xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/devctl.4 (revision ce6a89e27cd190313be39bb479880aeda4778436)
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24.\" $FreeBSD$
25.\"
26.Dd March 26, 2014
27.Dt DEVCTL 4
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm devctl
31.Nd "device event reporting and device control interface"
32.Sh DESCRIPTION
33The
34.Nm
35device is used to report device events from the kernel.
36Future versions will allow for some device control as well.
37.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
38This design allows only one reader for
39.Pa /dev/devctl .
40This is not desirable
41in the long run, but will get a lot of hair out of this implementation.
42Maybe we should make this device a clonable device.
43.Pp
44Also note: we specifically do not attach a device to the
45.Vt device_t
46tree
47to avoid potential chicken and egg problems.
48One could argue that all of this belongs to the root node.
49One could also further argue that the
50.Xr sysctl 3
51interface that we have now might more properly be an
52.Xr ioctl 2
53interface.
54.Pp
55.Dv SIGIO
56support is included in the driver.
57However, the author is not sure that the
58.Dv SIGIO
59support is done correctly.
60It was copied from a driver that had
61.Dv SIGIO
62support that likely has not been
63tested since
64.Fx 3.4
65or
66.Fx 2.2.8 !
67.Pp
68The read channel for this device is used to report changes to
69userland in realtime.
70We return one record at a time.
71If you try to read this device a character at a time, you will lose
72the rest of the data.
73Listening programs are expected to cope.
74.Pp
75The sysctl
76.Va hw.bus.devctl_queue
77can be used to control queue length.
78It 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