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- <title>mdevd: the mdevd-netlink program</title>
- <meta name="Description" content="mdevd: the mdevd-netlink program" />
- <meta name="Keywords" content="mdevd linux administration root utilities devd mdev udev s6-uevent-listener uevent netlink" />
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-<p>
-<a href="index.html">mdevd</a><br />
-<a href="//skarnet.org/software/">Software</a><br />
-<a href="//skarnet.org/">skarnet.org</a>
-</p>
-
-<h1> The <tt>mdevd-netlink</tt> program </h1>
-
-<p>
-<tt>mdevd-netlink</tt> listens to the netlink interface for uevents
-(also called "hotplug" or "udev" events), and writes those uevents to
-its standard output, using a simple format.
-</p>
-
-<p>
-<a href="mdevd.html">mdevd</a> expects uevents in the same
-format mdevd-netlink writes them. So the
-<tt>mdevd-netlink | mdevd</tt> command line will function as
-a daemon reading uevents from the netlink and handling them.
-</p>
-
-<h2> Interface </h2>
-
-<pre>
- mdevd-netlink [ -d notif ] [ -v <em>verbosity</em> ] [ -b kbufsz ]
-</pre>
-
-<ul>
- <li> mdevd-netlink binds to the netlink interface and listens for
-hotplug events, as the <em>udevd</em> program does. </li>
- <li> It writes event information to its stdout. The output contains
-null characters, so a terminal will not display them correctly. To
-properly use mdevd-netlink, it should be piped into a handler
-program such as <a href="mdevd.html">mdevd</a>. </li>
- <li> mdevd-netlink is a long-lived program.
-When it receives a SIGTERM, it stops listening to hotplug events;
-it will exit as soon as it has flushed its event queue to stdout. </li>
-</ul>
-
-<h2> Options </h2>
-
-<ul>
- <li> <tt>-d</tt>&nbsp;<em>notif</em>&nbsp;: when ready (actually
-listening to the netlink), write a newline to file descriptor <em>notif</em>
-then close it. This allows mdevd-netlink to use the
-<a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6/notifywhenup.html">s6 mechanism to
-notify readiness</a>. <em>notif</em> cannot be lesser than 3. If this
-option is not given, no readiness notification is sent. </li>
- <li> <tt>-v</tt>&nbsp;<em>verbosity</em>&nbsp;: be more or less verbose.
-Default verbosity is 1. 0 will only print fatal error messages, 3 will
-print warnings every time the netlink interface sends something
-unexpected. </li>
- <li> <tt>-b</tt>&nbsp;<em>kbufsz</em>&nbsp;: try and reserve a kernel buffer of
-<em>kbufsz</em> bytes for the netlink queue. Too large a buffer wastes kernel memory;
-too small a buffer risks losing events. The default is 65536 (which is on
-the large side). </li>
-</ul>
-
-<h2> Protocol </h2>
-
-<ul>
- <li> An event is a series of null-terminated strings as they are sent by
-the kernel to the netlink; mdevd-netlink adds a final empty string
-(i.e. an additional null character) to mark the end of the series. </li>
- <li> The first string is a short description of the event; it normally
-contains the string "@/". Other strings after the first are of the form
-"VARIABLE=value", and describe the environment which a hotplug helper
-for the event (registered in <tt>/proc/sys/kernel/hotplug</tt>) would be
-spawned with. </li>
- <li> Example (newlines added for clarity): <pre>
-add@/class/input/input9/mouse2\0
-ACTION=add\0
-DEVPATH=/class/input/input9/mouse2\0
-SUBSYSTEM=input\0
-SEQNUM=106\0
-PHYSDEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb2/2­2/2­2:1.0
-PHYSDEVBUS=usb\0
-PHYSDEVDRIVER=usbhid\0
-MAJOR=13\0
-MINOR=34\0
-\0 </pre> </li>
-</ul>
-
-<h2> Notes </h2>
-
-<ul>
- <li> mdevd-netlink is a daemon; it should be run under a proper supervision system such
-as <a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6/">s6</a>. </li>
-<li> If you are running mdevd-netlink, the program you pipe its
-output into should be the only program handling uevents; that means
-that <tt>/proc/sys/kernel/hotplug</tt> should be empty. </li>
-<li> The <tt>mdevd-netlink | mdevd</tt> command line is a quick
-way of running a uevent manager, but there are ways to improve it:
- <ul>
- <li> Using the
-<a href="//skarnet.org/software/execline/">execline</a> scripting
-language, the <tt>pipeline { mdevd-netlink } mdevd</tt> command
-line will avoid leaving a shell around. </li>
- <li> The best way to use mdevd-netlink and mdevd is with a
-supervision system:
-under <a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6/">s6</a> or
-<a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6-rc/">s6-rc</a>, write a service
-pipeline where <tt>mdevd-netlink</tt> is a producer and
-<tt>mdevd</tt> is a consumer. This setup has the advantage, among
-others, that you can restart the netlink listener and the event handler
-separately. The <tt>examples/</tt> subdirectory of the mdevd
-package contains example configurations for such a setup. </li>
- </ul> </li>
-</ul>
-
-</body>
-</html>