systemd/man/hwdb.xml

86 lines
3.7 KiB
XML

<?xml version='1.0'?> <!--*- Mode: nxml; nxml-child-indent: 2; indent-tabs-mode: nil -*-->
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<refentry id="hwdb" conditional="ENABLE_HWDB">
<refentryinfo>
<title>hwdb</title>
<productname>systemd</productname>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<contrib>Developer</contrib>
<firstname>Kay</firstname>
<surname>Sievers</surname>
<email>kay@vrfy.org</email>
</author>
<author>
<contrib>Developer</contrib>
<firstname>Tom</firstname>
<surname>Gundersen</surname>
<email>teg@jklm.no</email>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>hwdb</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>7</manvolnum>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>hwdb</refname>
<refpurpose>Hardware Database</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsect1><title>Description</title>
<para>The hardware database is a key-value store for associating modalias-like keys to
udev-property-like values. It is used primarily by udev to add the relevant properties
to matching devices, but it can also be queried directly.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>Hardware Database Files</title>
<para>The hwdb files are read from the files located in the
system hwdb directory <filename>/usr/lib/udev/hwdb.d</filename> and
the local administration directory <filename>/etc/udev/hwdb.d</filename>.
All hwdb files are collectively sorted and processed in lexical order,
regardless of the directories in which they live. However, files with
identical filenames replace each other. Files in <filename>/etc</filename>
have the highest priority and take precedence over files with the same
name in <filename>/usr/lib</filename>. This can be used to override a
system-supplied hwdb file with a local file if needed;
a symlink in <filename>/etc</filename> with the same name as a hwdb file in
<filename>/usr/lib</filename>, pointing to <filename>/dev/null</filename>,
disables the hwdb file entirely. hwdb files must have the extension
<filename>.hwdb</filename>; other extensions are ignored.</para>
<para>The hwdb file contains data records consisting of matches and
associated key-value pairs. Every record in the hwdb starts with one or
more match strings, specifying a shell glob to compare the database
lookup string against. Multiple match lines are specified in additional
consecutive lines. Every match line is compared individually, and they are
combined by OR. Every match line must start at the first character of
the line.</para>
<para>The match lines are followed by one or more key-value pair lines, which
are recognized by a leading space character. The key name and value are separated
by <literal>=</literal>. An empty line signifies the end
of a record. Lines beginning with <literal>#</literal> are ignored.</para>
<para>The content of all hwdb files is read by
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-hwdb</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
and compiled to a binary database located at <filename>/etc/udev/hwdb.bin</filename>,
or alternatively <filename>/usr/lib/udev/hwdb.bin</filename> if you want ship the compiled
database in an immutable image.
During runtime, only the binary database is used.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>See Also</title>
<para>
<citerefentry>
<refentrytitle>systemd-hwdb</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
</citerefentry>
</para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>