissions> [=path]
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So if you want to place the device node into a subdirectory, make sure the path
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has a trailing /. If you want to rename the device node, just place the name.
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hda 0:3 660 =drives/
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This will move "hda" into the drives/ subdirectory.
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hdb 0:3 660 =cdrom
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This will rename "hdb" to "cdrom".
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Similarly, ">path" renames/moves the device but it also creates
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a direct symlink /dev/DEVNAME to the renamed/moved device.
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If you also enable support for executing your own commands, then the file has
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the format:
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<device regex> <uid>:<gid> <octal permissions> [=path] [@|$|*<command>]
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or
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<device regex> <uid>:<gid> <octal permissions> [>path] [@|$|*<command>]
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The special characters have the meaning:
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@ Run after creating the device.
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$ Run before removing the device.
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* Run both after creating and before removing the device.
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The command is executed via the system() function (which means you're giving a
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command to the shell), so make sure you have a shell installed at /bin/sh. You
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should also keep in mind that the kernel executes hotplug helpers with stdin,
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stdout, and stderr connected to /dev/null.
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For your convenience, the shell env var $MDEV is set to the device name. So if
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the device "hdc" was matched, MDEV would be set to "hdc".
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----------
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FIRMWARE
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----------
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Some kernel device drivers need to request firmware at runtime in order to
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properly initialize a device. Place all such firmware files into the
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/lib/firmware/ directory. At runtime, the kernel will invoke mdev with the
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filename of the firmware which mdev will load out of /lib/firmware/ and into
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the kernel via the sysfs interface. The exact filename is hardcoded in the
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kernel, so look there if you need to know how to name the file in userspace.
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------------
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SEQUENCING
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------------
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Kernel does not serialize hotplug events. It increments SEQNUM environmental
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variable for each successive hotplug invocation. Normally, mdev doesn't care.
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This may reorder hotplug and hot-unplug events, with typical symptoms of
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device nodes sometimes not created as expected.
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However, if /dev/mdev.seq file is found, mdev will compare its
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contents with SEQNUM. It will retry up to two seconds, waiting for them
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to match. If they match exactly (not even trailing '\n' is allowed),
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or if two seconds pass, mdev runs as usual, then it rewrites /dev/mdev.seq
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with SEQNUM+1.
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IOW: this will serialize concurrent mdev invocations.
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If you want to activate this feature, execute "echo >/dev/mdev.seq" prior to
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setting mdev to be the hotplug handler. This writes single '\n' to the file.
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NB: mdev recognizes /dev/mdev.seq consisting of single '\n' characher
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as a special case. IOW: this will not make your first hotplug event
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to stall for two seconds.
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