Device Limit

Submitted by mbrown on #1

I am testing out the virtualhere software on a raspberry pi <running pi version of ubuntu 22.04>. I have a dozen usb sticks (and a couple usb hubs to chain) which I am testing with as our end-application will need many usb devices connected to a single linux client. It seems to be working well, except that I run into the following error message in the "System Messages" window when I try to connect to more than 8 usb sticks:

2023-01-05 10:28:30 ERROR :There are no more free vhci_hcd ports, this device cant be attached!

The client can "see" the several other sticks I have plugged in, but cannot connect. This seems rather concerning since as I understand vhci_hcd is a kernel-level module on my laptop, and seems to be suggesting that my laptop won't be able to connect to more than 8 devices. Is there a workaround for this?

Submitted by Michael on Fri, 2023/01/06 - 08:28

#2

You can have any number of usb devices attached via virtualhere, but you need to recompile your kernel.

In the kernel menuconfig choose Device Drivers->USB support->VHCI hcd->Number of ports per USB/IP virtual host controller(8) increase that or increase the number of virtual host controllers as well

Submitted by mbrown on Thu, 2023/01/12 - 10:27

#4

Hello again, I've tried this and am struggling. I'm following the instructions here for reference. After running `LANG=C fakeroot debian/rules editconfigs` and found the relevant settings. If I set `Number of ports per USB/IP virtual host controller` to 15 (it won't let me set higher, I see references to this as a hard limit elsewhere), I get the following error:

`check-config: FAIL (15 != 8): CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HC_PORTS policy<{'amd64': '8', 'arm64': '8', 'armhf': '8', 'ppc64el': '8'}>`

And if I set `Number of USB/IP virtual host controllers` to 2, I get this similar one:

`check-config: FAIL (2 != 1): CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_NR_HCS policy<{'amd64': '1', 'arm64': '1', 'armhf': '1', 'ppc64el': '1'}>`

So these make it look like my processor, which is a standard amd64 processor in a laptop, is incompatible with any changes here. I hope to get this working on a server but that also has an amd64 processor. 

Submitted by mbrown on Thu, 2023/01/12 - 11:46

#5

Nevermind I think this was just an issue with the instructions I was using. I seem to be able to successfully build the kernel now. I will update when I can test the new drivers.