[HN Gopher] usbredir: A protocol for sending USB device traffic ...
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usbredir: A protocol for sending USB device traffic over a network
connection
Author : sipofwater
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-04-16 17:13 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spice-space.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spice-space.org)
| naikrovek wrote:
| Does this offer anything over USB/IP?
| k8svet wrote:
| I think just that it's plugged in at the SPICE level. So I
| guess you could redirect a USB device into a guest that isn't
| running Linux and can't run usb/ip? But also, this is how usb
| redirection works with virt-viewer/virt-manager, I'm fairly
| sure.
| naikrovek wrote:
| USB/IP works fine on Windows and MacOS, though MacOS has no
| ability to use devices shared by USB/IP; it can only share
| devices to others.
|
| What is this "SPICE level" you mentioned?
| touisteur wrote:
| https://www.spice-space.org/spice-user-manual.html that
| qemu uses a lot.
| k8svet wrote:
| Imagine you had a qemu/libvirt guest that understands USB,
| but doesn't have support for USB/IP in "kernel/userspace".
|
| usbredir gets your device to qemu, looking like it's a USB
| device attached to the VM, without cooperation from the
| guest.
| touisteur wrote:
| Now I'm wondering whether someone has built support for this
| in rust-vmm...
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| The one hack I keep hoping <someoneelse> will do the actual work
| for is -
|
| redirecting my steamdeck control via usb to my linux gaming rig
| and expose it as a usb device(s) for steaminput.
|
| It seems like a natural and perhaps even "straightforward" hack
| but I've seen no evidence of one so far, perhaps there is
| something in usb that limits the ability to proxy it correctly.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Sounds like something Valve should make. Kinda weird they
| haven't so far.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Valve's "remote play" allows one to play games on another
| host computer via your Steam Deck as though you are plugged
| straight. If you don't need the video streaming, you can
| lower the settings.
|
| edit; oh nm, user wants a direct wired connection to work.
| jxy wrote:
| it may not be practical given the possible high latency.
| crtasm wrote:
| over USB. what might introduce high latency?
| all2 wrote:
| Oh, oh, I get what you're saying. You want the steamdeck to
| expose its controls as a hotpluggable USB device on another
| machine.
|
| That would depend on the USB hardware on the device, I
| think.
| all2 wrote:
| Maybe allow mounting of the the steamdeck input devices in
| steamdeck:/dev over network on your linux box so it is exposed
| as an additional device? Something like plan9 does.
| delecti wrote:
| It seems people have achieved that:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/v22ddf/guide_how...
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| That's over wifi not usb.
|
| Even a bluetooth mouse has too much latency for many games.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Demonstrably false:
|
| https://www.rtings.com/assets/pages/46ieCfmI/mxvertical1-2g
| r...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/MouseReview/comments/hf1vrd/is_inp
| u...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhb7Njj3h8
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0xmcBg_IY
|
| https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tests/control/latency
| delecti wrote:
| I didn't watch those youtube videos, but the text links
| either agree with the opinion that bluetooth is worse, or
| don't refute it.
|
| That rtings graph shows that bluetooth is pretty clearly
| worse in the majority of cases from wired or wireless
| (which is distinct from bluetooth).
|
| "Bluetooth" doesn't appear anywhere on that Reddit
| thread.
|
| And from the second rtings:
|
| > The mouse's connection type affects the click latency.
| Generally, wired mice have the lowest latency, and
| Bluetooth mice have the highest latency. A Bluetooth
| connection isn't recommended for gaming, but it's still
| good for office use, and most people won't notice any
| delay unless the latency is extremely high.
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| Few/none of the wireless gaming mice are using bluetooth,
| its proprietary radio protocols and usb dongles.
|
| Click latency is not too useful vs swipe latency.
|
| Bluetooth has a pretty low polling rate iirc and that
| kills the swipe latency.
|
| More generally and responsive to what we were talking
| about, proprietary radios are not bluetooth and they are
| not WiFi which is the latency we are actually talking
| about (which is usable but not for me to play elden ring
| by direct experience).
| mike_d wrote:
| VirtualHere will run over any network connection, that user
| just happened to use wifi.
|
| All the mice I am aware of that use Bluetooth are travel
| mice and the like. Even cheap gaming mice use RF dongles
| that do not have the Bluetooth polling limitations.
|
| You can tell your friends in Fortnite you died because of
| mouse latency, but lets keep HN discussions grounded in
| reality please.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| To clarify: You want the Steam Deck to run USB gadget mode and
| use that to expose its input devices to the other machine?
|
| If so... while searching to see if the SD supports gadget mode
| (answer: yes) I happened across
| https://github.com/Frederic98/GadgetDeck - have you tried that?
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| This looks closer then anything I've seen so far, thanks!
|
| From what I can discern its missing important bits of the
| controller and doesn't have any steaminput profile etc so
| it's clunky still.
|
| Worth poking at though.
|
| edit - to clarify, ideally steaminput would be tricked on the
| host to think that it "was" a steamdeck so all the mapping
| features would be available. I don't really need another usb
| game controller its more the steamdeck touchpad etc.
| MisterTea wrote:
| On Plan 9 I just rimport the remote machines /dev/usb. Since this
| is all over 9P it can go over any 2-way pipe, even rs232.
| all2 wrote:
| And, the linux kernel has plan 9 FS drivers. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/9p.html
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| Is Plan 9 alive and kicking?
| MisterTea wrote:
| http://9front.org/releases/
| rcarmo wrote:
| Depends. There are still many enthusiasts (even new ports to
| random chipsets), but there is also a bit of a schism between
| the 9front folk and... let's say our current timeline. The
| good news is that there are interesting things going on,
| fortunately none of which related to current tech trends.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > but there is also a bit of a schism between the 9front
| folk and... let's say our current timeline.
|
| As a 9front user who attended IWP9 the past two years (just
| was in Philly this past weekend) this really isn't the case
| anymore.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Plan 9 is like BSD; the original is no longer developed, but
| its forks ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_La
| bs#Derivati... ) are healthy enough.
| tombert wrote:
| There was a thing that was around 10 or 11 years ago called
| "Wireless USB", and it was actually kind of cool. It did exactly
| what it sounds like, you could plug in two different arbitrary
| USB devices into hubs or a computer that supported wireless USB,
| and the computer would just recognize it as a vanilla USB device.
| I don't actually know why it never caught on, I thought it was
| neat, and it seemed to work fine. I guess due to the popularity
| and ubiquity of bluetooth?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB
|
| EDIT: Looks like it was more than 10 years ago, circa 2009 or so.
| Time has no meaning.
| codetrotter wrote:
| First time I heard about Wireless USB was just the other day,
| in a video looking at a luggable computer from 2006.
|
| https://youtu.be/OO5hYhdxIuk
|
| Video is worth a watch although it also doesn't give an answer
| for _why_ Wireless USB actually disappeared.
|
| I was wondering after watching that video, if it could be due
| to security concerns? Like, is the Wireless USB protocol
| encrypted? And if so, does it use sufficiently strong
| encryption?
|
| I did find a document that talks a bit about Wireless USB
| encryption.
|
| https://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/appnotes/wireless_usb_e...
| tombert wrote:
| I actually saw that video, but I had heard of Wireless USB
| for awhile. My manager at my first job after dropping out of
| college the first time got it for his computer and he was
| super excited.
|
| At least according to Wikipedia, it was encrypted.
| lupusreal wrote:
| There's "encrypted", and there's _encrypted_. WEP for wifi
| was encryption, but cracking it was so trivial that for
| some years it was practical to crack yourself access to
| wifi wherever you were on a casual whim.
|
| Still, even if the encryption was very weak, wireless wifi
| sounds appealing to me, at least for my old trusty wired
| mouse. Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like
| an academic threat.
| gruez wrote:
| > Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like an
| academic threat.
|
| You're not concerned that anyone within a 100 ft radius
| of you can inject arbitrary keystrokes/mouse movements to
| your PC?
| lupusreal wrote:
| No, definitely not. The intersection of people who would
| think to do that, have the skill for it, and the
| inclination to view me personally as their target is
| probably zero.
| tombert wrote:
| Not to mention that I don't think anyone but a few niche
| enthusiasts even have the hardware to do it even if they
| had the skills and inclination. Who's going to walk
| around with a 15 year old laptop brute-forcing wireless
| USB encryption, or find some obscure hub and do it on a
| modern laptop?
|
| I'm not going to say the likelihood is "zero", but I am
| going to say it's so close to zero that it's really not
| worth even considering.
| toast0 wrote:
| Anyone within a 100 ft radius of my PC is in my house and
| could just come over and poke at the mouse.
| chrsig wrote:
| That's somehow both a much less elaborate and
| significantly more invasive approach to pranking wfh
| coworkers.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > wfh coworkers
|
| I usually call her my girlfriend, but I suppose that's
| another way to refer to one's significant other :p
| Terr_ wrote:
| Imagine someone driving around neighborhoods with a
| laptop and a very good antenna.
|
| 1. Detect vulnerable networks in computers
|
| 2. Pretend to be a USB keyboard.
|
| 3. Trigger blind key combos that will visit a website,
| confirm downloading a file, execute that file, and "OK"
| privilege escalation prompts.
|
| 4. Move on to the next block or cul-de-sac, while the
| malware finishes unpacking and reporting home for further
| use.
| eichin wrote:
| That doesn't need wireless USB, we already have
| CVE-2023-45866
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38661182 for
| "bluetooth stack more than 6 months old"
| hbossy wrote:
| Most USB devices either rely on the connection to provide power
| or are too clunky to move around, so having a wire doesn't
| really matter.
| y04nn wrote:
| I recently found out that a manufacturer (TI, NXP, murata,
| infineon?) was demonstrating a USB2 live camera capture using a
| UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band) short range wireless transmission. But I
| can't found the source again.
| sandreas wrote:
| Sounds a bit like USB/IP
| (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB/IP).
|
| Is this a new thing?
| eqvinox wrote:
| Both projects seem to be >10 years old at this point... might
| be a case of "convergent evolution"?
| sandreas wrote:
| Probably... I thought of passing my iPod Nano 7g through
| USB/IP to my Proxmox Windows iTunes VM, but I never had the
| urge to do it. Although it'd probably work and would be great
| in combinaton with Wireguard on vacation, I did not want to
| setup a "risky" driver / kernel module on my main proxmox
| server :-) USB passthrough always was enough.
| ktm5j wrote:
| I'm on my phone so I can only do so much digging, but from
| the usbip sourceforge page that's linked above, it says that
| development has moved into the Linux kernel:
| For Linux, the source code of usbip was merged into the
| staging tree, and finally has been moved to the mainline
| since Linux-3.17. Development is ongoing in the kernel
| community, not here. Linux distributions will provide binary
| packages of usbip.*
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Remember Remote Disc from Mac OS X? https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/101323
| paulkon wrote:
| I'm running virtualhere on thousands of raspberry pi's sharing
| various USB devices to cloud machines over vpn. It's been working
| without issues for years now. Seems to be a solo developer in
| Australia that's been working on it for a really long time.
| https://www.virtualhere.com/
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| What possible use case is this for
| kotaKat wrote:
| $49 and a byzantine per-server-cannot-be-transferred license is
| not palatable to me. I hate hardware-bound licensing.
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