1 ================================================================
2 I2C device driver binding control from user-space in old kernels
3 ================================================================
6 Note: this section is only relevant if you are handling some old code
7 found in kernel 2.6. If you work with more recent kernels, you can
8 safely skip this section.
10 Up to kernel 2.6.32, many I2C drivers used helper macros provided by
11 <linux/i2c.h> which created standard module parameters to let the user
12 control how the driver would probe I2C buses and attach to devices. These
13 parameters were known as ``probe`` (to let the driver probe for an extra
14 address), ``force`` (to forcibly attach the driver to a given device) and
15 ``ignore`` (to prevent a driver from probing a given address).
17 With the conversion of the I2C subsystem to the standard device driver
18 binding model, it became clear that these per-module parameters were no
19 longer needed, and that a centralized implementation was possible. The new,
20 sysfs-based interface is described in :doc:`instantiating-devices`, section
21 "Method 4: Instantiate from user-space".
23 Below is a mapping from the old module parameters to the new interface.
25 Attaching a driver to an I2C device
26 -----------------------------------
28 Old method (module parameters)::
30 # modprobe <driver> probe=1,0x2d
31 # modprobe <driver> force=1,0x2d
32 # modprobe <driver> force_<device>=1,0x2d
34 New method (sysfs interface)::
36 # echo <device> 0x2d > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-1/new_device
38 Preventing a driver from attaching to an I2C device
39 ---------------------------------------------------
41 Old method (module parameters)::
43 # modprobe <driver> ignore=1,0x2f
45 New method (sysfs interface)::
47 # echo dummy 0x2f > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-1/new_device
50 Of course, it is important to instantiate the ``dummy`` device before loading
51 the driver. The dummy device will be handled by i2c-core itself, preventing
52 other drivers from binding to it later on. If there is a real device at the
53 problematic address, and you want another driver to bind to it, then simply
54 pass the name of the device in question instead of ``dummy``.