Nokia phone USB device not in plugdev

[Jonh Wendell]

Binary package hint: udev

Hi. In order to access my phone cell via USB, i need to edit the file 40-permissions.rules and add the group 'plugdev' to usb_device subsystem.

It has happened since dapper. So, i propose that it comes by default. I'll attach a [trivial] patch.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Scott: can you check this patch out?

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

This patch is wrong; it would give every user in the plugdev group permission to use every single USB device.

The rule should only affect your phone itself.

Identify which usb device your phone is (lsusb), and then run:

  udevinfo -a -p /class/usb_device/usbdevX.Y

replacing X.Y with the number of the bus and device, e.g. if I have:

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 045e:008c Microsoft Corp. Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0

Then I would look at usbdev2.3

Attach the output of that command.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

What program uses these devices?

[Jonh Wendell (wendell)]

I'm using obexftp

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

Ah, it's a direct-to-phone protocol over the USB port? The phone doesn't expose any kind of storage device?

Rather then add yet more rules, this is probably better handled by ConsoleKit in hardy.

[Benoît Rouits (brouits)]

in Gutsy, i have the same problem with a sony-ericsson k600i : root privileges are requierd to mount the phone with obexfs, of by using obexftp.

$ obexftp -u /dev/usbdev3.1_ep00 -l
Superuser privileges are required to access USB.
[...]
$ sudo obexftp -u /dev/usbdev3.1_ep00 -l
Connecting...done
Receiving "(null)"... <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE folder-listing SYSTEM "obex-folder-listing.dtd">
<!--
 XML Coder, Jul 20 2005, 00:33:01, (C) 2001 Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB
-->
[...]

I have also made this change in /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules :
# USB devices (usbfs replacement)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", GROUP"plugdev", MODE="0664"

but this doesn work at all:
 $ ls -l /dev/usb*
crw-rw---- 1 root root 189, 0 2008-01-05 15:12 /dev/usb1
crw-rw---- 1 root root 189, 128 2008-01-05 15:12 /dev/usb2
crw-rw---- 1 root root 189, 256 2008-01-05 15:12 /dev/usb3
crw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 0 2008-01-05 15:12 /dev/usbdev1.1_ep00
[...]

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

We're slowly deprecating plugdev, no new devices should use it.

This kind of thing should be handled by HAL fdi and PK/CK policy so that ACLs are added for console users.

[Lennart Hansen (lahansen)]

Here is another device,

Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0421:002f Nokia Mobile Phones

A more generic expression like this, would reduce the amount of patches :)

BUS=="usb", SYSFS{manufacturer}=="Nokia*", SYSFS{product}=="Nokia *", MODE="0660", GROUP="plugdev"

[Lennart Hansen (lahansen)]

Scott James Remnant,

Do you mean by "should be handled by HAL fdi and PK/CK policy so that ACLs are added for console users" that this it a non-ubuntu related issue that should be handled by thirdparty / product owner?

How do we progress from here, as it shows now, potentially more user can not use Ubuntu because of the lack of simple configuration rules.

It must be a common occurrence that new USB devices get added to the distribution, where is this done if not in /dev/udev/rules/ and not by you?

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

The HAL upstream will be able to add FDI files.

new USB devices happen all the time, but new classes of USB device don't so much - and when they do, there is often a long debate about how they should be treated.

The simple fact is that there's no simple answer for cell phones right now.