xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/devctl.4 (revision b740c88bfb6453416926271c089262e7164dace3)
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25.\" $FreeBSD$
26.\"
27.Dd March 26, 2014
28.Dt DEVCTL 4
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm devctl
32.Nd "device event reporting and device control interface"
33.Sh DESCRIPTION
34The
35.Nm
36device is used to report device events from the kernel.
37Future versions will allow for some device control as well.
38.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
39This design allows only one reader for
40.Pa /dev/devctl .
41This is not desirable
42in the long run, but will get a lot of hair out of this implementation.
43Maybe we should make this device a clonable device.
44.Pp
45Also note: we specifically do not attach a device to the
46.Vt device_t
47tree
48to avoid potential chicken and egg problems.
49One could argue that all of this belongs to the root node.
50One could also further argue that the
51.Xr sysctl 3
52interface that we have now might more properly be an
53.Xr ioctl 2
54interface.
55.Pp
56.Dv SIGIO
57support is included in the driver.
58However, the author is not sure that the
59.Dv SIGIO
60support is done correctly.
61It was copied from a driver that had
62.Dv SIGIO
63support that likely has not been
64tested since
65.Fx 3.4
66or
67.Fx 2.2.8 !
68.Pp
69The read channel for this device is used to report changes to
70userland in realtime.
71We return one record at a time.
72If you try to read this device a character at a time, you will lose
73the rest of the data.
74Listening programs are expected to cope.
75.Pp
76The sysctl
77.Va hw.bus.devctl_queue
78can be used to control queue length. It is set to 0 to disable
79.Nm
80when no
81.Xr devd 8
82is running.
83.Sh PROTOCOL
84The
85.Nm
86device
87uses an
88.Tn ASCII
89protocol.
90The driver returns one record at a time to its readers.
91Each record is terminated with a newline.
92The first character of the record is the event type.
93.Pp
94.Bl -column -compact "Type" "Description"
95.Em "Type	Description"
96!	A notify event, such as a link state change.
97+	Device node in tree attached.
98-	Device node in tree detached.
99?	Unknown device detected.
100.El
101.Ss Message Formats
102Except for the first character in the record, attach and detach
103messages have the same format.
104.Pp
105.D1 Ar T Ns Ar dev Li at Ar parent Li on Ar location
106.Pp
107.Bl -column -compact "location" "Description"
108.Em "Part	Description"
109.It Ar T Ta "+ or -"
110.It Ar dev Ta "The device name that was attached/detached."
111.It Ar parent Ta "The device name of the parent bus that attached the device."
112.It Ar location Ta "Bus specific location information."
113.El
114.Pp
115The nomatch messages can be used to load devices driver.
116If you load a device driver, then one of two things can happen.
117If the device driver attaches to something, you will get a device
118attached message.
119If it does not, then nothing will happen.
120.Pp
121The attach and detach messages arrive after the event.
122This means one cannot use the attach message to load an alternate
123driver.
124The attach message driver has already claimed this device.
125One cannot use the detach messages to flush data to the device.
126The device is already gone.
127.Sh SEE ALSO
128.Xr devd 8
129