usbrelay

A package for controlling USB relay boards with HID API in go, capable of controlling any number of channels on a relay board.

This package is work in progress, the public interface and behavior may change.

The package uses karalabe/hid to access and control the USB device. karalabe/hid has a simple interface, embeds libusb that makes this package go get-able.

Usage

Requirements

This package requires CGO to be built.
For Windwos I recommend tmd-gcc: https://jmeubank.github.io/tdm-gcc/download/

As a command line tool:

Simply install the tool without cloning it.

go install github.com/lyimmi/usbrelay/cmd/usbrelay@latest

Command line usage:

usbrelay

usage: usbrelay <command> [<args>]

- Serial numbers are case sensitive.
- Use "all" as a relay number to set all relays at once.

Available commands:

   Command     Params                  Description
   list                                List all available devices (add -s flag to print a simplified output)
   on          <serial> <relay>        Set a relay's state to ON
   off         <serial> <relay>        Set a relay's state to OFF
   toggle      <serial> <relay>        Toggle a relay's state
   setserial   <serial> <new serial>   Change a device's serial number (max 5 ASCII characters)
   setudev                             Set a udev rule to enable running without sudo (linux only - requires root)

As a package:

go get -u github.com/lyimmi/usbrelay

Examples

import (
    "time"
    "github.com/lyimmi/usbrelay"
)

func main() {
    devices, _ := usbrelay.Enumerate()
    device := devices[0]
	
    device.Open(true)
    defer device.Close()
	
    device.On(usbrelay.R1)
    time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond)
    device.Off(usbrelay.R1)
}

A more detailed example can be found in the example directory.

Permissions

On linux USB access needs root permissions by default. If you don't want to run your code as root, it can be done via udev rules:

1. Create a rule file:
   • /etc/udev/rules.d/xx-my-rule.rules
   • xx is any number > 50 (the defaults are in 50, and higher numbers take priority)
   • my-rule is whatever you want to call it
   • must end in .rules
2. Insert the following rule:
   • SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="16c0", ATTRS{idProduct}=="05df", TAG+="uaccess"
3. Save and run:
   • sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger
4. Make sure to unplug and replug the USB device!

Testing

Testing is done via a mocked virtual USB device with umockdev.

A 4 channel device was used to record the USB communication with wireshark and usbmon while executing the command line tool.

Each command's communication is stored in a separate pcap file in the test directory and replayed for the command line tool with umockdev-run using the actual device's stored sysfs device and udev properties.

Credits

This package is an amalgamation of a few people's previous work:

• https://github.com/pavel-a/usb-relay-hid
• https://github.com/karalabe/hid
• https://github.com/e61983/go-usb-relay
• https://github.com/spetr/hidrelay

License

Based on this article this package is under the MIT license.