Ian's Blog: ADB, Fastboot and USB permissions

ADB, Fastboot and USB permissions

2011-06-08 04:53 by Ian

You will at some point need to be able to use ADB with a device attached to USB. Unless you are sinning, and working as root, you will be denied permission to do this. Here is a quick guide for fixing it. This guide is intended for android tinkering, but will apply to any USB device.

First, plug in your device. Then run the command “lsusb”. You should get output that looks similar to this…
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0461:4d22 Primax Electronics, Ltd Bus 005 Device 002: ID 413c:2106 Dell Computer Corp. Dell QuietKey Keyboard Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 003: ID 22b8:70a9 Motorola PCS Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

You will need to make an educated guess about which device on the USB bus is your android device. In this case, it’s pretty obvious. But if you have many peripherals attached, it might be more difficult. If you are unsure, unplug your device, run lsusb again, and find the missing entry. That will be your device. Note the 32-bit hex number (22b8:70a9). The vendorId is the 16-bit hex number on the left-hand side of the colon. The productId is the right-hand number. Every USB device in existence will have a unique number of this sort.

Now… we need to edit the permissions for the udev daemon to allow non-root users to communicate with this device directly. Edit the appropriate udev file…
sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

My file looks like this:
SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“18d1”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“4e21”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Normal NexusS SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“18d1”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“4e22”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Recovery NexusS SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“18d1”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“4e20”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Fastboot NexusS SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“18d1”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“708c”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Normal Xoom SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“22b8”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“70a9”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Fastboot Xoom SUBSYSTEMS==“usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==“0bb4”, ATTRS{idProduct}==“0c91”, MODE=“0666”, OWNER=”“, GROUP=“plugdev” # Normal G2

Please note that there are several entries for each model. The convention in the android world seems to be that there are different USB identifiers for each mode that the device can be in. The bootloader (fastboot) will need a different rule than the operating mode (ADB). To find the bootloader vendor:product, you will need to enter the bootloader and run lsusb again.

Replace the values as appropriate. Once you save it, add your user as a member of the “plugdev” group, if it isn’t already. Then restart the udev service with this command:
sudo reload udev

You should now be able to talk to the USB port without being root.

Now… Ensure that the device is listening. In android, go to…
Settings -> Applications -> Development
...and enable USB Debugging.

Once you’ve done that, test everything by running…
adb devices

If you were successful, you should see something like this:
List of devices attached 037c708042c08217 device

Previous: Custom boot animations on android devices
Next: Bootchart from my dev box at work

Ian's Blog

Oh god... how did this get here? I am not good with computer.

ADB, Fastboot and USB permissions

Category list

Identity