UDEV(7)udevUDEV(7)NAMEudev - Linux dynamic device management
DESCRIPTIONudev supplies the system software with device events, manages
permissions of device nodes and may create additional symlinks in the
/dev directory, or renames network interfaces. The kernel usually just
assigns unpredictable device names based on the order of discovery.
Meaningful symlinks or network device names provide a way to reliably
identify devices based on their properties or current configuration.
The udev daemon, udevd(8), receives device uevents directly from the
kernel whenever a device is added or removed from the system, or it
changes its state. When udev receives a device event, it matches its
configured set of rules against various device attributes to identify
the device. Rules that match may provide additional device information
to be stored in the udev database or to be used to create meaningful
symlink names.
All device information udev processes is stored in the udev database
and sent out to possible event subscribers. Access to all stored data
and the event sources is provided by the library libudev.
CONFIGURATIONudev configuration files are placed in /etc/udev/ and /lib/udev/. All
empty lines or lines beginning with '#' are ignored.
Configuration file
udev expects its main configuration file at /etc/udev/udev.conf. It
consists of a set of variables allowing the user to override default
udev values. The following variables can be set:
udev_root
Specifies where to place the device nodes in the filesystem. The
default value is /dev.
udev_log
The logging priority. Valid values are the numerical syslog
priorities or their textual representations: err, info and debug.
Rules files
The udev rules are read from the files located in the default rules
directory /lib/udev/rules.d/, the custom rules directory
/etc/udev/rules.d/ and the temporary rules directory
/run/udev/rules.d/. All rule files are collectively sorted and
processed in lexical order, regardless of the directories in which they
live. However, files in /etc/udev/rules.d/ take precedence over files
with the same name in /lib/udev/rules.d/; this can be used to ignore a
default rules file if needed.
Rule files must have the extension .rules; other extensions are
ignored.
Every line in the rules file contains at least one key-value pair.
There are two kind of keys: match and assignment. If all match keys are
matching against its value, the rule gets applied and the assignment
keys get the specified value assigned.
A matching rule may rename a network interface, add symlinks pointing
to the device node, or run a specified program as part of the event
handling.
A rule consists of a comma-separated list of one or more key-value
pairs. Each key has a distinct operation, depending on the used
operator. Valid operators are:
==
Compare for equality.
!=
Compare for inequality.
=
Assign a value to a key. Keys that represent a list are reset and
only this single value is assigned.
+=
Add the value to a key that holds a list of entries.
:=
Assign a value to a key finally; disallow any later changes.
The following key names can be used to match against device properties.
Some of the keys also match against properties of the parent devices in
sysfs, not only the device that has generated the event. If multiple
keys that match a parent device are specified in a single rule, all
these keys must match at one and the same parent device.
ACTION
Match the name of the event action.
DEVPATH
Match the devpath of the event device.
KERNEL
Match the name of the event device.
NAME
Match the name of the node or network interface. It can be used
once the NAME key has been set in one of the preceding rules.
SYMLINK
Match the name of a symlink targeting the node. It can be used once
a SYMLINK key has been set in one of the preceding rules. There may
be multiple symlinks; only one needs to match.
SUBSYSTEM
Match the subsystem of the event device.
DRIVER
Match the driver name of the event device. Only set this key for
devices which are bound to a driver at the time the event is
generated.
ATTR{filename}
Match sysfs attribute values of the event device. Trailing
whitespace in the attribute values is ignored unless the specified
match value itself contains trailing whitespace.
KERNELS
Search the devpath upwards for a matching device name.
SUBSYSTEMS
Search the devpath upwards for a matching device subsystem name.
DRIVERS
Search the devpath upwards for a matching device driver name.
ATTRS{filename}
Search the devpath upwards for a device with matching sysfs
attribute values. If multiple ATTRS matches are specified, all of
them must match on the same device. Trailing whitespace in the
attribute values is ignored unless the specified match value itself
contains trailing whitespace.
TAGS
Search the devpath upwards for a device with matching tag.
ENV{key}
Match against a device property value.
TAG
Match against a device tag.
TEST{octal mode mask}
Test the existence of a file. An octal mode mask can be specified
if needed.
PROGRAM
Execute a program to determine whether there is a match; the key is
true if the program returns successfully. The device properties are
made available to the executed program in the environment. The
program's stdout is available in the RESULT key.
RESULT
Match the returned string of the last PROGRAM call. This key can be
used in the same or in any later rule after a PROGRAM call.
Most of the fields support shell-style pattern matching. The following
pattern characters are supported:
*
Matches zero or more characters.
?
Matches any single character.
[]
Matches any single character specified within the brackets. For
example, the pattern string 'tty[SR]' would match either 'ttyS' or
'ttyR'. Ranges are also supported via the '-' character. For
example, to match on the range of all digits, the pattern [0-9]
could be used. If the first character following the '[' is a '!',
any characters not enclosed are matched.
The following keys can get values assigned:
NAME
What a network interface should be named.
Also, as a temporary workaround, this is what a device node should
be named; usually the kernel provides the defined node name or
creates and removes the node before udev even receives any event.
Changing the node name from the kernel's default creates
inconsistencies and is not supported. If the kernel and NAME
specify different names, an error is logged. udev is only expected
to handle device node permissions and to create additional
symlinks, not to change kernel-provided device node names. Instead
of renaming a device node, SYMLINK should be used. However, symlink
names must never conflict with device node names, as that would
result in unpredictable behavior.
SYMLINK
The name of a symlink targeting the node. Every matching rule adds
this value to the list of symlinks to be created. Multiple symlinks
may be specified by separating the names by the space character. In
case multiple devices claim the same name, the link always points
to the device with the highest link_priority. If the current device
goes away, the links are re-evaluated and the device with the next
highest link_priority becomes the owner of the link. If no
link_priority is specified, the order of the devices (and which one
of them owns the link) is undefined. Also, symlink names must never
conflict with the kernel's default device node names, as that would
result in unpredictable behavior.
OWNER, GROUP, MODE
The permissions for the device node. Every specified value
overwrites the compiled-in default value.
ATTR{key}
The value that should be written to a sysfs attribute of the event
device.
ENV{key}
Set a device property value. Property names with a leading '.' are
neither stored in the database nor exported to events or external
tools (run by, say, the PROGRAM match key).
TAG
Attach a tag to a device. This is used to filter events for users
of libudev's monitor functionality, or to enumerate a group of
tagged devices. The implementation can only work efficiently if
only a few tags are attached to a device. It is only meant to be
used in contexts with specific device filter requirements, and not
as a general-purpose flag. Excessive use might result in
inefficient event handling.
RUN
Add a program to the list of programs to be executed for a specific
device. This can only be used for very short running tasks. Running
an event process for a long period of time may block all further
events for this or a dependent device. Long running tasks need to
be immediately detached from the event process itself.
If no absolute path is given, the program is expected to live in
the directory provided at compile-time to configure via
--libexecdir (this is usually /lib/udev), otherwise the absolute
path must be specified. The program name and following arguments
are separated by spaces. Single quotes can be used to specify
arguments with spaces.
LABEL
A named label to which a GOTO may jump.
GOTO
Jumps to the next LABEL with a matching name.
IMPORT{type}
Import a set of variables as device properties, depending on type:
program
Execute an external program specified as the assigned value and
import its output, which must be in environment key format.
Path specification, command/argument separation, and quoting
work like in RUN.
file
Import a text file specified as the assigned value, the content
of which must be in environment key format.
db
Import a single property specified as the assigned value from
the current device database. This works only if the database is
already populated by an earlier event.
cmdline
Import a single property from the kernel command line. For
simple flags the value of the property is set to '1'.
parent
Import the stored keys from the parent device by reading the
database entry of the parent device. The value assigned to
IMPORT{parent} is used as a filter of key names to import (with
the same shell-style pattern matching used for comparisons).
WAIT_FOR
Wait for a file to become available or until a timeout of 10
seconds expires. The path is relative to the sysfs device; if no
path is specified, this waits for an attribute to appear.
OPTIONS
Rule and device options:
link_priority=value
Specify the priority of the created symlinks. Devices with
higher priorities overwrite existing symlinks of other devices.
The default is 0.
event_timeout=
Number of seconds an event waits for operations to finish
before giving up and terminating itself.
string_escape=none|replace
Usually control and other possibly unsafe characters are
replaced in strings used for device naming. The mode of
replacement can be specified with this option.
static_node=
Apply the permissions specified in this rule to the static
device node with the specified name. Static device nodes might
be provided by kernel modules or copied from /lib/udev/devices.
These nodes might not have a corresponding kernel device at the
time udevd is started; they can trigger automatic kernel module
loading.
watch
Watch the device node with inotify; when the node is closed
after being opened for writing, a change uevent is synthesized.
nowatch
Disable the watching of a device node with inotify.
The NAME, SYMLINK, PROGRAM, OWNER, GROUP, MODE and RUN fields support
simple string substitutions. The RUN substitutions are performed after
all rules have been processed, right before the program is executed,
allowing for the use of device properties set by earlier matching
rules. For all other fields, substitutions are performed while the
individual rule is being processed. The available substitutions are:
$kernel, %k
The kernel name for this device.
$number, %n
The kernel number for this device. For example, 'sda3' has kernel
number of '3'
$devpath, %p
The devpath of the device.
$id, %b
The name of the device matched while searching the devpath upwards
for SUBSYSTEMS, KERNELS, DRIVERS and ATTRS.
$driver
The driver name of the device matched while searching the devpath
upwards for SUBSYSTEMS, KERNELS, DRIVERS and ATTRS.
$attr{file}, %s{file}
The value of a sysfs attribute found at the device where all keys
of the rule have matched. If the matching device does not have such
an attribute, and a previous KERNELS, SUBSYSTEMS, DRIVERS, or ATTRS
test selected a parent device, then the attribute from that parent
device is used.
If the attribute is a symlink, the last element of the symlink
target is returned as the value.
$env{key}, %E{key}
A device property value.
$major, %M
The kernel major number for the device.
$minor, %m
The kernel minor number for the device.
$result, %c
The string returned by the external program requested with PROGRAM.
A single part of the string, separated by a space character, may be
selected by specifying the part number as an attribute: %c{N}. If
the number is followed by the '+' character, this part plus all
remaining parts of the result string are substituted: %c{N+}
$parent, %P
The node name of the parent device.
$name
The current name of the device node. If not changed by a rule, it
is the name of the kernel device.
$links
A space-separated list of the current symlinks. The value is only
set during a remove event or if an earlier rule assigned a value.
$root, %r
The udev_root value.
$sys, %S
The sysfs mount point.
$tempnode, %N
The name of a temporary device node created to provide access to
the device from a external program before the real node is created.
%%
The '%' character itself.
$$
The '$' character itself.
AUTHOR
Written by Greg Kroah-Hartman greg@kroah.com and Kay Sievers
kay.sievers@vrfy.org. With much help from Dan Stekloff and many others.
SEE ALSOudevd(8), udevadm(8)udev 11/07/2011 UDEV(7)