How to discover in wich USB port your device is plugged?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 all releases

Issue

  • Do you need to know in which port your device is connected to.
  • This information is really important, for example, when you have a equipament like a nobreak APC connected via USB and the nobreak software requires that you inform what is the device name used (/dev/xx).

Resolution

  • Use lsusb command to check in which bus and device the equipament is connected to:

    # lsusb

Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 03f0:1027 Hewlett-Packard 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

  • Note that nobreak is connected to Bus 005 and Device 002 in this example:

    Bus 005 Device 002: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply

  • Find out which /dev corresponds to Bus 005 and Device 002 going to /dev/bus/usb:

    # ls -l /dev/bus/usb/005/002
crw-r--r-- 1 root root 189, 1 Jul 14 09:27 /dev/bus/usb/005/002

  • Where:

     005 directory refrers to the Bus and 002 refrers to the Device you saw in lsusb output.
  • When nobreak software ask you to inform the device where to equipament is connected to, inform /dev/bus/usb/005/002.

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