Bug 740840

Summary:	usbfs not mounted to /proc/bus/usb
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Lane <dirjud>
Component:	systemd	Assignee:	Lennart Poettering <lpoetter>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	16	CC:	dennis, harald, johannbg, kay, lpoetter, metherid, mschmidt, notting, plautrba, rob.dyck, zimon
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-09-24 23:20:34 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Lane 2011-09-23 14:09:39 UTC

Description of problem:
I installed Fedora 16 alpha and ran all the updates. Upon trying to launch virtualbox, however, it complained about usbfs not being present (although it was a very cryptic message). I manually mounted usbfs with the command 'mount -t usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb', and virtualbox was happy. usbfs automatically mounts on F15, but I could not find where that is done in searching through the /etc directory on a F15 install. So I am not sure which rpm this problem belongs to. I also do not know if this is an isolated problem to my one machine or if this was an intentional change. I could not find any documentation stating this was an intentional change anywhere.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
F16 alpha

How reproducible:
I have only tried F16 alpha on one machine. It happened on that one machine. I cannot say whether if others are having the same problem.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install F16 alpha and see that /proc/bus/usb is not mounted.

Comment 1 Kay Sievers 2011-09-23 19:11:10 UTC

usbfs is deprecated since years and should no longer be used by anything.

Comment 2 Lane 2011-09-23 19:51:01 UTC

Is there reason no longer mount it by default? Like a performance or compatibility problem?

virtual box still uses it.

What was the old mechanism for mounting it? I can certainly add something to whatever the systemd equivalent of /etc/rc.local is, but I would like to know the old method a well.

Comment 3 Kay Sievers 2011-09-23 20:02:40 UTC

Just add it to /etc/fstab, it will be mounted then.

Nothing should use it though, in the future, it will eventually be
removed from the kernel. If you care enough, it would be nice it you
can file a bug against virtual box.

Comment 4 Lennart Poettering 2011-09-24 23:20:34 UTC

There's nothing to fix in systemd here. VirtualBox should be fixed, please file a bug. And as a work-around add the mount to /etc/fstab. Closing.

Comment 5 rob.dyck 2011-11-12 00:52:31 UTC

I had a similar problem with the Samsung Unified Driver. The Sane interface could not detect my scanner because the backend "smfp" relies on the usbfs. This is a proprietary driver. It's anybody's guess whether it is possible to get Samsung to revise the driver.

Driver version 3.00.65 dated Nov 18 2009.

Comment 6 zimon 2012-04-14 17:29:52 UTC

Also the program and package usbview wants usbfs mounted.

# rpm -q usbview
usbview-1.1-5.fc15.x86_64

Comment 7 Kay Sievers 2012-04-14 17:43:49 UTC

It is expected, that usbfs will be removed from the kernel sooner than later.

Packages still relying on the plain and deprecated usbfs and not using libusb,
which handles that transparently, need to be converted.

Usbview is also outdated and unmaintained, and should probably be removed from
the distribution.