Re: [RFC][PATCH 1/2] usb: gadget: configfs: add MTP function

Krzysztof Opasiak
2015-08-13T20:41:52Z

On 08/13/2015 09:57 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 09:34:46PM +0200, Krzysztof Opasiak wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> On 08/13/2015 09:12 PM, Amit Pundir wrote:
>>> his MTP function is based on years of work originally done in the
>>> Android kernel tree by:
>>> Mike Lockwood<lockwood@android.com>
>>> Benoit Goby<benoit@android.com>
>>> Colin Cross<ccross@android.com>
>>> Arve Hjønnevåg<arve@android.com>
>>> Peter Oh<poh@broadcom.com>
>>> Greg Hackmann<ghackmann@google.com>
>>> Badhri Jagan Sridharan<Badhri@google.com>
>>> I've folded the series up to make it easier to review, and to provide
>>> a coherent patch description.
>>>
>>> Post Gingerbread (Android v2.3), Android dropped USB Mass Storage
>>> in favor of Media Transfer Protocal (MTP), which is widely used for
>>> transferring media files to digital music players and similar
>>> applications. This USB gadget function implements MTP functionalty.
>>>
>>> Historically this function has been a part of Android composite
>>> gadget driver. Android composite driver was Android's solution
>>> for dynamic gadget function switching prior to the ConfigFS gadget
>>> being merged. There were failed few attempts in past
>>> http://marc.info/?l=linux-usb&m=132451695808552 to upstream Android
>>> composite driver as well. Now this Android MTP gadget function has been
>>> re-implemented so as to be used as a generic ConfigFS function instead.
>>>
>>> Again, many thanks to Mike, Benoit, Colin, Arve, Peter, Greg and Badhri,
>>> as they are the real authors of this work. However, I've folded their
>>> patches together and modified it enough that I don't want them to be
>>> blamed for any mistakes I've made condensing their patches down.
>>>
>>> Cc: Mike Lockwood<lockwood@android.com>
>>> Cc: Benoit Goby<benoit@android.com>
>>> Cc: Colin Cross<ccross@android.com>
>>> Cc: Arve Hjønnevåg<arve@android.com>
>>> Cc: Peter Oh<poh@broadcom.com>
>>> Cc: Greg Hackmann<ghackmann@google.com>
>>> Cc: Badhri Jagan Sridharan<Badhri@google.com>
>>> Cc: Android Kernel Team<kernel-team@android.com>
>>> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman<gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
>>> Cc: Jonathan Corbet<corbet@lwn.net>
>>> Cc: Felipe Balbi<balbi@ti.com>
>>> Cc: Andrzej Pietrasiewicz<andrzej.p@samsung.com>
>>> Cc: Laurent Pinchart<laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>
>>> Cc: Yegor Yefremov<yegorslists@googlemail.com>
>>> Cc: Philippe Reynes<tremyfr@gmail.com>
>>> Cc: John Stultz<john.stultz@linaro.org>
>>> Cc: Sumit Semwal<sumit.semwal@linaro.org>
>>> Signed-off-by: Amit Pundir<amit.pundir@linaro.org>
>>
>> In my humble opinion adding such function to Linux kernel doesn't make any
>> sense. By design, MTP is a protocol which requires access to userspace
>> features esp. file system. It is very important to run MTP daemon with
>> suitable user and LSM label and many many other issues which should be
>> handled by userspace access policy.
>>
>> Moreover this is not a fully functional USB function but only some interface
>> which can be used by mtp-responder (mtp-daemon - call it as you like) to
>> communicate with host. As we have FunctionFS which allows to implement any
>> USB function in as a userspace service. As MTP nature is more related to
>> userspace I think that porting MTP daemon to use this is a right way to go.
>> This should be much more reasonable than adding new function which also
>> requires daemon for proper working. So why add another interface while we
>> can use a generic one?
>
> Isn't there already a userspace MTP daemon that uses the existing
> functionfs for usb gadgets? I thought I remember seeing that
> somewhere...
>

I've found some interesting link[2] which may mean that Sailfish OS guys
has some mtp implementation with functionfs backend:

<<<<< cite

- /dev/mtp
mtp functionfs rw,relatime

>>>>> cite

Started digging and got it!

This looks like mtp with ffs backend:

https://github.com/nemomobile/buteo-mtp

Didn't tested, even didn't try to compile, no guarantee;)

Footnotes:
1 -
http://reviewjolla.blogspot.com/2014/06/techspecs-android-on-jolla-phone.html

Best regards,

--
Krzysztof Opasiak
Samsung R&D Institute Poland
Samsung Electronics