Running Systems

I was required to auto map a USB DoK to a KVM VM (specific VM, mind you!), as a result of connecting this device to the host. I’ve looked it up on the Internet, and the closest I could get there was this link. It was almost a complete solution, but it had a few bugs, so I will re-describe the whole process, with the fixes I’ve added to the process and udev rules file. While this guide is rather old, it did solve my requirement, which was to map a specific set of devices (“known USB devices”) to the VM, and not any and every USB device (or even – USB DoK) connected to the system.

In my example, I’ve used SanDisk Corp. Ultra Fit, which its USB identifier is 0781:5583, as can be seen using ‘lsusb’ command:

[[email protected] ~]# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 020: ID 0781:5583 SanDisk Corp. Ultra Fit

My VM is called “centos7.0” in this example. I am using integrated KVM+QEMU+LIBVIRT on a generic CentOS 7.5 system.

Preparation

You will need to prepare two files:

• USB definitions file (for easier config of libvirt)
• UDEV rules file (which will be triggered by add/remove operation, and will call the USB definitions file)

USB Definitions file

I’ve placed it in /opt/autousb/hostdev-0781:5583.xml , and it holds the following (mind the USB device identifiers!)

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<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb'>
  <source>
    <vendor id='0x0781'/>
    <product id='0x5583'/>
  </source>
</hostdev>

I’ve created a file /etc/udev/rules.d/90-libvirt-usb.rules with the content below. Note that the device identifiers are there, but in the “remove” section they appear differently. Remove leading zero(s) and change the string. This is caused because on removal, the device does not report all its properties to the OS. Also – you cannot connect more than three (3) such devices to a VM, so when you fail to detach three devices (following a consecutive insert/remove operations, for example), you will not be able to attach a fourth time.

ACTION=="add", \
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", \
    ENV{ID_VENDOR_ID}=="0781", \
    ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="5583", \
    RUN+="/usr/bin/virsh attach-device centos7.0 /opt/autousb/hostdev-0781:5583.xml"
ACTION=="remove", \
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", \
    ENV{PRODUCT}=="781/5583/100", \
    RUN+="/usr/bin/virsh detach-device centos7.0 /opt/autousb/config/hostdev-0781:5583.xml"

Now, all that’s left to do is to reload udev using the following command:

udevadm trigger

To monitor the system behaviour, run either of these commands:

udevadm monitor --property --udev 

or

udevadm monitor --environment --udev 

As the owner of a nice laptop running Hardy, I had a huge performance degradation when accessing USB storage devices. Speed could reach 1MB/s at most, and usually, half that speed.

The trick that solved my problem was suggested in this post, and after I have tested it, I was happy with the results.

The trick is to backup the old ehci_hcd.ko module aside, and to replace it with the one from kernel 2.6.24-19-generic. Following that action, you need to make sure this module can force load, else version mismatch whill prevent it from loading.

To do so, I have added the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/options:

install ehci_hcd /sbin/modprobe –ignore-install –force ehci_hcd

This solves the force load issues.