Thoughts dereferenced from the scratchpad noise. | Linux, RPi and USB over IP updated

Because of increasing interesting in USB over IP topic I decided to refresh my old post. I will focus on doing the same thing with more recent version of Raspabian. If you need more information please read my previous post.

Setup SD card

First get recent version of Raspbian, then unzip and dd it to SD card:

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sudo dd bs=4M if=2015-09-24-raspbian-jessie.img of=/dev/sdc

If you are impatient and want to know what happen in background you can use this method of tracking dd progress:

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sudo sh -c "while true; do killall -USR1 dd; sleep 1; done"

Before removing card we have to be sure that all data were wrote to card:

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sync

If this operation takes time you can watch progress work writeback and dirty kilobytes using:

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watch grep -e Dirty: -e Writeback: /proc/meminfo

When sync will finish you can remove SD card and sanity check booting on RPi.

Kernel for RPi

After booting you should be able to ssh to your RPi and check if USBIP was compiled in your kernel.

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo modprobe configs
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ zcat /proc/config.gz |grep USBIP
CONFIG_USBIP_CORE=m
CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD=m
CONFIG_USBIP_HOST=m
# CONFIG_USBIP_DEBUG is not set

Great! It looks like both server and client support was compiled as modules in recent Raspbian.

Run server side of usbip

Unfortunately usbip user space tools are not available from scratch and have to be installed:

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sudo apt-get install usbip

Then you can run server:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo modprobe usbip-core
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo modprobe usbip-host
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo usbipd -D

Without connecting anything we get only internal Ethernet device when listing:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ usbip list -l
 - busid 1-1.1 (0424:ec00)
    Standard Microsystems Corp. : SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter (0424:ec00)

Let’s put some memory stick and check again:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ usbip list -l
 - busid 1-1.1 (0424:ec00)
   Standard Microsystems Corp. : SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter (0424:ec00)

 - busid 1-1.2 (0951:1666)
   Kingston Technology : unknown product (0951:1666)

Good usbip see our storage device. Let’s try to bind it:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo usbip --debug bind -b 1-1.2
usbip: debug: /build/linux-tools-06nnfo/linux-tools-3.16/drivers/staging/usbip/userspace/src/usbip.c:141:[run_command] running command: `bind'
usbip: info: bind device on busid 1-1.2: complete

Client side

Let’s check if device was correctly exposed by server on RPi. Of course we need usbip package installed.

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[13:28:50] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo usbip list -r 192.168.0.105
Exportable USB devices
======================
 - 192.168.0.105
      1-1.3: Toshiba Corp. : TransMemory-Mini / Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 Stick (2GB) (0930:6544)
           : /sys/devices/platform/soc/20980000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1.3
           : (Defined at Interface level) (00/00/00)

Information is even more accurate then on RPi. Of course 192.168.0.105 have to be replaced with you IP address.

Quickly check if client support correct modules:

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[13:18:36] pietrushnic:~ $ grep USBIP /boot/config-`uname -r`
CONFIG_USBIP_CORE=m
CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD=m
CONFIG_USBIP_HOST=m
# CONFIG_USBIP_DEBUG is not set

Everything looks ok. Let’s load hos module:

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sudo modprobe vhci-hcd

Now we can attach remote storage:

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sudo usbip attach -r 192.168.0.105 -b 1-1.3

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[13:29:15] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdd
GPT PMBR size mismatch (13695 != 3911615) will be corrected by w(rite).
Disk /dev/sdd: 1.9 GiB, 2002747392 bytes, 3911616 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 2164228A-0AD4-43A8-9478-0E94701363B1

Device     Start   End Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdd1   2048 13662   11615  5.7M EFI System
[13:29:27] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo mount /dev/sdd1 tmp
[13:29:39] pietrushnic:~ $ ls tmp
EFI  shellia32.efi  shellx64.efi  shellx64-refind-signed.efi

Let’s left some signs:

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[13:30:55] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo sh -c "echo DEADBEEF > tmp/foobar"
[13:31:08] pietrushnic:~ $ cat tmp/foobar
DEADBEEF

Detach and see if we will see this file on server side:

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[13:33:31] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo usbip port
Imported USB devices
====================
Port 00: <Port in Use> at High Speed(480Mbps)
       unknown vendor : unknown product (0930:6544)
       5-1 -> usbip://192.168.0.105:3240/1-1.3
           -> remote bus/dev 001/005
[13:33:39] pietrushnic:~ $ sudo usbip detach -p 0

First let’s unbind:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo usbip unbind -b 1-1.3
usbip: info: unbind device on busid 1-1.3: complete

Then mount partition on which we placed out test file:

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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sda1 tmp/
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat tmp/foobar
DEADBEEF

Summary

This is quick refresh for those struggling with running usbip. There many topics to cover in this area I think about writing posts related to below topics:

usbip on Raspberry Pi 2
passing frames for RS232 to USB converter using usbip
A20-OLinuXino-MICRO/Cubietruck and usbip

If you any other preference or topics that would like to see on this blog please let me know in comments. If you think this post can be useful for others please share.

Thanks for reading.

Piotr Król

Founder of 3mdeb, a passionate advocate for open-source firmware solutions, driven by a belief in transparency, innovation, and trustworthiness. Every day is a new opportunity to embody the company's vision, emphasizing user liberty, simplicity, and privacy. Beyond business, a casual chess and bridge player, finding peace in nature and nourishment in theology, philosophy, and psychology. A person striving to foster a healthy community, grounded in collaboration and shared growth, while nurturing a lifelong curiosity and a desire to deeply understand the world.

Linux, RPi and USB over IP updated

Setup SD card

Kernel for RPi

Run server side of usbip

Client side

Summary

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