qemu/docs/usb2.txt

USB 2.0 Quick Start
===================

The QEMU EHCI Adapter does *not* support companion controllers.  That
implies there are two completely separate USB busses: One USB 1.1 bus
driven by the UHCI controller and one USB 2.0 bus driven by the EHCI
controller.  Devices must be attached to the correct controller
manually.

The '-usb' switch will make qemu create the UHCI controller as part of
the PIIX3 chipset.  The USB 1.1 bus will carry the name "usb.0".

You can use the standard -device switch to add a EHCI controller to
your virtual machine.  It is strongly recommended to specify an ID for
the controller so the USB 2.0 bus gets a individual name, for example
'-device usb-ehci,id=ehci".  This will give you a USB 2.0 bus named
"ehci.0".

I strongly recomment to also use -device to attach usb devices because
you can specify the bus they should be attached to this way.  Here is
a complete example:

    qemu -M pc ${otheroptions}                           \
        -drive if=none,id=usbstick,file=/path/to/image   \
        -usb                                             \
        -device usb-ehci,id=ehci                         \
        -device usb-tablet,bus=usb.0                     \
        -device usb-storage,bus=ehci.0,drive=usbstick

This attaches a usb tablet to the UHCI adapter and a usb mass storage
device to the EHCI adapter.


More USB tips & tricks
======================

Recently the usb pass through driver (also known as usb-host) and the
qemu usb subsystem gained a few capabilities which are available only
via qdev properties, i,e. when using '-device'.


physical port addressing
------------------------

First you can (for all usb devices) specify the physical port where
the device will show up in the guest.  This can be done using the
"port" property.  UHCI has two root ports (1,2).  EHCI has four root
ports (1-4), the emulated (1.1) USB hub has eight ports.

Plugging a tablet into UHCI port 1 works like this:

        -device usb-tablet,bus=usb.0,port=1

Plugging a hub into UHCI port 2 works like this:

        -device usb-hub,bus=usb.0,port=2

Plugging a virtual usb stick into port 4 of the hub just plugged works
this way:

        -device usb-storage,bus=usb.0,port=2.4,drive=...

You can do basically the same in the monitor using the device_add
command.  If you want to unplug devices too you should specify some
unique id which you can use to refer to the device ...

        (qemu) device_add usb-tablet,bus=usb.0,port=1,id=my-tablet
        (qemu) device_del my-tablet

... when unplugging it with device_del.


USB pass through hints
----------------------

The usb-host driver has a bunch of properties to specify the device
which should be passed to the guest:

  hostbus=<nr> -- Specifies the bus number the device must be attached
  to.

  hostaddr=<nr> -- Specifies the device address the device got
  assigned by the guest os.

  hostport=<str> -- Specifies the physical port the device is attached
  to.

  vendorid=<hexnr> -- Specifies the vendor ID of the device.
  productid=<hexnr> -- Specifies the product ID of the device.

In theory you can combine all these properties as you like.  In
practice only a few combinations are useful:

  (1) vendorid+productid -- match for a specific device, pass it to
      the guest when it shows up somewhere in the host.

  (2) hostbus+hostport -- match for a specific physical port in the
      host, any device which is plugged in there gets passed to the
      guest.

  (3) hostbus+hostaddr -- most useful for ad-hoc pass through as the
      hostaddr isn't stable, the next time you plug in the device it
      gets a new one ...

Note that USB 1.1 devices are handled by UHCI/OHCI and USB 2.0 by
EHCI.  That means a device plugged into the very same physical port
may show up on different busses depending on the speed.  The port I'm
using for testing is bus 1 + port 1 for 2.0 devices and bus 3 + port 1
for 1.1 devices.  Passing through any device plugged into that port
and also assign them to the correct bus can be done this way:

    qemu -M pc ${otheroptions}                           \
        -usb                                             \
        -device usb-ehci,id=ehci                         \
        -device usb-host,bus=usb.0,hostbus=3,hostport=1  \
        -device usb-host,bus=ehci.0,hostbus=1,hostport=1

enjoy,
  Gerd

--
Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com>