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Hot Plug

Issue 96

From Issue #96
April 2002

Apr 01, 2002  By Greg Kroah-Hartman
 in
/sbin/hotplug

The kernel hot-plug core provides a method for the kernel to notify user space that something has happened. The CONFIG_HOTPLUG configuration item needs to be selected for this code to be enabled. The notification happens when the kernel calls the executable listed in the global variable hotplug_path. When the kernel starts, hotplug_path is set to /sbin/hotplug, but the user can modify the value at /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug to change this. The kernel function call_usermodehelper() executes /sbin/hotplug.

As of kernel 2.4.14, the /sbin/hotplug method is being used by the PCI, USB, IEEE1394 and Network core subsystems. As time goes on, more subsystems will be converted to use it. Patches are available for the PnP-BIOS (notification when a laptop is inserted and removed from a docking station), Hot-Plug CPU, SCSI and IDE kernel subsystems. These are expected to be merged into the main kernel over time.

When /sbin/hotplug is called, different environment variables are set, depending on what action has just occurred.

PCI

PCI devices call /sbin/hotplug with the following arguments:

argv [0] = hotplug_path
argv [1] = "pci"
argv [2] = 0

and the system environment is set to the following: 

HOME=/
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
PCI_CLASS=class_code
PCI_ID=vendor:device
PCI_SUBSYS_ID=subsystem_vendor:subsystem_device
PCI_SLOT_NAME=slot_name
ACTION=action
The action setting is “add” or “remove” depending on whether the device is being inserted or removed from the system. The class_code, vendor, subsystem_vendor, subsystem_device and slot_name environment settings represent the numerical values for the PCI device's information.

USB

USB devices call /sbin/hotplug with the following arguments:

argv [0] = hotplug_path
argv [1] = "usb"
argv [2] = 0

and the system environment is set to the following: 

HOME=/
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
ACTION=action
PRODUCT=idVendor/idProduct/bcdDevice
TYPE=device_class/device_subclass/device_protocol
The action setting is “add” or “remove” depending on whether the device is being inserted or removed from the system, and idVendor, idProduct, bcdDevice, device_class, device_subclass and device_protocol are filled in with the information from the USB device's descriptors.

If the USB device's deviceClass is 0 then the environment variable INTERFACE is set to:

INTERFACE=class/subclass/protocol

This is because USB has a much more complex model for device configuration than PCI does.

If the USB subsystem is compiled with the usbdevfs filesystem enabled, the following environment variables also are set:

DEVFS=/proc/bus/usb
DEVICE=/proc/bus/usb/bus_number/device_number

where bus_number and device_number are set to the bus number and device number that this specific USB device is assigned.

Network

The network core code calls /sbin/hotplug whenever a network device is registered or unregistered with the network subsystem, and /sbin/hotplug is called with the following arguments when called from the network core:

argv [0] = hotplug_path
argv [1] = "net"
argv [2] = 0

and the system environment is set to the following: 

HOME=/
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
INTERFACE=interface
ACTION=action
The action setting is “register” or “unregister” depending on what happened in the network core, and interface is the name of the interface that just had the action applied to itself.

CPU

The Hot-Plug CPU patch (available at sourceforge.net/projects/lhcs) calls /sbin/hotplug after a CPU is removed or added to the system, and /sbin/hotplug is called with the following arguments:

argv [0] = hotplug_path
argv [1] = "cpu"
argv [2] = 0

and the system environment is set to the following: 

HOME=/
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
CPU=cpu_number
ACTION=action
The action setting is “add” or “remove” depending on what happened to the CPU, and cpu_number is the number of the CPU that just had the action applied to itself.

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