Re: [PATCH] usb: core: Save the config when a device is deauthorized+authorized

[Alan Stern]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 03:43:47PM -0800, Douglas Anderson wrote:
> Right now, when a USB device is deauthorized (by writing 0 to the
> "authorized" field in sysfs) and then reauthorized (by writing a 1) it
> loses any configuration it might have had. This is because
> usb_deauthorize_device() calls:
>   usb_set_configuration(usb_dev, -1);
> ...and then usb_authorize_device() calls:
>   usb_choose_configuration(udev);
> ...to choose the "best" configuration.
> 
> This generally works OK and it looks like the above design was chosen
> on purpose. In commit 93993a0a3e52 ("usb: introduce
> usb_authorize/deauthorize()") we can see some discussion about keeping
> the old config but it was decided not to bother since we can't save it
> for wireless USB anyway. It can be noted that as of commit
> 1e4c574225cc ("USB: Remove remnants of Wireless USB and UWB") wireless
> USB is removed anyway, so there's really not a good reason not to keep
> the old config.
> 
> Unfortunately, throwing away the old config breaks when something has
> decided to choose a config other than the normal "best" config.
> Specifically, it can be noted that as of commit ec51fbd1b8a2 ("r8152:
> add USB device driver for config selection") that the r8152 driver
> subclasses the generic USB driver and selects a config other than the
> one that would have been selected by usb_choose_configuration(). This
> logic isn't re-run after a deauthorize + authorize and results in the
> r8152 driver not being re-bound.
> 
> Let's change things to save the old config when we deauthorize and
> then restore it when we re-authorize. We'll disable this logic for
> wireless USB where we re-fetch the descriptor after authorization.

Would it be better to make the r8152 driver override 
usb_choose_configuration()?  This is the sort of thing that subclassing 
is intended for.

Alan Stern