[Fw_Os_Forum] USB Media Path in the Boot Option's device path - inconsistency with USB port parent numbering

[Peter Jones]

On Mon, Feb 06, 2017 at 10:47:49AM +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 05, 2017 at 03:53:08PM -0500, Karen Gabrielyan wrote:
> > I'm pretty certain of behavior, as I've forced computers to boot into my
> > USB-based OS through USB multiple ports on multiple USB host controllers.
> > We tried the behavior on PC-s that have varying number of USB controllers,
> > different number of USB hubs between USB device and the controller.
> > And even with cases where there were multiple USB hubs involved in the full
> > device path, the port numbers of entire USB hub chain had to be wither 0-based
> > or 1-based.
> > 
> > PciRoot(0)/PCI(x,y/USB(1,0)/USB(3,0)/USB(2,0) - in this example all USB
> > components had to have 1-based ports for boot option to load my OS.
> > PciRoot(0)/PCI(x,y/USB(0,0)/(1,0) - and here all USB components had to have
> > 0-based ports for my OS to load properly.
> 
> As you are finding out, USB port and device numbers are not consistant,
> nor ever will be, sorry, that's not how USB works at all.
> 
> > I need to find a reliable way to boot into the operating system from USB device
> > which I know resides on specific USB controller/port/hub.
> 
> You can't do this by trying to specify the USB port and device numbers,
> sorry.
> 
> > And our product requires this to work consistently on different models of
> > UEFI-based computers.
> 
> That's a tall order, if not impossible given the different UEFI
> implementations and hardware configurations.
> 
> > But this 0-based vs 1-based USB Parent Port numbering throws off the logic of
> > our software. 
> > 
> > Can anyone help out with what's at play here with USB port numbers?
> > Is the port numbering supposed to be strict, or any UEFI vendor is free to
> > choose their how to interpret it?
> 
> They can change at any time, even be different between boots, sorry.
> 
> I don't know if UEFI has any way to scan the partition name and use
> that, but if so, that's the only way you are going to be able to do this
> in a reliable way, as that is what is done in other operating systems in
> order to achive this type of thing.

We have abbreviated device paths that start with the Hard Drive Device
Path (HD()), which describe a partition by its start and end and the
signature.  It's what gets used most of the time for everything.

-- 
  Peter