blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
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  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</div>
  24       <div class="date">15th January 2013</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
  26 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
  27 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
  28 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
  29 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
  30 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
  31 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
  32 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
  33 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
  34 packages.</p>
  35
  36 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
  37 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
  38 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
  39 modalias.</p>
  40
  41 <p><blockquote>
  42 Package: package-name
  43 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
  44 </blockquote></p>
  45
  46 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
  47 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
  48
  49 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
  50 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
  51
  52 <p><blockquote>
  53 Package: cheese
  54 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
  55 </blockquote></p>
  56
  57 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
  58 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
  59
  60 <p><blockquote>
  61 Package: pcmciautils
  62 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
  63 </blockquote></p>
  64
  65 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
  66 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
  67
  68 <p><blockquote>
  69 Package: colorhug-client
  70 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
  71 </blockquote></p>
  72
  73 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
  74 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
  75 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
  76
  77 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
  78 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
  79 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
  80 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
  81 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
  82 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
  83 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
  84 Raring.</p>
  85
  86 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
  87 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
  88 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
  89 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
  90 try the
  91 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
  92 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
  93 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
  94 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
  95
  96 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
  97 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
  98
  99 <p><blockquote>
 100 % ./hw-support-lookup
 101 <br>yubikey-personalization
 102 <br>%
 103 </blockquote></p>
 104
 105 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 106 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 107
 108 <p><blockquote>
 109 % ./hw-support-lookup
 110 <br>pcmciautils
 111 <br>%
 112 </blockquote></p>
 113
 114 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 115 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 116 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 117
 118 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 119 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 120 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 121 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 122 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 123 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 124 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 125 see if it work.</p>
 126
 127 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 128 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 129 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 130 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 131 </div>
 132
 133       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.</div>
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