Identify a PCIe device using PCI config space - hardware

Given the list of PCI devices installed in the system, I need to identify PCIe devices. So far, I've been using iteration over the list of capabilities to see if the device has extended cap structure (which would correspond to cap ID 0x10). And, if the device has an extended cap structure, then it is a PCIe device for sure. However, it seems like this method fails to identify some devices. I was wondering if anyone knows of a better method.
Thanks.

I used below way to retrieve PCIe devices:
check if PCI device config register 0x6 bit4 = 1(capability list exist status) ?
check if PCI device config register 0x34 != 0(capability pointer valid) ?
check if PCIe capability(ID = 0x10) exist ?
If all above are true then this device is a PCIe device !!!
I am curious about the situation that "this method fails to identify some devices" ?

PCI/PCIE device scanning, It is possible to have redundant addresses in the capabilities pointer(corrupted PCI config space).
Please check if there is any redundancy in capability pointer values in all B:D:F combinations,
If you found any issues you can directly contact your BIOS vendor to get it rectified.

Related

Understanding "driverless" USB HID

I'm at the beginning of trying to develop a USB HID bootloader for a Kinetis processor, and getting no help from that department. I have made some modifications to Kinetis firmware designed for a similar processor(I'm using the KL26Z, the original code is for KL25Z), and I do now see the beginning of the USB enumeration(on a PC running W7). However, the PC asks for driver software, and I don't understand why, as I thought the whole point of going the HID route was that one didn't need to install drivers. So the device shows up under device manager, but as a non-working problem device. My problem is that I don't really know what should happen. Any insights would be welcome.
Here's what should happen: the computer will ask your device for its USB descriptors when it detects your device. The descriptors must have certain fields like bDeviceClass set properly to indicate that it is an HID. If the computer sees those fields, it will attach the HID driver to your device.
In the Device Manager, you should look at the "Compatible Ids" of your device. Do you see USB\Class_03 in that list? If so, that should match the driver input.inf that comes with Windows, so the INF file will be applied to your device, and you device will show up as "USB Input Device" in the Device Manager. If you don't see USB\Class_03 in your list then there is probably some problem with your device's USB descriptors or its USB stack.

How does an O.S. or a high level abstraction layer gain knowledge of the hardware using the device driver?

When reading about hardware/device independence this statement from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_independence#Desktop_computing) states that:
The application software does not need to know anything about the hardware on which it was to be used. Instead it discovers the capabilities of the hardware through the standardized abstraction layer, and then use abstracted commands to control the hardware.
I wanted to know about the lower level interaction between the BIOS routine/device driver/HAL/OS and the device controller about discovering the hardware capabilities.
Kindly help me out to understand the communication between these entities that takes place which helps in hardware independence.
Hardware devices, normally, connect to the main controller through a standard bus of some kind.
For example - PCI, PEX, USB.
Each connected device on the bus will be allocated with a device #, bus #, function #, etc, by the bus controller.
Modern bus contollers either provide the main controller with the ability to perform a scan, or send an event when a device is hot plugged into the bus.
Per each discovered device, it is possible, using the bus controller standard commands (such as read/write registers of a device, by device ID, bus number, etc), to interrogate the device for details such as:
Manufacturer ID
Device ID
Class (controller / networking device / Human interface / imaging device / and so on)
Per bus type, all these details must be available in the same way for every connected HW device, thus enabling the OS to use an abstraction layer.
Once a device has been discovered and identified, the OS will call all the specific bus registered device drivers' probe function, which use the details mentioned above to decide if can handle it.
When a device driver probe succeeds, an instance of the driver is allocated and can be used directly by the application that needs to access the HW.
For example:
USB PC CAM connects to USB port. An event is sent to the main CPU by the USB bus controller. The CPU will use the standard USB bus controller functions to learn the manufacturer & device ID/s, device class, functions, etc, and will call all the USB registered device drivers probe functions.
If an appropriate device driver is installed (registered), it will successfully create an instance of the device and a video application (such as skype) can use it directly, through DLLs supplied by the driver SW.
Hope this helps.

USB host recognition

I'm developing an embedded USB device which needs to be available to two different hosts.
The first is a normal PC, where it will be used as a MSC (mass storage) device, and the second is a specific hardware which the USB device needs to comunicate with a CDC profile.
during the enumeration, the USB device send descriptor table where it declares its capabilities.
Is there a way in the enumeration process to know to which host the device was connected to ?
The simplest solution perhaps would be to implement a "USB Composite Device", where the single device presented both the MSC and CDC class interfaces simultaneously. The host PC would see both interfaces, but you could simply leave one unused. The "specific hardware" would probably simply ignore the MSC class if it had no support for it.

linux usb driver: probing already plugged devices

I am writing an Usb driver and I have an issue.
When I insmod the driver with the device already plugged in before hand, the probe function is not called. It is only called after I disconnect the device and plug it again.
I want to make it so that it works when I start my pc with the device already plugged in.
Could someone please help me?
From Documentation/driver-model/binding.txt:
When a new device is added, the bus's list of drivers is iterated over
to find one that supports it. In order to determine that, the device
ID of the device must match one of the device IDs that the driver
supports. The format and semantics for comparing IDs is bus-specific.
From the same source:
The process is almost identical for when a new driver is added.
The bus's list of devices is iterated over to find a match. Devices
that already have a driver are skipped. All the devices are iterated
over, to bind as many devices as possible to the driver.
So it looks like you have a problem in the ID matching, that is in your case specific to the USB bus, see the usb_device_match function in drivers/usb/core/driver.c.
Or it may be that your device already is bound to a device that is unloaded when the device is unplugged (you can check that by controlling if there is a symlink to a driver in the corresponding /sys/bus/usb/xxxxx directory)
"Or it may be that your device already is bound to a device that is unloaded when the device is unplugged (you can check that by controlling if there is a symlink to a driver in the corresponding /sys/bus/usb/xxxxx directory)"
And if there is a symlink?
This can be solved by writing a proper udev rule for your device. Look for examples at /etc/udev/rules.d/

Multiple Driver for USB Device

Is it possible for a USB device to support multiple drivers? I'd like to support my own proprietary driver but also CCID as a second choice. When the device is plugged in, the user can select which one to use. The driver to use is determined by what the USB descriptor says, right? If that is so, is it possible to indicate that both drivers are supported? Is the idea of supporting two drivers doable?
On Windows, having two supported drivers is possible. In fact, to get Microsoft Logo certification, it is mandatory that the USB device supports this functionality. (Requirement CONNECT-0123)
However, the UI behavior you describe isn't offered by Microsoft. Driver selection is automatic.
Your USB device can indicate it supports two interfaces. In that case, both drivers will be loaded.
I am sure that it is not possible for a device to use two drivers at the same time but what is possible is for the device to enumerate using one class type and driver and then during its operation, in response to some command over the USB or operation of the device, for it to disconnect and then re-enumerate as a different type of device using the second driver.
As an example the product that I am developing normally enumerates as a CDC (serial port emulation) but when I need to reload the code it re-enumerates as a different device type and uses the chip vendor supplied driver to perform the code download. Once this completes then the device re-enumerates itself again as a CDC device type and resumes its serial port emulation.
You therefore need to provide a "command" interface that will trigger the transition between the two operating modes and to ensure that the two drivers are installed on the host computer ready for the mode switch.