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Date:      Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:26:53 +0100
From:      Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky@c2i.net>
To:        ticso@cicely.de
Cc:        freebsd-usb@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: USB Slave mode - FreeBSD emulate a CDROM device?
Message-ID:  <200801121626.54803.hselasky@c2i.net>
In-Reply-To: <20080112115132.GI79270@cicely12.cicely.de>
References:  <683E901E-8564-49FF-B177-754EF48232A4@gmail.com> <20080112115132.GI79270@cicely12.cicely.de>

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On Saturday 12 January 2008, Bernd Walter wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 11:26:26PM +0100, =D8ystein Andreassen wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I would like to make my FreeBSD pc a USB CD/DVD-ROM for a server.
> > I have a lot of bootable ISO images and I dont like to waste time and
> > CD=B4s
> > on burning this images each time I need to use them (I usally damage
> > or loose
> > them between each time or they have been updated).  So instead I would
> > like
> > to know if it is possible to make the FreeBSD USB stack behave as a
> > USB slave
> > and present an ISO image to another machine via a usb host-to-host
> > cable.
> > (I need to boot from the CD=B4s).
>
> A PC has not the required hardware to do so.
> There are USB devices and USB hosts.
> You can only connect a single USB host to many devices, but not two
> hosts together.
> There are interlink cables on the market, but those present an USB
> device to both sides and are not generic to do anything else than the
> profile they are build for.
>
> Hans Petter however did implement USB device software support to allow
> FreeBSD beeing used as a device.
> It at least supports the AT91RM9200 internal USB device controller, but
> I don't know if it supports anything else.

Hi,

The current implementation of USB device support only implements CDC ethern=
et.=20
Adding support for a mass storage device is not a big deal. Though you need=
=20
to define an interface for how you will provide your disk or file to the=20
interface. Probably handling this from userland will solve your problem.

Does your box have PCI slots? There are some PCI boards available for a che=
ap=20
price that supports USB device functionality.

I plan to add support for more chips during the spring, but I haven't decid=
ed=20
which yet.

> And I think he just did implement a CDC ethernet device and not umass,
> so software needs to be written anyway.
> I've CC'ed him, since he can answer about other hardware that he
> possibly supports.

That is correct.

>
> I would have liked to offer the AT91RM9200 based board we produce
> ourself, but it wasn't designed for this purpose so our current board
> has no device ports.
> But we are planning an extended version, so this might change in the
> near future.

I have a KB92002B board which I bought=20
from "http://www.kwikbyte.com/KB9202.html". It is full speed USB only.

>
> There a USB device controllers that can be added to PCs, but most of
> them are more designed for teaching purpose.
> For example I'd seen PDIUSBD11 chips hooked up to printer ports, but
> this chip is not being manufactured anymore and this type of interfacing
> is very slow.
>
> The situation is much better if you use SCSI.
> You can interconnect two SCSI controller together - given that the
> addresses on both controller are not configured to be the same.
> FreeBSD has code for emulation disk drives with target capable SCSI
> controllers, which at least is supported by the ahc(4) driver.
> The controller on the other box can just be of any kind.

=2D-HPS



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