I'm working on a DriverKit driver. I have it running on macOS, including a very simple client app written in SwiftUI. Everything is working fine there. I've added iPadOS as a destination for the app as demonstrated in the WWDC video on DriverKit for iPadOS. The app builds and runs on my iPad, as expected (after a little work to conditionalize out my use of SystemExtensions.framework for installation on macOS). However, after installing and running the app on an iPad, the driver does not show up in Settings->General, nor in the app-specific settings pane triggered by the inclusion of a settings bundle in the app.
I've confirmed that the dext is indeed being included in the app bundle when built for iPadOS (in MyApp.app/SystemExtensions/com.me.MyApp.MyDriver.dext). I also can see in the build log that there's a validation step for the dext, and that seems to be succeeding.
I don't know why the app isn't being discovered -- or in any case surfaced to the user -- when the app is installed on the iPad. Has anyone faced this problem and solved it? Are there ways to troubleshoot installation/discovery of an embedded DriverKit extensions on iOS? Unlike on macOS, I don't really see any relevant console messages.
USBDriverKit
RSS for tagDevelop drivers for USB-based devices using USBDriverKit.
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Hi there,
We've discovered a problem with our iOS app. We've been attempting to add a Driverkit driver to it, but any time we run the app through Testflight, the driver installs fine, but when we go to enable the driver toggle in the app's settings, the toggle stays on, but in the device logs I can see:
could not insert bundle at <private> into manager: <private>
As you would expect - this means the driver is not actually enabled and does not respond to a device being connected to the iPad.
This does not happen when building & running the app locally, nor does it happen when installing an Ad Hoc build.
We also have a different app, not yet shipped. We are able to add the driver to that app without issue. It works after going through Testflight.
What we have discovered now is that everything works fine even if we just create an entirely new app with it's own bundle IDs. I should point out that in all cases, we're keeping the capabilities the same for each of these apps/IDs - including the managed capabilities.
The bundle IDs that have this problem are older (5 years old or more). It seems like any newer ID will work, but trying to add the driver (and the associated managed capabilities) to an older app/ID results in this vague error message, with no further details.
If we inspect the resulting dexts, we can also see that the "Internal requirements code size" is different on the ones that fail. The failing ones have a size of 204 bytes, whereas the working ones all have a size of 220 bytes. Not sure if that's related but it's strikingly consistent.
Does this mean there is an issue with older app IDs, and we need Apple to manually refresh them in some way before the driverkit capabilities will work after going through Testflight? We have two apps in this state, both are of the same vintage (~5 years+).
We've been battling this issue for months on and off, so would appreciate some help.
When plugging in my matched USB device I see the logs below. It seems the kernelmanagerd process is sandboxed and can't write out the reason my Dext failed to load. Is there somewhere else I can look for this info?
default 11:03:22.175152-0700 kernelmanagerd Received kext load notification: me.keithg.MyUserUSBInterfaceDriver
default 11:03:22.177637-0700 kernel 1 duplicate report for Sandbox: icdd(2124) allow file-read-data /Library/Image Capture/Devices
error 11:03:22.177681-0700 kernel Sandbox: kernelmanagerd(545) deny(1) file-write-create /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T/com.apple.kernelmanagerd/TemporaryItems
com.apple.libcoreservices error 11:03:22.177711-0700 kernelmanagerd mkdir: path=/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T/com.apple.kernelmanagerd/TemporaryItems/ mode= -rwx------: [1: Operation not permitted]
error 11:03:22.179361-0700 kernel Sandbox: kernelmanagerd(545) deny(1) file-write-create /private/var/db/loadedkextmt.plist.sb-5a00fc77-LNttZF
com.apple.libcoreservices error 11:03:22.177755-0700 kernelmanagerd _dirhelper_relative_internal: error for path <private>: [1: Operation not permitted]
com.apple.accessories default 11:03:22.177674-0700 WindowServer Sending analytics event... (eventName: com.apple.ioport.transport.USB.published)
error 11:03:22.179913-0700 kernelmanagerd Failed to write extension load report plist.
I read that iPadOS supports driverkit, and, presumably, the same serial FTDI UARTs as macOS.
Has this been migrated to USB-C iPhones on iOS 18?
After some searching, the developer doc is not clear, and web responses are contradictory.
We are currently using it for a wired sensor option of our BlueTooth HR sensor. When it is used in wired config, the radios are turned off. This is important to some of our customers. Since Lightning MFI sensors are being discontinued with Apple killing Lightning, we would love to have an alternative for iOS.
-- Harald
I'm trying to iterate through a USB device but the iterator is always empty or contains only the matched interface:
Single interface in Iterator
This happens when my driver matches against the interface. Because I need to use 2 interfaces (control and cdc), I try to open the IOUSBHostDevice (copied from the interface) and iterate through the rest, but I only get the interface my dext matched with.
Empty Iterator
I decided to match against USB communication devices, thinking things would be different. However, this time the interface iterator is completely empty (provider is IOUSBHostDevice).
Here's a snippet of my code before iterating with IOUSBHostDevice->CopyInterface():
// teardown the configured interfaces.
result = device->SetConfiguration(ivars->Config, true);
__Require_noErr_Action(result, _failure_Out,
ELOG("IOUSBHostDevice::SetConfiguration failed 0x%x", result));
// open usb device
result = device->Open(this, 0, 0);
__Require_noErr_Action(result, _failure_Out,
ELOG("Failed to open IOUSBHostDevice"));
// Get interface iterator
result = device->CreateInterfaceIterator(&iterRef);
__Require_noErr_Action(result, _failure_Out,
ELOG("IOUSBHostDevice::CreateInterfaceIterator failed failed: 0x%x", result));
I'm working on a project to allow HID input from macOS to a connected iOS device. Are we prohibited from matching to a connected iPhone with DriverKit? I see the attribute kCDCDoNotMatchThisDevice for my iPhone is YES when looking at the IO registry and my dext does not initialize
Hi,
I need to write an application (possibly using C) to communicate with a USB High Speed Device CDC class I am developing, but unfortunately I have no development experience under Mac OS, so I am here to ask for a few help/advice. I hope I am in the right place.
Since I have a working code using libusb on Linux, I have first tried to use such lib on a Mac OS without success. The device is listed correctly using
ioreg -w0 -l -p
but it seems to be always busy:
MYUSBDEVICE@fa410000 <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x100001769, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (262 ms), retain 24>
in fact, attempting to use libusb always results in error:
LIBUSB_ERROR_NOT_FOUND
libusb_bulk_transfer: Entity not found
After searching a bit, I have read that it is impossible (?) to use libusb on MacOS.
Then I came across these following pages:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DeviceDrivers/Conceptual/USBBook/USBDeviceInterfaces/USBDevInterfaces.html
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usbdriverkit
I would possible avoid to write a CDC kernel driver for my application, so link #2 seems more appropriate to what I need.
But isn't it available any API to develop USB CDC communications C application on MacOS ?
Any suggestion is appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Simon
I have USB DriverKit driver. When I use the log command below to get log, there is logs from my driver on my own M-series MacBook where the driver is built using developer account.
log stream | grep CompanyName
But on other mac like (M-series) Mac Mini, there is no log captured from driver though the driver is communicating with the machine correctly. The only log captured are from MacOS regarding CompanyName driver status/unload/load. The MacOS is Sonoma 14.7.2 and 14.7.3.
Please advise on how to get log from driver since writing to files is not allowed in DriverKit. I need logs to troubleshoot on Mac Mini.
Thanks.
I would like to write a driver that supports our custom USB-C connected device, which provides a serial port interface. USBSerialDriverKit looks like the solution I need. Unfortunately, without a decent sample, I'm not sure how to accomplish this. The DriverKit documentation does a good job of telling me what APIs exist but it is very light on semantic information and details about how to use all of these API elements. A function call with five unexplained parameters just is that useful to me.
Does anyone have or know of a resource that can help me figure out how to get started?
I've tried on multiple occasions to add a message on to the request form for a vendor ID, but it always comes back with just the one default.
I read in another post that they got it done through the Feedback Assistant, but that hasn't worked for me.
Does anyone have any other ideas?
Between us and our parent company, I need three vendor IDs.
am new to using Swift for a Mac Application. I am trying to control an external UVC-compliant camera focus and other capabilities. However, I'm having trouble with this and don't know where to start. I have downloaded an application from the App Store and it can control the focus and other capabilities.
I've tried IOKit but this seems to be complicated and this does not return any capabilities or control the camera.
I also tried AVfoundation and was able to open the camera, but using the following code did not work for me. as a device.isFocusPointOfInterestSupported returns false and without checking the app crashes.
@IBAction func focusChanged(_ sender: NSSlider) {
do {
guard let device = videoDevice else { return }
try device.lockForConfiguration()
// Check if focus mode and point of interest are supported
if device.isFocusModeSupported(.locked) {
device.focusMode = .locked
}
if device.isFocusPointOfInterestSupported {
// Map the slider value (0.0 to 1.0) to the focus point's X coordinate
let focusX = CGFloat(sender.doubleValue)
let focusPoint = CGPoint(x: focusX, y: 0.5) // Y coordinate is typically 0.5 (centered vertically)
device.focusPointOfInterest = focusPoint
} else {
print("Focus point of interest is not supported on this device.")
}
device.unlockForConfiguration()
// Log focus settings
print("Focus point: \(device.focusPointOfInterest)")
print("Focus mode: \(device.focusMode.rawValue)")
} catch {
print("Error adjusting focus: \(error)")
}
Any help or advice is much appreciated.
Hi everyone,
I am seeking clarification regarding the communication capabilities between an ESP32 microcontroller and Apple's latest devices, specifically the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPad Pro, both equipped with USB-C ports.
Background:
MFi Certification: Historically, establishing communication between external devices and iOS devices required MFi (Made for iPhone/iPad) certification. But I remember this being necessary in the Lightning Cable to USB era.
With the introduction of USB-C ports in recent iPhone and iPad models, there is an indication that MFi certification may no longer be necessary for certain peripherals. Perhaps I'm not confident on the terminology here: https://mfi.apple.com/en/who-should-join
Project Requirements: I am working on a sensor research project that necessitates the collection of low-latency time-series data from an ESP32 microcontroller, which features a USB-C port. The data needs to be transmitted to an iPhone 16 Pro Max or iPad Pro. Bluetooth communication has proven insufficient due to its limited data transfer rates (~1.2 Mbps with L2CAP). While NEHotspot could be an alternative, it restricts the iPad's internet connectivity. Therefore, establishing a direct USB-C connection between the ESP32 and the iOS device appears to be the most viable solution.
Questions:
MFi Certification Necessity: Is MFi certification still required for an ESP32 microcontroller to communicate with iPhone 16 Pro Max or iPad Pro via USB-C?
USB-C Communication Support: Do the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPad Pro natively support serial communication over USB-C with microcontrollers like the ESP32? If not, are there recommended protocols or interfaces to facilitate this communication?
App Development Considerations: Would developing a custom iOS application be necessary to handle data transmission from the ESP32 over USB-C? If so, are there specific APIs or frameworks provided by Apple to support this functionality?
Data Transfer Rates: Considering the need for high-speed data transfer, are there any limitations or considerations regarding the data transfer rates achievable through a USB-C connection between the ESP32 and iOS devices?
Thank you!
Hello!
We currently require the development of an iOS system for encrypting and authorizing photos, videos, voice memos, or other files stored on our devices to a connected USB-C storage. The encrypted files can be accessed through authorization. We have already encrypted and authorized the files to be stored on the app's mobile storage, and cannot directly store them to USB-C (this requirement is based on the Apple camera RroRes, which uses external storage for direct storage). We are seeking technical support from Apple.
I have a driver project where I'm opening and closing a connection to a custom driver.
If I do what I think I need to be doing to unmap the memory, when I try to open the service again, it fails. If I skip the step where I do that unmapping, the service opens successfully.
If I call unmap() before trying to call openConnection() again, it will fail with a -308 error return code. If I skip that call to unmap(), it works and I'm able to communicate with my device.
Here's the code where I open the service:
public func openConnection() throws {
guard !isOpen else { return }
// Open device
var connection: io_connect_t = IO_OBJECT_NULL
var result = IOServiceOpen(device, mach_task_self_, 0, &connection)
if result != kIOReturnSuccess {
NSLog("Failed opening device with error: 0x%08x.\n", result);
throw NSError.cdc_kernelReturnErrorWithError(result)
}
defer { IOConnectRelease(connection) }
if device == IO_OBJECT_NULL || connection == IO_OBJECT_NULL {
throw NSError.cdc_kernelReturnErrorWithError(result)
}
let receiveDataMappedMemory = ClientDriverMappedMemory(connection: connection, memoryType: MappedMemoryType_ReceiveDataBuffer)
try receiveDataMappedMemory.map()
let transmitDataMappedMemory = ClientDriverMappedMemory(connection: connection, memoryType: MappedMemoryType_TransmitDataBuffer)
try transmitDataMappedMemory.map()
// Setup async notification
IONotificationPortSetDispatchQueue(dataReceivedPort, dataReceivedQueue)
let callbackPort = IONotificationPortGetMachPort(dataReceivedPort)
let input = DataStruct(foo: 0, bar: 0)
var output = DataStruct(foo: 0, bar: 0)
var outputSize = MemoryLayout<DataStruct>.size
// Trampoline to C function because I don't quite know how to make this work in Swift
result = setupCallback(self, connection, callbackPort, input, &output, &outputSize)
if result != kIOReturnSuccess {
NSLog("Error registering async callback with driver: \(result)");
throw NSError.cdc_kernelReturnErrorWithError(result)
}
self.connection = connection
self.receivedDataMappedMemory = receiveDataMappedMemory
self.transmitDataMappedMemory = transmitDataMappedMemory
}
map() and unmap() functions:
- (BOOL)mapWithError:(NSError **)error
{
error = error ?: &(NSError * __autoreleasing){ nil };
kern_return_t result = IOConnectMapMemory64(self.connection,
self.memoryType,
mach_task_self(),
&_address,
&_size,
kIOMapAnywhere);
if (result != kIOReturnSuccess) {
*error = [NSError cdc_kernelReturnErrorWithError:result];
return NO;
}
self.mapped = YES;
return YES;
}
- (BOOL)unmapWithError:(NSError **)error
{
error = error ?: &(NSError * __autoreleasing){ nil };
kern_return_t result = IOConnectUnmapMemory64(self.connection,
self.memoryType,
mach_task_self(),
_address);
if (result != kIOReturnSuccess) {
*error = [NSError cdc_kernelReturnErrorWithError:result];
return NO;
}
self.mapped = NO;
return YES;
}
Any insights? What all should I be doing to close the service? Why would the unmapping create this issue or what else could the -308 error be indicated has gone wrong?
I am trying to open the CommunicationControl class IOUSBHostInterface in my USB driver, but it only seems to open on iPad Airs and not iPad Pros.
I'm calling
ivars->interruptInterface->Open(this, 0, NULL);
After retrieving the interruptInterface from the device's InterfaceIterator. I try and open this, but on iPad Pros it returns kIOReturnNotOpen. I've tried closing and reopening the IOUSBHostDevice, closing and reopening the Interface, AbortDeviceRequests before opening, etc. but it just seems to work on iPad Air and not iPad Pro.
I've tried on both iPadOS 17.6.1 and 18.2
Has anyone else seen this?
Hey,
I'currently working on a Driver (and its App) for iPadOS (USB Device).
I think have the right entitlements, as my driver gets installed with the app properly (after accepting it in the settings).
It also gets loaded once the device is plugged in and so on.
However the Kernel is not using the updated Version after I install a new Version of App and Driver to the iPad (at least most of the times). I'm verifying this by reading out the Logs via Console and the Driver prints its Build number on Start(). Sometimes it works like it should but I found no pattern.
As far as I understand the iPad should automatically install the new Version of the Driver with the new App if its Build is different from the current one. I'm incrementing the Build of App and Driver automatically post-build so each build the iPad gets has its own Build number (This also works).
Steps to reproduce:
Cleaning Xcode Build Folder
Unplugging the USB Device from the iPad.
Building and Installing a new Version of the Driver and the App via Xcode (making sure the build number has changed)
Plugging the USB back into the iPad
Reading Console output of the iPad
However it works (each time if I:
Uninstall the app from the iPad manually or via Devices in Xcode
Build and install the App via Xcode
Open the Settings App and activate the Driver
But uninstalling the App each time is taking a lot of time and manual Steps so I would like to fix this issue.
Do you have any Ideas?
Thanks, Bjarne
I have two different USB devices with different vendor IDs I would like to connect to. I submitted two separate requests for the com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb entitlement for each vendor ID. However I am noticing the provisioning profile only has one of the vendor IDs.
How do I submit a request for the USB Transport entitlement to support more than one vendor ID? I'm new to writing a DriverKit driver, so is this even possible?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Drivers
Tags:
Entitlements
Provisioning Profiles
USBDriverKit
DriverKit
We have a DriverKit entitlement for our USB driver. We now wish to use this same driver with a variant of our existing application. Of course this application has its own separate App ID and will be published in the App Store alongside our existing application.
Will we need to go back to the well and ask Apple for another entitlement?
Hi,
I am trying to develop MacOS application which will be connecting to USB devices and should be available in AppStore.
So it must be Sandbox and probably I've to use permission com.apple.security.device.usb.
I've following requirements:
I need to detect USB devices with file system
I need to have ability to upload & download files from this device
I need to read device serial number
I wonder if I can use IOKit for this and it will be compliant with AppStore rules or not?
Hello team,
I am using USBDriverKit and Driverkit framework in my application for communication of USB device. After updating my iPad OS to 18 public beta, I am unable to get option to enable drivers in my setting page of my application. However, I am able to see that options in developer beta version of iPad OS 18.
Can anyone guide me, how should I proceed further as I am unable to use my USB devices.