Udev rules file for Arduino boards
After connecting the Franzis board, only root can access it. This article describes how to make the board board available to unprivileged users. Also, reconnecting more than one device may result in changing ttyUSBn identifiers. To solve this, I created a file: /etc/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-serial.rules which assigns uniquely named symlinks. For this to work I assigned each of my Arduino's a unique three digit number, always starting with '0'.
ACTION!="add", GOTO="persistent_serial_end"
SUBSYSTEM!="tty", GOTO="persistent_serial_end"
KERNEL!="ttyUSB[0-9]*", GOTO="persistent_serial_end"
# This is old 11.10 style: IMPORT="usb_id --export %p"
IMPORT{builtin}="path_id"
ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="04fc_RS232C_to_USB_Adapter" , SYMLINK="multimeter" , OWNER="jhendrix"
ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="FTDI_FT232R_USB_UART_A800FERY" , SYMLINK="arduinoMega1280-001" , SYMLINK+="ttyUSB001" , OWNER="jhendrix"
ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="FTDI_FT232R_USB_UART_A900F4EF" , SYMLINK="arduinoMega1280-002" , SYMLINK+="ttyUSB002" , OWNER="jhendrix"
ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="FTDI_FT232R_USB_UART_A900f3Kr" , SYMLINK="arduinoDuemilanove168-003" , SYMLINK+="ttyUSB003" , OWNER="jhendrix"
LABEL="persistent_serial_end"
- Where jhendrix must be replaced by your username;
- The name for SYMLINK can be pretty much anything you like;
- Where ID_SERIAL can be obtained through:
unbuffer udevadm monitor --environment | grep 'ID_SERIAL='
Activate the new rules file by issuing the following command:
sudo udevadm control --reload
After connecting, a device called /dev/ttyUSBn is created which has r/w privileges for user jhendrix and a symlink with a descriptive name to it.
The result when connecting more than one ttyUSB-type device:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:38 /dev/arduinoDuemilanove168-003 -> ttyUSB0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:44 /dev/arduinoMega1280-001 -> ttyUSB1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:46 /dev/arduinoMega1280-002 -> ttyUSB2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:47 /dev/multimeter -> ttyUSB3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:38 ttyUSB001 -> ttyUSB1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:46 ttyUSB002 -> ttyUSB2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2012-04-06 14:46 ttyUSB003 -> ttyUSB0 crw-rw---- 1 jhendrix dialout 188, 0 2012-04-06 14:38 /dev/ttyUSB0 crw-rw---- 1 jhendrix dialout 188, 1 2012-04-06 14:44 /dev/ttyUSB1 crw-rw---- 1 jhendrix dialout 188, 2 2012-04-06 14:46 /dev/ttyUSB2 crw-rw---- 1 jhendrix dialout 188, 3 2012-04-06 14:47 /dev/ttyUSB3
Because ttyUSB device names in the form 0[0-9][0-9] (notice the leading 0) are never assigned by the kernel, it is safe create these as symlinks. The good thing is that the Arduino IDE / Processing accepts them as valid interfaces. Just remember to select the three digit ttyUSB0nn form in the IDE when programming Arduino.
