linux/Documentation/userspace-api/media/drivers/uvcvideo.rst
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   1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
   2
   3The Linux USB Video Class (UVC) driver
   4======================================
   5
   6This file documents some driver-specific aspects of the UVC driver, such as
   7driver-specific ioctls and implementation notes.
   8
   9Questions and remarks can be sent to the Linux UVC development mailing list at
  10linux-uvc-devel@lists.berlios.de.
  11
  12
  13Extension Unit (XU) support
  14---------------------------
  15
  16Introduction
  17~~~~~~~~~~~~
  18
  19The UVC specification allows for vendor-specific extensions through extension
  20units (XUs). The Linux UVC driver supports extension unit controls (XU controls)
  21through two separate mechanisms:
  22
  23  - through mappings of XU controls to V4L2 controls
  24  - through a driver-specific ioctl interface
  25
  26The first one allows generic V4L2 applications to use XU controls by mapping
  27certain XU controls onto V4L2 controls, which then show up during ordinary
  28control enumeration.
  29
  30The second mechanism requires uvcvideo-specific knowledge for the application to
  31access XU controls but exposes the entire UVC XU concept to user space for
  32maximum flexibility.
  33
  34Both mechanisms complement each other and are described in more detail below.
  35
  36
  37Control mappings
  38~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  39
  40The UVC driver provides an API for user space applications to define so-called
  41control mappings at runtime. These allow for individual XU controls or byte
  42ranges thereof to be mapped to new V4L2 controls. Such controls appear and
  43function exactly like normal V4L2 controls (i.e. the stock controls, such as
  44brightness, contrast, etc.). However, reading or writing of such a V4L2 controls
  45triggers a read or write of the associated XU control.
  46
  47The ioctl used to create these control mappings is called UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP.
  48Previous driver versions (before 0.2.0) required another ioctl to be used
  49beforehand (UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD) to pass XU control information to the UVC driver.
  50This is no longer necessary as newer uvcvideo versions query the information
  51directly from the device.
  52
  53For details on the UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP ioctl please refer to the section titled
  54"IOCTL reference" below.
  55
  56
  573. Driver specific XU control interface
  58
  59For applications that need to access XU controls directly, e.g. for testing
  60purposes, firmware upload, or accessing binary controls, a second mechanism to
  61access XU controls is provided in the form of a driver-specific ioctl, namely
  62UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY.
  63
  64A call to this ioctl allows applications to send queries to the UVC driver that
  65directly map to the low-level UVC control requests.
  66
  67In order to make such a request the UVC unit ID of the control's extension unit
  68and the control selector need to be known. This information either needs to be
  69hardcoded in the application or queried using other ways such as by parsing the
  70UVC descriptor or, if available, using the media controller API to enumerate a
  71device's entities.
  72
  73Unless the control size is already known it is necessary to first make a
  74UVC_GET_LEN requests in order to be able to allocate a sufficiently large buffer
  75and set the buffer size to the correct value. Similarly, to find out whether
  76UVC_GET_CUR or UVC_SET_CUR are valid requests for a given control, a
  77UVC_GET_INFO request should be made. The bits 0 (GET supported) and 1 (SET
  78supported) of the resulting byte indicate which requests are valid.
  79
  80With the addition of the UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY ioctl the UVCIOC_CTRL_GET and
  81UVCIOC_CTRL_SET ioctls have become obsolete since their functionality is a
  82subset of the former ioctl. For the time being they are still supported but
  83application developers are encouraged to use UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY instead.
  84
  85For details on the UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY ioctl please refer to the section titled
  86"IOCTL reference" below.
  87
  88
  89Security
  90~~~~~~~~
  91
  92The API doesn't currently provide a fine-grained access control facility. The
  93UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD and UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP ioctls require super user permissions.
  94
  95Suggestions on how to improve this are welcome.
  96
  97
  98Debugging
  99~~~~~~~~~
 100
 101In order to debug problems related to XU controls or controls in general it is
 102recommended to enable the UVC_TRACE_CONTROL bit in the module parameter 'trace'.
 103This causes extra output to be written into the system log.
 104
 105
 106IOCTL reference
 107~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 108
 109UVCIOC_CTRL_MAP - Map a UVC control to a V4L2 control
 110^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 111
 112Argument: struct uvc_xu_control_mapping
 113
 114**Description**:
 115
 116        This ioctl creates a mapping between a UVC control or part of a UVC
 117        control and a V4L2 control. Once mappings are defined, userspace
 118        applications can access vendor-defined UVC control through the V4L2
 119        control API.
 120
 121        To create a mapping, applications fill the uvc_xu_control_mapping
 122        structure with information about an existing UVC control defined with
 123        UVCIOC_CTRL_ADD and a new V4L2 control.
 124
 125        A UVC control can be mapped to several V4L2 controls. For instance,
 126        a UVC pan/tilt control could be mapped to separate pan and tilt V4L2
 127        controls. The UVC control is divided into non overlapping fields using
 128        the 'size' and 'offset' fields and are then independently mapped to
 129        V4L2 control.
 130
 131        For signed integer V4L2 controls the data_type field should be set to
 132        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_SIGNED. Other values are currently ignored.
 133
 134**Return value**:
 135
 136        On success 0 is returned. On error -1 is returned and errno is set
 137        appropriately.
 138
 139        ENOMEM
 140                Not enough memory to perform the operation.
 141        EPERM
 142                Insufficient privileges (super user privileges are required).
 143        EINVAL
 144                No such UVC control.
 145        EOVERFLOW
 146                The requested offset and size would overflow the UVC control.
 147        EEXIST
 148                Mapping already exists.
 149
 150**Data types**:
 151
 152.. code-block:: none
 153
 154        * struct uvc_xu_control_mapping
 155
 156        __u32   id              V4L2 control identifier
 157        __u8    name[32]        V4L2 control name
 158        __u8    entity[16]      UVC extension unit GUID
 159        __u8    selector        UVC control selector
 160        __u8    size            V4L2 control size (in bits)
 161        __u8    offset          V4L2 control offset (in bits)
 162        enum v4l2_ctrl_type
 163                v4l2_type       V4L2 control type
 164        enum uvc_control_data_type
 165                data_type       UVC control data type
 166        struct uvc_menu_info
 167                *menu_info      Array of menu entries (for menu controls only)
 168        __u32   menu_count      Number of menu entries (for menu controls only)
 169
 170        * struct uvc_menu_info
 171
 172        __u32   value           Menu entry value used by the device
 173        __u8    name[32]        Menu entry name
 174
 175
 176        * enum uvc_control_data_type
 177
 178        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_RAW          Raw control (byte array)
 179        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_SIGNED       Signed integer
 180        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_UNSIGNED     Unsigned integer
 181        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_BOOLEAN      Boolean
 182        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_ENUM         Enumeration
 183        UVC_CTRL_DATA_TYPE_BITMASK      Bitmask
 184
 185
 186UVCIOC_CTRL_QUERY - Query a UVC XU control
 187^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 188Argument: struct uvc_xu_control_query
 189
 190**Description**:
 191
 192        This ioctl queries a UVC XU control identified by its extension unit ID
 193        and control selector.
 194
 195        There are a number of different queries available that closely
 196        correspond to the low-level control requests described in the UVC
 197        specification. These requests are:
 198
 199        UVC_GET_CUR
 200                Obtain the current value of the control.
 201        UVC_GET_MIN
 202                Obtain the minimum value of the control.
 203        UVC_GET_MAX
 204                Obtain the maximum value of the control.
 205        UVC_GET_DEF
 206                Obtain the default value of the control.
 207        UVC_GET_RES
 208                Query the resolution of the control, i.e. the step size of the
 209                allowed control values.
 210        UVC_GET_LEN
 211                Query the size of the control in bytes.
 212        UVC_GET_INFO
 213                Query the control information bitmap, which indicates whether
 214                get/set requests are supported.
 215        UVC_SET_CUR
 216                Update the value of the control.
 217
 218        Applications must set the 'size' field to the correct length for the
 219        control. Exceptions are the UVC_GET_LEN and UVC_GET_INFO queries, for
 220        which the size must be set to 2 and 1, respectively. The 'data' field
 221        must point to a valid writable buffer big enough to hold the indicated
 222        number of data bytes.
 223
 224        Data is copied directly from the device without any driver-side
 225        processing. Applications are responsible for data buffer formatting,
 226        including little-endian/big-endian conversion. This is particularly
 227        important for the result of the UVC_GET_LEN requests, which is always
 228        returned as a little-endian 16-bit integer by the device.
 229
 230**Return value**:
 231
 232        On success 0 is returned. On error -1 is returned and errno is set
 233        appropriately.
 234
 235        ENOENT
 236                The device does not support the given control or the specified
 237                extension unit could not be found.
 238        ENOBUFS
 239                The specified buffer size is incorrect (too big or too small).
 240        EINVAL
 241                An invalid request code was passed.
 242        EBADRQC
 243                The given request is not supported by the given control.
 244        EFAULT
 245                The data pointer references an inaccessible memory area.
 246
 247**Data types**:
 248
 249.. code-block:: none
 250
 251        * struct uvc_xu_control_query
 252
 253        __u8    unit            Extension unit ID
 254        __u8    selector        Control selector
 255        __u8    query           Request code to send to the device
 256        __u16   size            Control data size (in bytes)
 257        __u8    *data           Control value
 258