Open Source Summit + ELC North America 2020

Daniel Berliner will introduce a new USB model for sharing host internet connectivity with devices. This model allows for data to be passed without the device having to know the details of its host’s network.

Most internet connected USB devices either have specific host drivers or dedicated networking hardware to connect to the internet. Several models exist for allowing USB devices to transmit data over an existing network, but they describe how to send Ethernet packets as if the connected device were a distinct entity on the network. With the model described in this talk, the host creates sockets for the device to manage, so the complexity of managing a distinct network entity is eliminated.

This talk will discuss how this is accomplished, why it is useful to allow devices to connect to the internet through their host and some of the challenges that came up during implementation.