1========================= 2Mass Storage Gadget (MSG) 3========================= 4 5Overview 6======== 7 8 Mass Storage Gadget (or MSG) acts as a USB Mass Storage device, 9 appearing to the host as a disk or a CD-ROM drive. It supports 10 multiple logical units (LUNs). Backing storage for each LUN is 11 provided by a regular file or a block device, access can be limited 12 to read-only, and gadget can indicate that it is removable and/or 13 CD-ROM (the latter implies read-only access). 14 15 Its requirements are modest; only a bulk-in and a bulk-out endpoint 16 are needed. The memory requirement amounts to two 16K buffers. 17 Support is included for full-speed, high-speed and SuperSpeed 18 operation. 19 20 Note that the driver is slightly non-portable in that it assumes 21 a single memory/DMA buffer will be usable for bulk-in and bulk-out 22 endpoints. With most device controllers this is not an issue, but 23 there may be some with hardware restrictions that prevent a buffer 24 from being used by more than one endpoint. 25 26 This document describes how to use the gadget from user space, its 27 relation to mass storage function (or MSF) and different gadgets 28 using it, and how it differs from File Storage Gadget (or FSG) 29 (which is no longer included in Linux). It will talk only briefly 30 about how to use MSF within composite gadgets. 31 32Module parameters 33================= 34 35 The mass storage gadget accepts the following mass storage specific 36 module parameters: 37 38 - file=filename[,filename...] 39 40 This parameter lists paths to files or block devices used for 41 backing storage for each logical unit. There may be at most 42 FSG_MAX_LUNS (8) LUNs set. If more files are specified, they will 43 be silently ignored. See also “luns” parameter. 44 45 *BEWARE* that if a file is used as a backing storage, it may not 46 be modified by any other process. This is because the host 47 assumes the data does not change without its knowledge. It may be 48 read, but (if the logical unit is writable) due to buffering on 49 the host side, the contents are not well defined. 50 51 The size of the logical unit will be rounded down to a full 52 logical block. The logical block size is 2048 bytes for LUNs 53 simulating CD-ROM, block size of the device if the backing file is 54 a block device, or 512 bytes otherwise. 55 56 - removable=b[,b...] 57 58 This parameter specifies whether each logical unit should be 59 removable. “b” here is either “y”, “Y” or “1” for true or “n”, 60 “N” or “0” for false. 61 62 If this option is set for a logical unit, gadget will accept an 63 “eject” SCSI request (Start/Stop Unit). When it is sent, the 64 backing file will be closed to simulate ejection and the logical 65 unit will not be mountable by the host until a new backing file is 66 specified by userspace on the device (see “sysfs entries” 67 section). 68 69 If a logical unit is not removable (the default), a backing file 70 must be specified for it with the “file” parameter as the module 71 is loaded. The same applies if the module is built in, no 72 exceptions. 73 74 The default value of the flag is false, *HOWEVER* it used to be 75 true. This has been changed to better match File Storage Gadget 76 and because it seems like a saner default after all. Thus to 77 maintain compatibility with older kernels, it's best to specify 78 the default values. Also, if one relied on old default, explicit 79 “n” needs to be specified now. 80 81 Note that “removable” means the logical unit's media can be 82 ejected or removed (as is true for a CD-ROM drive or a card 83 reader). It does *not* mean that the entire gadget can be 84 unplugged from the host; the proper term for that is 85 “hot-unpluggable”. 86 87 - cdrom=b[,b...] 88 89 This parameter specifies whether each logical unit should simulate 90 CD-ROM. The default is false. 91 92 - ro=b[,b...] 93 94 This parameter specifies whether each logical unit should be 95 reported as read only. This will prevent host from modifying the 96 backing files. 97 98 Note that if this flag for given logical unit is false but the 99 backing file could not be opened in read/write mode, the gadget 100 will fall back to read only mode anyway. 101 102 The default value for non-CD-ROM logical units is false; for 103 logical units simulating CD-ROM it is forced to true. 104 105 - nofua=b[,b...] 106 107 This parameter specifies whether FUA flag should be ignored in SCSI 108 Write10 and Write12 commands sent to given logical units. 109 110 MS Windows mounts removable storage in “Removal optimised mode” by 111 default. All the writes to the media are synchronous, which is 112 achieved by setting the FUA (Force Unit Access) bit in SCSI 113 Write(10,12) commands. This forces each write to wait until the 114 data has actually been written out and prevents I/O requests 115 aggregation in block layer dramatically decreasing performance. 116 117 Note that this may mean that if the device is powered from USB and 118 the user unplugs the device without unmounting it first (which at 119 least some Windows users do), the data may be lost. 120 121 The default value is false. 122 123 - luns=N 124 125 This parameter specifies number of logical units the gadget will 126 have. It is limited by FSG_MAX_LUNS (8) and higher value will be 127 capped. 128 129 If this parameter is provided, and the number of files specified 130 in “file” argument is greater then the value of “luns”, all excess 131 files will be ignored. 132 133 If this parameter is not present, the number of logical units will 134 be deduced from the number of files specified in the “file” 135 parameter. If the file parameter is missing as well, one is 136 assumed. 137 138 - stall=b 139 140 Specifies whether the gadget is allowed to halt bulk endpoints. 141 The default is determined according to the type of USB device 142 controller, but usually true. 143 144 In addition to the above, the gadget also accepts the following 145 parameters defined by the composite framework (they are common to 146 all composite gadgets so just a quick listing): 147 148 - idVendor -- USB Vendor ID (16 bit integer) 149 - idProduct -- USB Product ID (16 bit integer) 150 - bcdDevice -- USB Device version (BCD) (16 bit integer) 151 - iManufacturer -- USB Manufacturer string (string) 152 - iProduct -- USB Product string (string) 153 - iSerialNumber -- SerialNumber string (sting) 154 155sysfs entries 156============= 157 158 For each logical unit, the gadget creates a directory in the sysfs 159 hierarchy. Inside of it the following three files are created: 160 161 - file 162 163 When read it returns the path to the backing file for the given 164 logical unit. If there is no backing file (possible only if the 165 logical unit is removable), the content is empty. 166 167 When written into, it changes the backing file for given logical 168 unit. This change can be performed even if given logical unit is 169 not specified as removable (but that may look strange to the 170 host). It may fail, however, if host disallowed medium removal 171 with the Prevent-Allow Medium Removal SCSI command. 172 173 - ro 174 175 Reflects the state of ro flag for the given logical unit. It can 176 be read any time, and written to when there is no backing file 177 open for given logical unit. 178 179 - nofua 180 181 Reflects the state of nofua flag for given logical unit. It can 182 be read and written. 183 184 - forced_eject 185 186 When written into, it causes the backing file to be forcibly 187 detached from the LUN, regardless of whether the host has allowed 188 it. The content doesn't matter, any non-zero number of bytes 189 written will result in ejection. 190 191 Can not be read. 192 193 Other then those, as usual, the values of module parameters can be 194 read from /sys/module/g_mass_storage/parameters/* files. 195 196Other gadgets using mass storage function 197========================================= 198 199 The Mass Storage Gadget uses the Mass Storage Function to handle 200 mass storage protocol. As a composite function, MSF may be used by 201 other gadgets as well (eg. g_multi and acm_ms). 202 203 All of the information in previous sections are valid for other 204 gadgets using MSF, except that support for mass storage related 205 module parameters may be missing, or the parameters may have 206 a prefix. To figure out whether any of this is true one needs to 207 consult the gadget's documentation or its source code. 208 209 For examples of how to include mass storage function in gadgets, one 210 may take a look at mass_storage.c, acm_ms.c and multi.c (sorted by 211 complexity). 212 213Relation to file storage gadget 214=============================== 215 216 The Mass Storage Function and thus the Mass Storage Gadget has been 217 based on the File Storage Gadget. The difference between the two is 218 that MSG is a composite gadget (ie. uses the composite framework) 219 while file storage gadget was a traditional gadget. From userspace 220 point of view this distinction does not really matter, but from 221 kernel hacker's point of view, this means that (i) MSG does not 222 duplicate code needed for handling basic USB protocol commands and 223 (ii) MSF can be used in any other composite gadget. 224 225 Because of that, File Storage Gadget has been removed in Linux 3.8. 226 All users need to transition to the Mass Storage Gadget. The two 227 gadgets behave mostly the same from the outside except: 228 229 1. In FSG the “removable” and “cdrom” module parameters set the flag 230 for all logical units whereas in MSG they accept a list of y/n 231 values for each logical unit. If one uses only a single logical 232 unit this does not matter, but if there are more, the y/n value 233 needs to be repeated for each logical unit. 234 235 2. FSG's “serial”, “vendor”, “product” and “release” module 236 parameters are handled in MSG by the composite layer's parameters 237 named respectively: “iSerialnumber”, “idVendor”, “idProduct” and 238 “bcdDevice”. 239 240 3. MSG does not support FSG's test mode, thus “transport”, 241 “protocol” and “buflen” FSG's module parameters are not 242 supported. MSG always uses SCSI protocol with bulk only 243 transport mode and 16 KiB buffers. 244