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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  12  <h1>
  13      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  14
  15  </h1>
  16
  17 </div>
  18
  19
  20     <div class="entry">
  21       <div class="title">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</div>
  22       <div class="date">15th January 2013</div>
  23       <div class="body"><p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
  24 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
  25 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
  26 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
  27 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
  28 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
  29 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
  30 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
  31 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
  32 packages.</p>
  33
  34 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
  35 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
  36 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
  37 modalias.</p>
  38
  39 <p><blockquote>
  40 Package: package-name
  41 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
  42 </blockquote></p>
  43
  44 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
  45 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
  46
  47 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
  48 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
  49
  50 <p><blockquote>
  51 Package: cheese
  52 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
  53 </blockquote></p>
  54
  55 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
  56 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
  57
  58 <p><blockquote>
  59 Package: pcmciautils
  60 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
  61 </blockquote></p>
  62
  63 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
  64 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
  65
  66 <p><blockquote>
  67 Package: colorhug-client
  68 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
  69 </blockquote></p>
  70
  71 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
  72 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
  73 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
  74
  75 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
  76 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
  77 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
  78 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
  79 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
  80 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
  81 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
  82 Raring.</p>
  83
  84 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
  85 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
  86 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
  87 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
  88 try the
  89 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
  90 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
  91 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
  92 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
  93
  94 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
  95 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
  96
  97 <p><blockquote>
  98 % ./hw-support-lookup
  99 <br>yubikey-personalization
 100 <br>%
 101 </blockquote></p>
 102
 103 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 104 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 105
 106 <p><blockquote>
 107 % ./hw-support-lookup
 108 <br>pcmciautils
 109 <br>%
 110 </blockquote></p>
 111
 112 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 113 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 114 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 115
 116 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 117 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 118 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 119 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 120 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 121 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 122 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 123 see if it work.</p>
 124
 125 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 126 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 127 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 128 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 129 </div>
 130
 131       <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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 139     <div id="sidebar">
 140
 141
 142
 143 <h2>Archive</h2>
 144 <ul>
 145
 146 <li>2013
 147 <ul>
 148
 149 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
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 152
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 154
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 156 <ul>
 157
 158 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 159
 160 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
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 183
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 185 <ul>
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 210
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 212
 213 <li>2010
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 215
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 239
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 241
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 244
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 264
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 266
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 268
 269 </ul></li>
 270
 271 <li>2008
 272 <ul>
 273
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 275
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 277
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 279
 280 </ul>
 281
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 284 <h2>Tags</h2>
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 302
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 367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
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 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
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 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
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 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
 384
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