Stephen Chandler Paul | 5523662e | 2015-10-24 13:10:29 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | The userio Protocol |
| 2 | (c) 2015 Stephen Chandler Paul <thatslyude@gmail.com> |
| 3 | Sponsored by Red Hat |
| 4 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 5 | |
| 6 | 1. Introduction |
| 7 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 8 | This module is intended to try to make the lives of input driver developers |
| 9 | easier by allowing them to test various serio devices (mainly the various |
| 10 | touchpads found on laptops) without having to have the physical device in front |
| 11 | of them. userio accomplishes this by allowing any privileged userspace program |
| 12 | to directly interact with the kernel's serio driver and control a virtual serio |
| 13 | port from there. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | 2. Usage overview |
| 16 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 17 | In order to interact with the userio kernel module, one simply opens the |
| 18 | /dev/userio character device in their applications. Commands are sent to the |
| 19 | kernel module by writing to the device, and any data received from the serio |
| 20 | driver is read as-is from the /dev/userio device. All of the structures and |
| 21 | macros you need to interact with the device are defined in <linux/userio.h> and |
| 22 | <linux/serio.h>. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | 3. Command Structure |
| 25 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 26 | The struct used for sending commands to /dev/userio is as follows: |
| 27 | |
| 28 | struct userio_cmd { |
| 29 | __u8 type; |
| 30 | __u8 data; |
| 31 | }; |
| 32 | |
| 33 | "type" describes the type of command that is being sent. This can be any one |
| 34 | of the USERIO_CMD macros defined in <linux/userio.h>. "data" is the argument |
| 35 | that goes along with the command. In the event that the command doesn't have an |
| 36 | argument, this field can be left untouched and will be ignored by the kernel. |
| 37 | Each command should be sent by writing the struct directly to the character |
| 38 | device. In the event that the command you send is invalid, an error will be |
| 39 | returned by the character device and a more descriptive error will be printed |
| 40 | to the kernel log. Only one command can be sent at a time, any additional data |
| 41 | written to the character device after the initial command will be ignored. |
| 42 | To close the virtual serio port, just close /dev/userio. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | 4. Commands |
| 45 | ~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 46 | |
| 47 | 4.1 USERIO_CMD_REGISTER |
| 48 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 49 | Registers the port with the serio driver and begins transmitting data back and |
| 50 | forth. Registration can only be performed once a port type is set with |
| 51 | USERIO_CMD_SET_PORT_TYPE. Has no argument. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | 4.2 USERIO_CMD_SET_PORT_TYPE |
| 54 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 55 | Sets the type of port we're emulating, where "data" is the port type being |
| 56 | set. Can be any of the macros from <linux/serio.h>. For example: SERIO_8042 |
| 57 | would set the port type to be a normal PS/2 port. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | 4.3 USERIO_CMD_SEND_INTERRUPT |
| 60 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 61 | Sends an interrupt through the virtual serio port to the serio driver, where |
| 62 | "data" is the interrupt data being sent. |
| 63 | |
| 64 | 5. Userspace tools |
| 65 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 66 | The userio userspace tools are able to record PS/2 devices using some of the |
| 67 | debugging information from i8042, and play back the devices on /dev/userio. The |
| 68 | latest version of these tools can be found at: |
| 69 | |
| 70 | https://github.com/Lyude/ps2emu |