Hi Apple, We are working on a general USB device management solution on macOS for enterprise security. Our goal is to enforce policy-based restrictions on USB devices, such as: For USB storage devices: block mount, read, or write access. For other peripherals (e.g., USB headsets or microphones, raspberry pi, etc): block usage entirely. We know in past, kernel extension would be the way to go, but as kext has been deprecated. And DriverKit is the new advertised framework. At first, DriverKit looked like the right direction. However, after reviewing the documentation more closely, we noticed that using DriverKit for USB requires specific entitlements: DriverKit USB Transport – VendorID DriverKit USB Transport – VendorID and ProductID This raises a challenge: if our solution is meant to cover all types of USB devices, we would theoretically need entitlements for every VendorID/ProductID in existence. My questions are: Is DriverKit actually the right framework for this kind of general-purpose USB device control? If not, what framework or mechanism should we be looking at for enforcing these kinds of policies? We also developed an Endpoint Security product, but so far we haven’t found a relevant Endpoint Security event type that would allow us to achieve this. Any guidance on the correct technical approach would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi, We were planning on using DriverKit to develop a USB Driver on IOS for iPhone. Within the DriverKit website, it say 'IOS16.0+' which lead us to believe it was compatible with iPhones running IOS16.0+. However, it appears DriverKit is only available for iPads running iPadOS, and computers running macOS. Are there any alternatives that would allow us to create a device specific USB driver for an iPhone running IOS?

The device I am trying to develop a firmware updater for is an NVMe drive with a USB4 interface. It can connect in USB4 mode (tunneled NVMe), in USB 3 mode or in USB 2 mode. In USB 2 and USB 3 mode, the device descriptor shows one interface with two alternates. Alternate 0 uses the bulk-only protocol, with one IN and one OUT pipe. Alternate 1 uses the UAS protocol, with two IN and two OUT pipes. I use identical code in my driver to send custom CDBs. I can see using IORegistryExplorer that in USB 2 mode, macOS chooses alternate 0, the bulk-only protocol. My custom CDBs and their accompanying data pay loads are put on the bus, more or less as expected. In USB 3 mode, macOS chooses alternate 1, the UAS protocol. My custom CDB is put on the bus, but no payload data is transferred. Is this expected behavior? If so, is there a way to force the OS to choose alternate 0 even when on USB 3, perhaps with another dext? I'll file a bug about this when Feedback Assistant lets me.

Hi, We are using the AX88772C as a USB->Ethernet bridge in a product we are developing. Due to the chip not following the NCM protocol, it is not supported by the default networking drivers on the iPhone. Initially, we intended on using DriverKit to develop a userspace driver for this device. However, we have been informed DriverKit is only available on iPad OS, not iOS. As such is the case, we have found two possible alternatives. First being IOkit, and the second being External Accessory Session (EASession). What are the limitations of each of these options? We need the ability to send and receive USB packets to Control and Bulk endpoints. Is this possible with either of the options defined above? Would either of these options require the device to be MFi certified? We have read that some APIs within IOkit require the apple device to be jailbroken. Is there a list of features that can be used without a jailbroken device? Documentation on these 2 options is limited, so any official documentation would be great. Thanks!

Hello everyone, I am migrating a legacy KEXT to a DriverKit (DEXT) architecture. While the DEXT itself is working correctly, I am completely blocked by a code signing issue when trying to establish the UserClient connection from our SwiftUI management app. Project Goal & Status: Our DEXT (com.accusys.Acxxx.driver) activates successfully (systemextensionsctl list confirms [activated enabled]). The core functionality is working (diskutil list shows the corresponding disk device node). The Core Problem: The userclient-access Signing Error To allow the app to connect to the DEXT, the com.apple.developer.driverkit.userclient-access entitlement is required in the app's .entitlements file. However, as soon as this entitlement is added, the build fails. Both automatic and manual signing fail with the same error: `Provisioning profile ... doesn't match the entitlements file's value for the ... userclient-access entitlement.` This build failure prevents the generation of an .app bundle, making it impossible to inspect the final entitlements with codesign. What We've Confirmed: The necessary capabilities (like DriverKit Communicates with Drivers) are visible and enabled for our App ID on the developer portal. The issue persists on a clean system state and on the latest macOS Sequoia 15.7.1. Our Research and Hypothesis: We have reviewed the official documentation "Diagnosing issues with entitlements" (TN3125). According to the documentation, a "doesn't match" error implies a discrepancy between the entitlements file and the provisioning profile. Given that we have tried both automatic and manual profiles (after enabling the capability online), our hypothesis is that the provisioning profile generation process on Apple's backend is not correctly including the approved userclient-access entitlement into the profile file itself. The build fails because Xcode correctly detects this discrepancy. Our Questions: Did we misunderstand a step in the process, or is the issue not with the entitlement request at all? Alternatively, are there any other modifications we can make to successfully connect our App to the DEXT and trigger NewUserClient? Thank you for any guidance.

While developing our driver, we've noticed that the *.ips report that contains the stacktrace of the crash is not always generated. I'm wondering why this report may not get generated, or if there's anything specific to do to guarantee it gets generated.

We've developed a PCIDriverKit driver for the capture card on macOS and have identified an issue: CreateMemoryDescriptorFromClient can only read data from the user space to the driver, but cannot write data back to the user. typedef struct _MWCAP_EDID_DATA { uint64_t size; uint64_t uaddr; } MWCAP_EDID_DATA; // App size_t xxx::GetEdid(void *buff, size_t size) { MWCAP_EDID_DATA edid; edid.size = size; edid.uaddr = (uint64_t)buff; kr = IOConnectCallStructMethod( connect, kUserGetEdid, &edid, sizeof(MWCAP_EDID_DATA), NULL, NULL ); // kr is 0. But However, the data in the buffer remains unchanged; // it does not reflect the EDID copied from the DEXT. return size; } // Driver MWCAP_EDID_DATA *edid = (MWCAP_EDID_DATA *)input; IOMemoryDescriptor *user_buf_mem = NULL; IOAddressSegment segment; segment.address = edid->uaddr; segment.length = edid->size; // We have verified that the values in edid->uaddr and edid->size are consistent with what was set by the application. ret = CreateMemoryDescriptorFromClient(kIOMemoryDirectionOutIn, 1, &segment, &user_buf_mem); if (ret != kIOReturnSuccess) { os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Failed to create memdesc with error: 0x%08x", ret); break; } IOMemoryMap* user_buf_map = nullptr; ret = user_buf_mem->CreateMapping(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, &user_buf_map); if (ret != kIOReturnSuccess) { os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Failed to create mapping with error: 0x%08x", ret); OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_mem); break; } // ... fill the user_buf_map with edid data ... // For example: // memcpy(user_buf_map->GetAddress(), source_edid_data, edid->size); // At this point we have also verified the data in user_buf_map->GetAddress(), which matches our expectations. OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_map); OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_mem); Please help take a look, thank you!