• Home
  • Line#
  • Scopes#
  • Navigate#
  • Raw
  • Download
1============================================================================
2
3can.txt
4
5Readme file for the Controller Area Network Protocol Family (aka Socket CAN)
6
7This file contains
8
9  1 Overview / What is Socket CAN
10
11  2 Motivation / Why using the socket API
12
13  3 Socket CAN concept
14    3.1 receive lists
15    3.2 local loopback of sent frames
16    3.3 network security issues (capabilities)
17    3.4 network problem notifications
18
19  4 How to use Socket CAN
20    4.1 RAW protocol sockets with can_filters (SOCK_RAW)
21      4.1.1 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_FILTER
22      4.1.2 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_ERR_FILTER
23      4.1.3 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_LOOPBACK
24      4.1.4 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_RECV_OWN_MSGS
25      4.1.5 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES
26      4.1.6 RAW socket returned message flags
27    4.2 Broadcast Manager protocol sockets (SOCK_DGRAM)
28    4.3 connected transport protocols (SOCK_SEQPACKET)
29    4.4 unconnected transport protocols (SOCK_DGRAM)
30
31  5 Socket CAN core module
32    5.1 can.ko module params
33    5.2 procfs content
34    5.3 writing own CAN protocol modules
35
36  6 CAN network drivers
37    6.1 general settings
38    6.2 local loopback of sent frames
39    6.3 CAN controller hardware filters
40    6.4 The virtual CAN driver (vcan)
41    6.5 The CAN network device driver interface
42      6.5.1 Netlink interface to set/get devices properties
43      6.5.2 Setting the CAN bit-timing
44      6.5.3 Starting and stopping the CAN network device
45    6.6 CAN FD (flexible data rate) driver support
46    6.7 supported CAN hardware
47
48  7 Socket CAN resources
49
50  8 Credits
51
52============================================================================
53
541. Overview / What is Socket CAN
55--------------------------------
56
57The socketcan package is an implementation of CAN protocols
58(Controller Area Network) for Linux.  CAN is a networking technology
59which has widespread use in automation, embedded devices, and
60automotive fields.  While there have been other CAN implementations
61for Linux based on character devices, Socket CAN uses the Berkeley
62socket API, the Linux network stack and implements the CAN device
63drivers as network interfaces.  The CAN socket API has been designed
64as similar as possible to the TCP/IP protocols to allow programmers,
65familiar with network programming, to easily learn how to use CAN
66sockets.
67
682. Motivation / Why using the socket API
69----------------------------------------
70
71There have been CAN implementations for Linux before Socket CAN so the
72question arises, why we have started another project.  Most existing
73implementations come as a device driver for some CAN hardware, they
74are based on character devices and provide comparatively little
75functionality.  Usually, there is only a hardware-specific device
76driver which provides a character device interface to send and
77receive raw CAN frames, directly to/from the controller hardware.
78Queueing of frames and higher-level transport protocols like ISO-TP
79have to be implemented in user space applications.  Also, most
80character-device implementations support only one single process to
81open the device at a time, similar to a serial interface.  Exchanging
82the CAN controller requires employment of another device driver and
83often the need for adaption of large parts of the application to the
84new driver's API.
85
86Socket CAN was designed to overcome all of these limitations.  A new
87protocol family has been implemented which provides a socket interface
88to user space applications and which builds upon the Linux network
89layer, so to use all of the provided queueing functionality.  A device
90driver for CAN controller hardware registers itself with the Linux
91network layer as a network device, so that CAN frames from the
92controller can be passed up to the network layer and on to the CAN
93protocol family module and also vice-versa.  Also, the protocol family
94module provides an API for transport protocol modules to register, so
95that any number of transport protocols can be loaded or unloaded
96dynamically.  In fact, the can core module alone does not provide any
97protocol and cannot be used without loading at least one additional
98protocol module.  Multiple sockets can be opened at the same time,
99on different or the same protocol module and they can listen/send
100frames on different or the same CAN IDs.  Several sockets listening on
101the same interface for frames with the same CAN ID are all passed the
102same received matching CAN frames.  An application wishing to
103communicate using a specific transport protocol, e.g. ISO-TP, just
104selects that protocol when opening the socket, and then can read and
105write application data byte streams, without having to deal with
106CAN-IDs, frames, etc.
107
108Similar functionality visible from user-space could be provided by a
109character device, too, but this would lead to a technically inelegant
110solution for a couple of reasons:
111
112* Intricate usage.  Instead of passing a protocol argument to
113  socket(2) and using bind(2) to select a CAN interface and CAN ID, an
114  application would have to do all these operations using ioctl(2)s.
115
116* Code duplication.  A character device cannot make use of the Linux
117  network queueing code, so all that code would have to be duplicated
118  for CAN networking.
119
120* Abstraction.  In most existing character-device implementations, the
121  hardware-specific device driver for a CAN controller directly
122  provides the character device for the application to work with.
123  This is at least very unusual in Unix systems for both, char and
124  block devices.  For example you don't have a character device for a
125  certain UART of a serial interface, a certain sound chip in your
126  computer, a SCSI or IDE controller providing access to your hard
127  disk or tape streamer device.  Instead, you have abstraction layers
128  which provide a unified character or block device interface to the
129  application on the one hand, and a interface for hardware-specific
130  device drivers on the other hand.  These abstractions are provided
131  by subsystems like the tty layer, the audio subsystem or the SCSI
132  and IDE subsystems for the devices mentioned above.
133
134  The easiest way to implement a CAN device driver is as a character
135  device without such a (complete) abstraction layer, as is done by most
136  existing drivers.  The right way, however, would be to add such a
137  layer with all the functionality like registering for certain CAN
138  IDs, supporting several open file descriptors and (de)multiplexing
139  CAN frames between them, (sophisticated) queueing of CAN frames, and
140  providing an API for device drivers to register with.  However, then
141  it would be no more difficult, or may be even easier, to use the
142  networking framework provided by the Linux kernel, and this is what
143  Socket CAN does.
144
145  The use of the networking framework of the Linux kernel is just the
146  natural and most appropriate way to implement CAN for Linux.
147
1483. Socket CAN concept
149---------------------
150
151  As described in chapter 2 it is the main goal of Socket CAN to
152  provide a socket interface to user space applications which builds
153  upon the Linux network layer. In contrast to the commonly known
154  TCP/IP and ethernet networking, the CAN bus is a broadcast-only(!)
155  medium that has no MAC-layer addressing like ethernet. The CAN-identifier
156  (can_id) is used for arbitration on the CAN-bus. Therefore the CAN-IDs
157  have to be chosen uniquely on the bus. When designing a CAN-ECU
158  network the CAN-IDs are mapped to be sent by a specific ECU.
159  For this reason a CAN-ID can be treated best as a kind of source address.
160
161  3.1 receive lists
162
163  The network transparent access of multiple applications leads to the
164  problem that different applications may be interested in the same
165  CAN-IDs from the same CAN network interface. The Socket CAN core
166  module - which implements the protocol family CAN - provides several
167  high efficient receive lists for this reason. If e.g. a user space
168  application opens a CAN RAW socket, the raw protocol module itself
169  requests the (range of) CAN-IDs from the Socket CAN core that are
170  requested by the user. The subscription and unsubscription of
171  CAN-IDs can be done for specific CAN interfaces or for all(!) known
172  CAN interfaces with the can_rx_(un)register() functions provided to
173  CAN protocol modules by the SocketCAN core (see chapter 5).
174  To optimize the CPU usage at runtime the receive lists are split up
175  into several specific lists per device that match the requested
176  filter complexity for a given use-case.
177
178  3.2 local loopback of sent frames
179
180  As known from other networking concepts the data exchanging
181  applications may run on the same or different nodes without any
182  change (except for the according addressing information):
183
184         ___   ___   ___                   _______   ___
185        | _ | | _ | | _ |                 | _   _ | | _ |
186        ||A|| ||B|| ||C||                 ||A| |B|| ||C||
187        |___| |___| |___|                 |_______| |___|
188          |     |     |                       |       |
189        -----------------(1)- CAN bus -(2)---------------
190
191  To ensure that application A receives the same information in the
192  example (2) as it would receive in example (1) there is need for
193  some kind of local loopback of the sent CAN frames on the appropriate
194  node.
195
196  The Linux network devices (by default) just can handle the
197  transmission and reception of media dependent frames. Due to the
198  arbitration on the CAN bus the transmission of a low prio CAN-ID
199  may be delayed by the reception of a high prio CAN frame. To
200  reflect the correct* traffic on the node the loopback of the sent
201  data has to be performed right after a successful transmission. If
202  the CAN network interface is not capable of performing the loopback for
203  some reason the SocketCAN core can do this task as a fallback solution.
204  See chapter 6.2 for details (recommended).
205
206  The loopback functionality is enabled by default to reflect standard
207  networking behaviour for CAN applications. Due to some requests from
208  the RT-SocketCAN group the loopback optionally may be disabled for each
209  separate socket. See sockopts from the CAN RAW sockets in chapter 4.1.
210
211  * = you really like to have this when you're running analyser tools
212      like 'candump' or 'cansniffer' on the (same) node.
213
214  3.3 network security issues (capabilities)
215
216  The Controller Area Network is a local field bus transmitting only
217  broadcast messages without any routing and security concepts.
218  In the majority of cases the user application has to deal with
219  raw CAN frames. Therefore it might be reasonable NOT to restrict
220  the CAN access only to the user root, as known from other networks.
221  Since the currently implemented CAN_RAW and CAN_BCM sockets can only
222  send and receive frames to/from CAN interfaces it does not affect
223  security of others networks to allow all users to access the CAN.
224  To enable non-root users to access CAN_RAW and CAN_BCM protocol
225  sockets the Kconfig options CAN_RAW_USER and/or CAN_BCM_USER may be
226  selected at kernel compile time.
227
228  3.4 network problem notifications
229
230  The use of the CAN bus may lead to several problems on the physical
231  and media access control layer. Detecting and logging of these lower
232  layer problems is a vital requirement for CAN users to identify
233  hardware issues on the physical transceiver layer as well as
234  arbitration problems and error frames caused by the different
235  ECUs. The occurrence of detected errors are important for diagnosis
236  and have to be logged together with the exact timestamp. For this
237  reason the CAN interface driver can generate so called Error Message
238  Frames that can optionally be passed to the user application in the
239  same way as other CAN frames. Whenever an error on the physical layer
240  or the MAC layer is detected (e.g. by the CAN controller) the driver
241  creates an appropriate error message frame. Error messages frames can
242  be requested by the user application using the common CAN filter
243  mechanisms. Inside this filter definition the (interested) type of
244  errors may be selected. The reception of error messages is disabled
245  by default. The format of the CAN error message frame is briefly
246  described in the Linux header file "include/linux/can/error.h".
247
2484. How to use Socket CAN
249------------------------
250
251  Like TCP/IP, you first need to open a socket for communicating over a
252  CAN network. Since Socket CAN implements a new protocol family, you
253  need to pass PF_CAN as the first argument to the socket(2) system
254  call. Currently, there are two CAN protocols to choose from, the raw
255  socket protocol and the broadcast manager (BCM). So to open a socket,
256  you would write
257
258    s = socket(PF_CAN, SOCK_RAW, CAN_RAW);
259
260  and
261
262    s = socket(PF_CAN, SOCK_DGRAM, CAN_BCM);
263
264  respectively.  After the successful creation of the socket, you would
265  normally use the bind(2) system call to bind the socket to a CAN
266  interface (which is different from TCP/IP due to different addressing
267  - see chapter 3). After binding (CAN_RAW) or connecting (CAN_BCM)
268  the socket, you can read(2) and write(2) from/to the socket or use
269  send(2), sendto(2), sendmsg(2) and the recv* counterpart operations
270  on the socket as usual. There are also CAN specific socket options
271  described below.
272
273  The basic CAN frame structure and the sockaddr structure are defined
274  in include/linux/can.h:
275
276    struct can_frame {
277            canid_t can_id;  /* 32 bit CAN_ID + EFF/RTR/ERR flags */
278            __u8    can_dlc; /* frame payload length in byte (0 .. 8) */
279            __u8    data[8] __attribute__((aligned(8)));
280    };
281
282  The alignment of the (linear) payload data[] to a 64bit boundary
283  allows the user to define own structs and unions to easily access the
284  CAN payload. There is no given byteorder on the CAN bus by
285  default. A read(2) system call on a CAN_RAW socket transfers a
286  struct can_frame to the user space.
287
288  The sockaddr_can structure has an interface index like the
289  PF_PACKET socket, that also binds to a specific interface:
290
291    struct sockaddr_can {
292            sa_family_t can_family;
293            int         can_ifindex;
294            union {
295                    /* transport protocol class address info (e.g. ISOTP) */
296                    struct { canid_t rx_id, tx_id; } tp;
297
298                    /* reserved for future CAN protocols address information */
299            } can_addr;
300    };
301
302  To determine the interface index an appropriate ioctl() has to
303  be used (example for CAN_RAW sockets without error checking):
304
305    int s;
306    struct sockaddr_can addr;
307    struct ifreq ifr;
308
309    s = socket(PF_CAN, SOCK_RAW, CAN_RAW);
310
311    strcpy(ifr.ifr_name, "can0" );
312    ioctl(s, SIOCGIFINDEX, &ifr);
313
314    addr.can_family = AF_CAN;
315    addr.can_ifindex = ifr.ifr_ifindex;
316
317    bind(s, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr));
318
319    (..)
320
321  To bind a socket to all(!) CAN interfaces the interface index must
322  be 0 (zero). In this case the socket receives CAN frames from every
323  enabled CAN interface. To determine the originating CAN interface
324  the system call recvfrom(2) may be used instead of read(2). To send
325  on a socket that is bound to 'any' interface sendto(2) is needed to
326  specify the outgoing interface.
327
328  Reading CAN frames from a bound CAN_RAW socket (see above) consists
329  of reading a struct can_frame:
330
331    struct can_frame frame;
332
333    nbytes = read(s, &frame, sizeof(struct can_frame));
334
335    if (nbytes < 0) {
336            perror("can raw socket read");
337            return 1;
338    }
339
340    /* paranoid check ... */
341    if (nbytes < sizeof(struct can_frame)) {
342            fprintf(stderr, "read: incomplete CAN frame\n");
343            return 1;
344    }
345
346    /* do something with the received CAN frame */
347
348  Writing CAN frames can be done similarly, with the write(2) system call:
349
350    nbytes = write(s, &frame, sizeof(struct can_frame));
351
352  When the CAN interface is bound to 'any' existing CAN interface
353  (addr.can_ifindex = 0) it is recommended to use recvfrom(2) if the
354  information about the originating CAN interface is needed:
355
356    struct sockaddr_can addr;
357    struct ifreq ifr;
358    socklen_t len = sizeof(addr);
359    struct can_frame frame;
360
361    nbytes = recvfrom(s, &frame, sizeof(struct can_frame),
362                      0, (struct sockaddr*)&addr, &len);
363
364    /* get interface name of the received CAN frame */
365    ifr.ifr_ifindex = addr.can_ifindex;
366    ioctl(s, SIOCGIFNAME, &ifr);
367    printf("Received a CAN frame from interface %s", ifr.ifr_name);
368
369  To write CAN frames on sockets bound to 'any' CAN interface the
370  outgoing interface has to be defined certainly.
371
372    strcpy(ifr.ifr_name, "can0");
373    ioctl(s, SIOCGIFINDEX, &ifr);
374    addr.can_ifindex = ifr.ifr_ifindex;
375    addr.can_family  = AF_CAN;
376
377    nbytes = sendto(s, &frame, sizeof(struct can_frame),
378                    0, (struct sockaddr*)&addr, sizeof(addr));
379
380  Remark about CAN FD (flexible data rate) support:
381
382  Generally the handling of CAN FD is very similar to the formerly described
383  examples. The new CAN FD capable CAN controllers support two different
384  bitrates for the arbitration phase and the payload phase of the CAN FD frame
385  and up to 64 bytes of payload. This extended payload length breaks all the
386  kernel interfaces (ABI) which heavily rely on the CAN frame with fixed eight
387  bytes of payload (struct can_frame) like the CAN_RAW socket. Therefore e.g.
388  the CAN_RAW socket supports a new socket option CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES that
389  switches the socket into a mode that allows the handling of CAN FD frames
390  and (legacy) CAN frames simultaneously (see section 4.1.5).
391
392  The struct canfd_frame is defined in include/linux/can.h:
393
394    struct canfd_frame {
395            canid_t can_id;  /* 32 bit CAN_ID + EFF/RTR/ERR flags */
396            __u8    len;     /* frame payload length in byte (0 .. 64) */
397            __u8    flags;   /* additional flags for CAN FD */
398            __u8    __res0;  /* reserved / padding */
399            __u8    __res1;  /* reserved / padding */
400            __u8    data[64] __attribute__((aligned(8)));
401    };
402
403  The struct canfd_frame and the existing struct can_frame have the can_id,
404  the payload length and the payload data at the same offset inside their
405  structures. This allows to handle the different structures very similar.
406  When the content of a struct can_frame is copied into a struct canfd_frame
407  all structure elements can be used as-is - only the data[] becomes extended.
408
409  When introducing the struct canfd_frame it turned out that the data length
410  code (DLC) of the struct can_frame was used as a length information as the
411  length and the DLC has a 1:1 mapping in the range of 0 .. 8. To preserve
412  the easy handling of the length information the canfd_frame.len element
413  contains a plain length value from 0 .. 64. So both canfd_frame.len and
414  can_frame.can_dlc are equal and contain a length information and no DLC.
415  For details about the distinction of CAN and CAN FD capable devices and
416  the mapping to the bus-relevant data length code (DLC), see chapter 6.6.
417
418  The length of the two CAN(FD) frame structures define the maximum transfer
419  unit (MTU) of the CAN(FD) network interface and skbuff data length. Two
420  definitions are specified for CAN specific MTUs in include/linux/can.h :
421
422  #define CAN_MTU   (sizeof(struct can_frame))   == 16  => 'legacy' CAN frame
423  #define CANFD_MTU (sizeof(struct canfd_frame)) == 72  => CAN FD frame
424
425  4.1 RAW protocol sockets with can_filters (SOCK_RAW)
426
427  Using CAN_RAW sockets is extensively comparable to the commonly
428  known access to CAN character devices. To meet the new possibilities
429  provided by the multi user SocketCAN approach, some reasonable
430  defaults are set at RAW socket binding time:
431
432  - The filters are set to exactly one filter receiving everything
433  - The socket only receives valid data frames (=> no error message frames)
434  - The loopback of sent CAN frames is enabled (see chapter 3.2)
435  - The socket does not receive its own sent frames (in loopback mode)
436
437  These default settings may be changed before or after binding the socket.
438  To use the referenced definitions of the socket options for CAN_RAW
439  sockets, include <linux/can/raw.h>.
440
441  4.1.1 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_FILTER
442
443  The reception of CAN frames using CAN_RAW sockets can be controlled
444  by defining 0 .. n filters with the CAN_RAW_FILTER socket option.
445
446  The CAN filter structure is defined in include/linux/can.h:
447
448    struct can_filter {
449            canid_t can_id;
450            canid_t can_mask;
451    };
452
453  A filter matches, when
454
455    <received_can_id> & mask == can_id & mask
456
457  which is analogous to known CAN controllers hardware filter semantics.
458  The filter can be inverted in this semantic, when the CAN_INV_FILTER
459  bit is set in can_id element of the can_filter structure. In
460  contrast to CAN controller hardware filters the user may set 0 .. n
461  receive filters for each open socket separately:
462
463    struct can_filter rfilter[2];
464
465    rfilter[0].can_id   = 0x123;
466    rfilter[0].can_mask = CAN_SFF_MASK;
467    rfilter[1].can_id   = 0x200;
468    rfilter[1].can_mask = 0x700;
469
470    setsockopt(s, SOL_CAN_RAW, CAN_RAW_FILTER, &rfilter, sizeof(rfilter));
471
472  To disable the reception of CAN frames on the selected CAN_RAW socket:
473
474    setsockopt(s, SOL_CAN_RAW, CAN_RAW_FILTER, NULL, 0);
475
476  To set the filters to zero filters is quite obsolete as not read
477  data causes the raw socket to discard the received CAN frames. But
478  having this 'send only' use-case we may remove the receive list in the
479  Kernel to save a little (really a very little!) CPU usage.
480
481  4.1.2 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_ERR_FILTER
482
483  As described in chapter 3.4 the CAN interface driver can generate so
484  called Error Message Frames that can optionally be passed to the user
485  application in the same way as other CAN frames. The possible
486  errors are divided into different error classes that may be filtered
487  using the appropriate error mask. To register for every possible
488  error condition CAN_ERR_MASK can be used as value for the error mask.
489  The values for the error mask are defined in linux/can/error.h .
490
491    can_err_mask_t err_mask = ( CAN_ERR_TX_TIMEOUT | CAN_ERR_BUSOFF );
492
493    setsockopt(s, SOL_CAN_RAW, CAN_RAW_ERR_FILTER,
494               &err_mask, sizeof(err_mask));
495
496  4.1.3 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_LOOPBACK
497
498  To meet multi user needs the local loopback is enabled by default
499  (see chapter 3.2 for details). But in some embedded use-cases
500  (e.g. when only one application uses the CAN bus) this loopback
501  functionality can be disabled (separately for each socket):
502
503    int loopback = 0; /* 0 = disabled, 1 = enabled (default) */
504
505    setsockopt(s, SOL_CAN_RAW, CAN_RAW_LOOPBACK, &loopback, sizeof(loopback));
506
507  4.1.4 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_RECV_OWN_MSGS
508
509  When the local loopback is enabled, all the sent CAN frames are
510  looped back to the open CAN sockets that registered for the CAN
511  frames' CAN-ID on this given interface to meet the multi user
512  needs. The reception of the CAN frames on the same socket that was
513  sending the CAN frame is assumed to be unwanted and therefore
514  disabled by default. This default behaviour may be changed on
515  demand:
516
517    int recv_own_msgs = 1; /* 0 = disabled (default), 1 = enabled */
518
519    setsockopt(s, SOL_CAN_RAW, CAN_RAW_RECV_OWN_MSGS,
520               &recv_own_msgs, sizeof(recv_own_msgs));
521
522  4.1.5 RAW socket option CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES
523
524  CAN FD support in CAN_RAW sockets can be enabled with a new socket option
525  CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES which is off by default. When the new socket option is
526  not supported by the CAN_RAW socket (e.g. on older kernels), switching the
527  CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES option returns the error -ENOPROTOOPT.
528
529  Once CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES is enabled the application can send both CAN frames
530  and CAN FD frames. OTOH the application has to handle CAN and CAN FD frames
531  when reading from the socket.
532
533    CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES enabled:  CAN_MTU and CANFD_MTU are allowed
534    CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES disabled: only CAN_MTU is allowed (default)
535
536  Example:
537    [ remember: CANFD_MTU == sizeof(struct canfd_frame) ]
538
539    struct canfd_frame cfd;
540
541    nbytes = read(s, &cfd, CANFD_MTU);
542
543    if (nbytes == CANFD_MTU) {
544            printf("got CAN FD frame with length %d\n", cfd.len);
545	    /* cfd.flags contains valid data */
546    } else if (nbytes == CAN_MTU) {
547            printf("got legacy CAN frame with length %d\n", cfd.len);
548	    /* cfd.flags is undefined */
549    } else {
550            fprintf(stderr, "read: invalid CAN(FD) frame\n");
551            return 1;
552    }
553
554    /* the content can be handled independently from the received MTU size */
555
556    printf("can_id: %X data length: %d data: ", cfd.can_id, cfd.len);
557    for (i = 0; i < cfd.len; i++)
558            printf("%02X ", cfd.data[i]);
559
560  When reading with size CANFD_MTU only returns CAN_MTU bytes that have
561  been received from the socket a legacy CAN frame has been read into the
562  provided CAN FD structure. Note that the canfd_frame.flags data field is
563  not specified in the struct can_frame and therefore it is only valid in
564  CANFD_MTU sized CAN FD frames.
565
566  As long as the payload length is <=8 the received CAN frames from CAN FD
567  capable CAN devices can be received and read by legacy sockets too. When
568  user-generated CAN FD frames have a payload length <=8 these can be send
569  by legacy CAN network interfaces too. Sending CAN FD frames with payload
570  length > 8 to a legacy CAN network interface returns an -EMSGSIZE error.
571
572  Implementation hint for new CAN applications:
573
574  To build a CAN FD aware application use struct canfd_frame as basic CAN
575  data structure for CAN_RAW based applications. When the application is
576  executed on an older Linux kernel and switching the CAN_RAW_FD_FRAMES
577  socket option returns an error: No problem. You'll get legacy CAN frames
578  or CAN FD frames and can process them the same way.
579
580  When sending to CAN devices make sure that the device is capable to handle
581  CAN FD frames by checking if the device maximum transfer unit is CANFD_MTU.
582  The CAN device MTU can be retrieved e.g. with a SIOCGIFMTU ioctl() syscall.
583
584  4.1.6 RAW socket returned message flags
585
586  When using recvmsg() call, the msg->msg_flags may contain following flags:
587
588    MSG_DONTROUTE: set when the received frame was created on the local host.
589
590    MSG_CONFIRM: set when the frame was sent via the socket it is received on.
591      This flag can be interpreted as a 'transmission confirmation' when the
592      CAN driver supports the echo of frames on driver level, see 3.2 and 6.2.
593      In order to receive such messages, CAN_RAW_RECV_OWN_MSGS must be set.
594
595  4.2 Broadcast Manager protocol sockets (SOCK_DGRAM)
596  4.3 connected transport protocols (SOCK_SEQPACKET)
597  4.4 unconnected transport protocols (SOCK_DGRAM)
598
599
6005. Socket CAN core module
601-------------------------
602
603  The Socket CAN core module implements the protocol family
604  PF_CAN. CAN protocol modules are loaded by the core module at
605  runtime. The core module provides an interface for CAN protocol
606  modules to subscribe needed CAN IDs (see chapter 3.1).
607
608  5.1 can.ko module params
609
610  - stats_timer: To calculate the Socket CAN core statistics
611    (e.g. current/maximum frames per second) this 1 second timer is
612    invoked at can.ko module start time by default. This timer can be
613    disabled by using stattimer=0 on the module commandline.
614
615  - debug: (removed since SocketCAN SVN r546)
616
617  5.2 procfs content
618
619  As described in chapter 3.1 the Socket CAN core uses several filter
620  lists to deliver received CAN frames to CAN protocol modules. These
621  receive lists, their filters and the count of filter matches can be
622  checked in the appropriate receive list. All entries contain the
623  device and a protocol module identifier:
624
625    foo@bar:~$ cat /proc/net/can/rcvlist_all
626
627    receive list 'rx_all':
628      (vcan3: no entry)
629      (vcan2: no entry)
630      (vcan1: no entry)
631      device   can_id   can_mask  function  userdata   matches  ident
632       vcan0     000    00000000  f88e6370  f6c6f400         0  raw
633      (any: no entry)
634
635  In this example an application requests any CAN traffic from vcan0.
636
637    rcvlist_all - list for unfiltered entries (no filter operations)
638    rcvlist_eff - list for single extended frame (EFF) entries
639    rcvlist_err - list for error message frames masks
640    rcvlist_fil - list for mask/value filters
641    rcvlist_inv - list for mask/value filters (inverse semantic)
642    rcvlist_sff - list for single standard frame (SFF) entries
643
644  Additional procfs files in /proc/net/can
645
646    stats       - Socket CAN core statistics (rx/tx frames, match ratios, ...)
647    reset_stats - manual statistic reset
648    version     - prints the Socket CAN core version and the ABI version
649
650  5.3 writing own CAN protocol modules
651
652  To implement a new protocol in the protocol family PF_CAN a new
653  protocol has to be defined in include/linux/can.h .
654  The prototypes and definitions to use the Socket CAN core can be
655  accessed by including include/linux/can/core.h .
656  In addition to functions that register the CAN protocol and the
657  CAN device notifier chain there are functions to subscribe CAN
658  frames received by CAN interfaces and to send CAN frames:
659
660    can_rx_register   - subscribe CAN frames from a specific interface
661    can_rx_unregister - unsubscribe CAN frames from a specific interface
662    can_send          - transmit a CAN frame (optional with local loopback)
663
664  For details see the kerneldoc documentation in net/can/af_can.c or
665  the source code of net/can/raw.c or net/can/bcm.c .
666
6676. CAN network drivers
668----------------------
669
670  Writing a CAN network device driver is much easier than writing a
671  CAN character device driver. Similar to other known network device
672  drivers you mainly have to deal with:
673
674  - TX: Put the CAN frame from the socket buffer to the CAN controller.
675  - RX: Put the CAN frame from the CAN controller to the socket buffer.
676
677  See e.g. at Documentation/networking/netdevices.txt . The differences
678  for writing CAN network device driver are described below:
679
680  6.1 general settings
681
682    dev->type  = ARPHRD_CAN; /* the netdevice hardware type */
683    dev->flags = IFF_NOARP;  /* CAN has no arp */
684
685    dev->mtu = CAN_MTU; /* sizeof(struct can_frame) -> legacy CAN interface */
686
687    or alternative, when the controller supports CAN with flexible data rate:
688    dev->mtu = CANFD_MTU; /* sizeof(struct canfd_frame) -> CAN FD interface */
689
690  The struct can_frame or struct canfd_frame is the payload of each socket
691  buffer (skbuff) in the protocol family PF_CAN.
692
693  6.2 local loopback of sent frames
694
695  As described in chapter 3.2 the CAN network device driver should
696  support a local loopback functionality similar to the local echo
697  e.g. of tty devices. In this case the driver flag IFF_ECHO has to be
698  set to prevent the PF_CAN core from locally echoing sent frames
699  (aka loopback) as fallback solution:
700
701    dev->flags = (IFF_NOARP | IFF_ECHO);
702
703  6.3 CAN controller hardware filters
704
705  To reduce the interrupt load on deep embedded systems some CAN
706  controllers support the filtering of CAN IDs or ranges of CAN IDs.
707  These hardware filter capabilities vary from controller to
708  controller and have to be identified as not feasible in a multi-user
709  networking approach. The use of the very controller specific
710  hardware filters could make sense in a very dedicated use-case, as a
711  filter on driver level would affect all users in the multi-user
712  system. The high efficient filter sets inside the PF_CAN core allow
713  to set different multiple filters for each socket separately.
714  Therefore the use of hardware filters goes to the category 'handmade
715  tuning on deep embedded systems'. The author is running a MPC603e
716  @133MHz with four SJA1000 CAN controllers from 2002 under heavy bus
717  load without any problems ...
718
719  6.4 The virtual CAN driver (vcan)
720
721  Similar to the network loopback devices, vcan offers a virtual local
722  CAN interface. A full qualified address on CAN consists of
723
724  - a unique CAN Identifier (CAN ID)
725  - the CAN bus this CAN ID is transmitted on (e.g. can0)
726
727  so in common use cases more than one virtual CAN interface is needed.
728
729  The virtual CAN interfaces allow the transmission and reception of CAN
730  frames without real CAN controller hardware. Virtual CAN network
731  devices are usually named 'vcanX', like vcan0 vcan1 vcan2 ...
732  When compiled as a module the virtual CAN driver module is called vcan.ko
733
734  Since Linux Kernel version 2.6.24 the vcan driver supports the Kernel
735  netlink interface to create vcan network devices. The creation and
736  removal of vcan network devices can be managed with the ip(8) tool:
737
738  - Create a virtual CAN network interface:
739       $ ip link add type vcan
740
741  - Create a virtual CAN network interface with a specific name 'vcan42':
742       $ ip link add dev vcan42 type vcan
743
744  - Remove a (virtual CAN) network interface 'vcan42':
745       $ ip link del vcan42
746
747  6.5 The CAN network device driver interface
748
749  The CAN network device driver interface provides a generic interface
750  to setup, configure and monitor CAN network devices. The user can then
751  configure the CAN device, like setting the bit-timing parameters, via
752  the netlink interface using the program "ip" from the "IPROUTE2"
753  utility suite. The following chapter describes briefly how to use it.
754  Furthermore, the interface uses a common data structure and exports a
755  set of common functions, which all real CAN network device drivers
756  should use. Please have a look to the SJA1000 or MSCAN driver to
757  understand how to use them. The name of the module is can-dev.ko.
758
759  6.5.1 Netlink interface to set/get devices properties
760
761  The CAN device must be configured via netlink interface. The supported
762  netlink message types are defined and briefly described in
763  "include/linux/can/netlink.h". CAN link support for the program "ip"
764  of the IPROUTE2 utility suite is available and it can be used as shown
765  below:
766
767  - Setting CAN device properties:
768
769    $ ip link set can0 type can help
770    Usage: ip link set DEVICE type can
771    	[ bitrate BITRATE [ sample-point SAMPLE-POINT] ] |
772    	[ tq TQ prop-seg PROP_SEG phase-seg1 PHASE-SEG1
773     	  phase-seg2 PHASE-SEG2 [ sjw SJW ] ]
774
775    	[ loopback { on | off } ]
776    	[ listen-only { on | off } ]
777    	[ triple-sampling { on | off } ]
778
779    	[ restart-ms TIME-MS ]
780    	[ restart ]
781
782    	Where: BITRATE       := { 1..1000000 }
783    	       SAMPLE-POINT  := { 0.000..0.999 }
784    	       TQ            := { NUMBER }
785    	       PROP-SEG      := { 1..8 }
786    	       PHASE-SEG1    := { 1..8 }
787    	       PHASE-SEG2    := { 1..8 }
788    	       SJW           := { 1..4 }
789    	       RESTART-MS    := { 0 | NUMBER }
790
791  - Display CAN device details and statistics:
792
793    $ ip -details -statistics link show can0
794    2: can0: <NOARP,UP,LOWER_UP,ECHO> mtu 16 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 10
795      link/can
796      can <TRIPLE-SAMPLING> state ERROR-ACTIVE restart-ms 100
797      bitrate 125000 sample_point 0.875
798      tq 125 prop-seg 6 phase-seg1 7 phase-seg2 2 sjw 1
799      sja1000: tseg1 1..16 tseg2 1..8 sjw 1..4 brp 1..64 brp-inc 1
800      clock 8000000
801      re-started bus-errors arbit-lost error-warn error-pass bus-off
802      41         17457      0          41         42         41
803      RX: bytes  packets  errors  dropped overrun mcast
804      140859     17608    17457   0       0       0
805      TX: bytes  packets  errors  dropped carrier collsns
806      861        112      0       41      0       0
807
808  More info to the above output:
809
810    "<TRIPLE-SAMPLING>"
811	Shows the list of selected CAN controller modes: LOOPBACK,
812	LISTEN-ONLY, or TRIPLE-SAMPLING.
813
814    "state ERROR-ACTIVE"
815	The current state of the CAN controller: "ERROR-ACTIVE",
816	"ERROR-WARNING", "ERROR-PASSIVE", "BUS-OFF" or "STOPPED"
817
818    "restart-ms 100"
819	Automatic restart delay time. If set to a non-zero value, a
820	restart of the CAN controller will be triggered automatically
821	in case of a bus-off condition after the specified delay time
822	in milliseconds. By default it's off.
823
824    "bitrate 125000 sample_point 0.875"
825	Shows the real bit-rate in bits/sec and the sample-point in the
826	range 0.000..0.999. If the calculation of bit-timing parameters
827	is enabled in the kernel (CONFIG_CAN_CALC_BITTIMING=y), the
828	bit-timing can be defined by setting the "bitrate" argument.
829	Optionally the "sample-point" can be specified. By default it's
830	0.000 assuming CIA-recommended sample-points.
831
832    "tq 125 prop-seg 6 phase-seg1 7 phase-seg2 2 sjw 1"
833	Shows the time quanta in ns, propagation segment, phase buffer
834	segment 1 and 2 and the synchronisation jump width in units of
835	tq. They allow to define the CAN bit-timing in a hardware
836	independent format as proposed by the Bosch CAN 2.0 spec (see
837	chapter 8 of http://www.semiconductors.bosch.de/pdf/can2spec.pdf).
838
839    "sja1000: tseg1 1..16 tseg2 1..8 sjw 1..4 brp 1..64 brp-inc 1
840     clock 8000000"
841	Shows the bit-timing constants of the CAN controller, here the
842	"sja1000". The minimum and maximum values of the time segment 1
843	and 2, the synchronisation jump width in units of tq, the
844	bitrate pre-scaler and the CAN system clock frequency in Hz.
845	These constants could be used for user-defined (non-standard)
846	bit-timing calculation algorithms in user-space.
847
848    "re-started bus-errors arbit-lost error-warn error-pass bus-off"
849	Shows the number of restarts, bus and arbitration lost errors,
850	and the state changes to the error-warning, error-passive and
851	bus-off state. RX overrun errors are listed in the "overrun"
852	field of the standard network statistics.
853
854  6.5.2 Setting the CAN bit-timing
855
856  The CAN bit-timing parameters can always be defined in a hardware
857  independent format as proposed in the Bosch CAN 2.0 specification
858  specifying the arguments "tq", "prop_seg", "phase_seg1", "phase_seg2"
859  and "sjw":
860
861    $ ip link set canX type can tq 125 prop-seg 6 \
862				phase-seg1 7 phase-seg2 2 sjw 1
863
864  If the kernel option CONFIG_CAN_CALC_BITTIMING is enabled, CIA
865  recommended CAN bit-timing parameters will be calculated if the bit-
866  rate is specified with the argument "bitrate":
867
868    $ ip link set canX type can bitrate 125000
869
870  Note that this works fine for the most common CAN controllers with
871  standard bit-rates but may *fail* for exotic bit-rates or CAN system
872  clock frequencies. Disabling CONFIG_CAN_CALC_BITTIMING saves some
873  space and allows user-space tools to solely determine and set the
874  bit-timing parameters. The CAN controller specific bit-timing
875  constants can be used for that purpose. They are listed by the
876  following command:
877
878    $ ip -details link show can0
879    ...
880      sja1000: clock 8000000 tseg1 1..16 tseg2 1..8 sjw 1..4 brp 1..64 brp-inc 1
881
882  6.5.3 Starting and stopping the CAN network device
883
884  A CAN network device is started or stopped as usual with the command
885  "ifconfig canX up/down" or "ip link set canX up/down". Be aware that
886  you *must* define proper bit-timing parameters for real CAN devices
887  before you can start it to avoid error-prone default settings:
888
889    $ ip link set canX up type can bitrate 125000
890
891  A device may enter the "bus-off" state if too much errors occurred on
892  the CAN bus. Then no more messages are received or sent. An automatic
893  bus-off recovery can be enabled by setting the "restart-ms" to a
894  non-zero value, e.g.:
895
896    $ ip link set canX type can restart-ms 100
897
898  Alternatively, the application may realize the "bus-off" condition
899  by monitoring CAN error message frames and do a restart when
900  appropriate with the command:
901
902    $ ip link set canX type can restart
903
904  Note that a restart will also create a CAN error message frame (see
905  also chapter 3.4).
906
907  6.6 CAN FD (flexible data rate) driver support
908
909  CAN FD capable CAN controllers support two different bitrates for the
910  arbitration phase and the payload phase of the CAN FD frame. Therefore a
911  second bittiming has to be specified in order to enable the CAN FD bitrate.
912
913  Additionally CAN FD capable CAN controllers support up to 64 bytes of
914  payload. The representation of this length in can_frame.can_dlc and
915  canfd_frame.len for userspace applications and inside the Linux network
916  layer is a plain value from 0 .. 64 instead of the CAN 'data length code'.
917  The data length code was a 1:1 mapping to the payload length in the legacy
918  CAN frames anyway. The payload length to the bus-relevant DLC mapping is
919  only performed inside the CAN drivers, preferably with the helper
920  functions can_dlc2len() and can_len2dlc().
921
922  The CAN netdevice driver capabilities can be distinguished by the network
923  devices maximum transfer unit (MTU):
924
925  MTU = 16 (CAN_MTU)   => sizeof(struct can_frame)   => 'legacy' CAN device
926  MTU = 72 (CANFD_MTU) => sizeof(struct canfd_frame) => CAN FD capable device
927
928  The CAN device MTU can be retrieved e.g. with a SIOCGIFMTU ioctl() syscall.
929  N.B. CAN FD capable devices can also handle and send legacy CAN frames.
930
931  FIXME: Add details about the CAN FD controller configuration when available.
932
933  6.7 Supported CAN hardware
934
935  Please check the "Kconfig" file in "drivers/net/can" to get an actual
936  list of the support CAN hardware. On the Socket CAN project website
937  (see chapter 7) there might be further drivers available, also for
938  older kernel versions.
939
9407. Socket CAN resources
941-----------------------
942
943  You can find further resources for Socket CAN like user space tools,
944  support for old kernel versions, more drivers, mailing lists, etc.
945  at the BerliOS OSS project website for Socket CAN:
946
947    http://developer.berlios.de/projects/socketcan
948
949  If you have questions, bug fixes, etc., don't hesitate to post them to
950  the Socketcan-Users mailing list. But please search the archives first.
951
9528. Credits
953----------
954
955  Oliver Hartkopp (PF_CAN core, filters, drivers, bcm, SJA1000 driver)
956  Urs Thuermann (PF_CAN core, kernel integration, socket interfaces, raw, vcan)
957  Jan Kizka (RT-SocketCAN core, Socket-API reconciliation)
958  Wolfgang Grandegger (RT-SocketCAN core & drivers, Raw Socket-API reviews,
959                       CAN device driver interface, MSCAN driver)
960  Robert Schwebel (design reviews, PTXdist integration)
961  Marc Kleine-Budde (design reviews, Kernel 2.6 cleanups, drivers)
962  Benedikt Spranger (reviews)
963  Thomas Gleixner (LKML reviews, coding style, posting hints)
964  Andrey Volkov (kernel subtree structure, ioctls, MSCAN driver)
965  Matthias Brukner (first SJA1000 CAN netdevice implementation Q2/2003)
966  Klaus Hitschler (PEAK driver integration)
967  Uwe Koppe (CAN netdevices with PF_PACKET approach)
968  Michael Schulze (driver layer loopback requirement, RT CAN drivers review)
969  Pavel Pisa (Bit-timing calculation)
970  Sascha Hauer (SJA1000 platform driver)
971  Sebastian Haas (SJA1000 EMS PCI driver)
972  Markus Plessing (SJA1000 EMS PCI driver)
973  Per Dalen (SJA1000 Kvaser PCI driver)
974  Sam Ravnborg (reviews, coding style, kbuild help)
975