The hardware-observe interface

The hardware-observe interface allows for getting hardware information from the system.

hardware-observe grants read-only access to many files and directories, primarily in /sys and /proc. Additionally, it provides access to many utility files and binaries such as lspci, lsusb, and hwinfo.

hardware-observe is a more general and broad interface. If more specific hardware access is required, such as for GPIO or I2C devices, See the gpio and i2c interfaces.

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Developer details

Auto-connect: no

Path access

hardware-observe grants read access to the following paths:

• For tools like hwinfo --short to get hardware information:
  /proc/ioports
/proc/dma
/proc/tty/driver/{,*}
/proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info
  

• For tools like lshw -quiet to get hardware information:
  /proc/devices
/proc/ide/{,**}
/proc/scsi/{,**}
/proc/device-tree/{,**}
/sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices
/proc/sys/abi/{,*}
  

• For tools like lspci -A linux-sysfs to get information on files in /sys:
  /sys/{block,bus,class,devices,firmware}/{,**}

• For tools like lspci -A linux-proc to get information on /proc:
  /bus/pci/{,**} /{,usr/}lib/modprobe.d/{,*}

• For tools like lspci -k to get information on loaded modules:
  Examples: /etc/modprobe.d/{,*},
  

• For tools like lsusb to get USB information:
  /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids
/dev/
/dev/bus/usb/{,**/}
/etc/udev/udev.conf
  Note: lsusb and its database have to be shipped in the snap if not on classic
  

• For tools like sensors to get sensor information:
  /etc/sensors3.conf
/etc/sensors.d/{,*}

• For tools like udevadm to get device information:
  /run/udev/data/**

• For hugepage and transparent_hugepage statuses (but not the pages themselves):
  /sys/kernel/mm/{hugepages,transparent_hugepage}/{,**}
  

• For information on available input devices:
  /proc/bus/input/devices

• For power information:
  /sys/power/{,**}
/run/udev/data/+power_supply:*

• For interrupts:
  /proc/interrupts

• For loaded kernel module information:
  /proc/modules

• For VM information:
  /proc/cpuinfo
/proc/sysinfo
/proc/xen/capabilities
/proc/1/sched
/sys/hypervisor/properties/features
/sys/hypervisor/type
  

• For container information:
  /run/systemd/container
  

Binary access

hardware-observe grants executable access to the following binaries:

• For tools provided by util-linux:
  /{,usr/}bin/lsblk
/{,usr/}bin/lscpu
/{,usr/}bin/lsmem
  

• For tools like lsusb:
  /{,usr/}bin/lsusb
  

• For tools like systemd-detect-virt:
  /{,usr/}bin/systemd-detect-virt
  

Capability access

hardware-observe grants the following capabilities:

• For tools like lscpu and lspci -A to inspect specific PCI access methods:
  capability sys_rawio
capability sys_admin
  

Socket access

hardware-observe grants the following socket access:

• For udevadm to read netlink:
  network netlink raw
  

The test code for the interface is in the snapd repository: https://github.com/canonical/snapd/blob/master/interfaces/builtin/hardware_observe_test.go

The source code for the interface is in the snapd repository: https://github.com/canonical/snapd/blob/master/interfaces/builtin/hardware_observe.go

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Last updated 9 months ago.