Matching a usb block device with a USB port

[JonL]

Hi,
I want to match a usb block device (pen, disk) with a particular USB port on my PC, i.e., only enable usbmount when a pendrive is inserted on that USB port.

Likewise, I also want to match my USB soundcard with another USB, i.e., only make it available on that other USB port.

How can I do that?

Thanks!

[atreyu]

have you tried using udev rules? they are pretty good at allowing you to tying specific hardware to events (i.e. plugging in a USB peripheral of a specific type, vendor, etc.). i'm not sure about differentiating b/t one USB port and another, but i'll bet you could. you can enumerate the buses with the lsusb command (it is part of the usbutils package in Fedora), e.g.:

lsusb

on my machine, that spits out

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1bcf:0c31 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.

so maybe you could write a udev rule that is triggered when plugging in a specific type of USB device (or even a unique device, based upon S/N, etc.) and then run lsusb (or examine /sys/bus/usb/devices/) to determine which port it was plugged into...worth a try anyway.

[JonL]

Hi Atreyu,

very good idea you've given me.

But I can't even get this to work here:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ACTION=="add", RUN+="logger 1234567890"

The message (for testing) doesn't even get logged in /var/log/syslog.

[atreyu]

Hi Atreyu,

very good idea you've given me.

But I can't even get this to work here:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ACTION=="add", RUN+="logger 1234567890"

The message (for testing) doesn't even get logged in /var/log/syslog.

try using the full path to the program, e.g. RUN+="/usr/bin/logger".

here is an example of my udev rule for USB devices (located at /etc/udev/rules.d/99-test-usb.rules):

# only apply this rule when adding devices, not removing them
ACTION!="add", GOTO="usb_storage_end"
#
# only match on block devices
SUBSYSTEM!="block", GOTO="usb_storage_end"
#
# whenever a usb storage device is detected, take the following action
BUS=="usb", RUN+="/tmp/usb-prog.sh 'bus=usb' 'kernelname=%k' 'vendor=%s{vendor}' 'model=%s{model}' 'devname=$env{DEVNAME}'"
#
LABEL="usb_storage_end"

the script /tmp/usb-prog.sh (which should be set executable by all) will be passed five args on the command line:

bus=usb
kernelname=...
vendor=...
model=...
devname=...

this setup has been tested on RHEL 4 and Fedora 10/11, fwiw.