CONFIG_USB_STORAGE not enabled in default kernel

[kingsumos]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.4170]

WSL Version

2.1.5.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.146.1-2

Distro Version

Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

1. Attach a USB mass storage using usbpid

PS C:\Windows\System32> usbipd list
Connected:
BUSID  VID:PID    DEVICE                                                        STATE
1-7    5986:2118  Integrated Camera                                             Not shared
1-8    8087:0a2b  Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R)                                Not shared
2-2    174c:1153  USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device                   Not shared
3-1    062a:0001  USB Input Device                                              Not shared
3-3    047f:0301  Plantronics headset, USB Input Device                         Not shared
4-3    058f:9540  Microsoft Usbccid Smartcard Reader (WUDF)                     Not shared
5-1    413c:2107  USB Input Device                                              Not shared
6-3    10c4:ea60  Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM31)                Not shared
6-4    10c4:ea60  Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM20)                Not shared
PS C:\Windows\System32> usbipd bind --busid 2-2
PS C:\Windows\System32> usbipd attach --wsl --busid 2-2

2. Device is listed in USB bus, but no /dev/sd device is created, dmesg output:

[  528.910520] usb 2-1: SetAddress Request (2) to port 0
[  528.910529] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using vhci_hcd
[  528.949225] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=1153, bcdDevice= 0.01
[  528.949233] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[  528.949236] usb 2-1: Product: AS2115
[  528.949239] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ASMedia
[  528.949241] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 00000000000000000000

abc@DESKTOP:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 174c:1153 ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Expected Behavior

When manually building the Kernel, enabling CONFIG_USB_STORAGE a /dev/sd device is attached to the device. See below in dmesg /dev/sde appears:

[   54.653433] usb 2-1: SetAddress Request (2) to port 0
[   54.653444] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using vhci_hcd
[   54.702912] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=1153, bcdDevice= 0.01
[   54.702917] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[   54.702919] usb 2-1: Product: AS2115
[   54.702920] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ASMedia
[   54.702922] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 00000000000000000000
[   54.705797] usb 2-1: USB controller vhci_hcd.0 does not support streams, which are required by the UAS driver.
[   54.705802] usb 2-1: Please try an other USB controller if you wish to use UAS.
[   54.705817] usb 2-1: USB controller vhci_hcd.0 does not support streams, which are required by the UAS driver.
[   54.705819] usb 2-1: Please try an other USB controller if you wish to use UAS.
[   54.705822] usb-storage 2-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[   54.706330] scsi host1: usb-storage 2-1:1.0
[   55.790896] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ASMT     2115             0    PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[   55.791091] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
[   55.797843] sd 1:0:0:0: [sde] 250069680 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/119 GiB)
[   55.802027] sd 1:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[   55.802031] sd 1:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[   55.806645] sd 1:0:0:0: [sde] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[   55.821913] sd 1:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk

And it is possible to access the device, using dd or smartmontools:

abc@DESKTOP:~$ sudo smartctl -x /dev/sde | head
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-6.1.21.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2+] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     SATA SSD
Serial Number:    DAB8074117A500666013
LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: SHFM21.3
User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
abc@DESKTOP:~$
abc@DESKTOP:~$
abc@DESKTOP:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=/dev/null bs=1M status=progress
591396864 bytes (591 MB, 564 MiB) copied, 6 s, 98.4 MB/s^C
591+0 records in
590+0 records out
618659840 bytes (619 MB, 590 MiB) copied, 6.35186 s, 97.4 MB/s

Actual Behavior

As the USB Mass Storage driver is not enabled, the /dev/sd device is not created.

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[github-actions]

Hi I'm an AI powered bot that finds similar issues based off the issue title.

Please view the issues below to see if they solve your problem, and if the issue describes your problem please consider closing this one and thumbs upping the other issue to help us prioritize it. Thank you!

Open similar issues:

• Unable to mount a usb mass storage device (#10446), similarity score: 0.81
• lsblk doesn't see USB storage (#8470), similarity score: 0.76
• Accessing USB storage devices in WSL 2? (#7770), similarity score: 0.73

Closed similar issues:

• Can't see USB in lsblk (#8541), similarity score: 0.76
• Reopen #5158 (#6979), similarity score: 0.73

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[kingsumos]

FYI, workaround described in other tickets are not a solution, since it requires a manual Kernel building. OFC manually enabling
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE and rebuilding the kernel fixes the issue, but this configuration parameter must be enabled by default in vanilla WSL.

Additionally, according to the changelog in the releases page for most of the new builds it was changed only such config parameters in kernel KConfig, so IMHO it will not be difficult to include CONFIG_USB_STORAGE as well
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel/releases

[kingsumos]

There is also an abandoned request created two years ago here:
#9132
Why there is no answer for such a pretty easy feature to implement???

[zcobol]

If you plugin a USB storage device it will be exported from Windows side as a mount point in WSL. usbipd service is used to attach other USB devices to WSL, i.e. cameras.

Since latest WSL releases support loadable modules usb-storage could be include as a module also.

[kingsumos]

Using "wsl --mount" command is limited in features - the way the stuff is handled inside Linux are kinda weird. For instance, query S.M.A.R.T. data doesn't work, "lsblk -S" shows erroneous data like garbage. IMHO Microsoft wasted the time implementing this this way, in fact using usbipd everything works as designed (but with some performance penalty).
Loadable modules can be an intermediate solution, but it will also require lots of steps building the modules every time Linux kernel is updated. This is infinite work, enabling the related CONFIG_ is a cleaner solution.

[itsdotscience]

Created this commit to update the config-wsl Kconfig file.

microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel@0a15dda

I was able to access an SD card from a USB reader passed from the host to WSL. Hacked together a little shell script that'll pull-down the kernel version currently running and build the 2 modules without actually updating the Kconfig.

https://gist.github.com/itsdotscience/6431647a15c9ff626e780066845bb6fe

[Komorebi-E]

From this July 2nd 2024 guide from Microsoft using usbpid-win https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb)

It does not make clear that there is still the need to build a custom WSL2 kernal with the USB and MMC modules included to access SD Cards. Note that custom WSL2 kernels cannot load modules, they have to be builtin.

I updated the script provided in the previous message from itsdotscience to include the MMC/SD card support.
See my threaded comment here

PowerShell Admin
usbipd bind --busid=6-1

PowerShell non-admin

usbipd attach --wsl --busid=6-1

usbipd: info: Using WSL distribution 'Ubuntu-22-04' to attach; the device will be available in all WSL 2 distributions.
usbipd: info: Using IP address 172.23.128.1 to reach the host.

Linux:

Before connecting the USB hub with SD Card reader

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

After connecting the USB hub with SD Card reader

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 058f:8468 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Card Reader/Writer
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
`

`lsblk` showing the 128Gb SD card connected by the USB hub as `sde`

```log
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 388.6M  1 disk
sdb      8:16   0     2G  0 disk [SWAP]
sdc      8:32   0     1T  0 disk /snap
                                 /wsl/Ubuntu-22.04
                                 /wslg/distro
                                 /
sdd      8:48   1     0B  0 disk
sde      8:64   1 119.1G  0 disk
└─sde1   8:65   1 119.1G  0 part

[crackwitz]

Adri Merrett (@Komorebi-E) ok cool and now let's look at lsblk please

[Komorebi-E]

Adri Merrett (@Komorebi-E) ok cool and now let's look at lsblk please

Christoph Rackwitz (@crackwitz) I have updated my comment to include the lsblk output and clarify that the MS instructions still require the custom kernel. I have added my improvements to the script from itsdotscience .

[4-FLOSS-Free-Libre-Open-Source-Software]

In the meantime, you could use the CONFIG_USB_STORAGE enabled wsl2 kernel xanmod-kernel-WSL2

zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -w "CONFIG_USB_STORAGE"
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y

[okineadev]

Hello 🙌

Here's how I added USB support to the WSL kernel:

cp Microsoft/config-wsl .config
make menuconfig
# Don't change anything, just save the config

Then add this to the end of the .config file:

CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_REALTEK=m
CONFIG_REALTEK_AUTOPM=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_DATAFAB=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_FREECOM=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_ISD200=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_USBAT=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_SDDR09=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_SDDR55=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_JUMPSHOT=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_ALAUDA=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_ONETOUCH=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_KARMA=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_CYPRESS_ATACB=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_ENE_UB6250=m
CONFIG_USB_UAS=m
CONFIG_USB_ANNOUNCE_NEW_DEVICES=y
CONFIG_USB_PRINTER=m
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_USBIP_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_MMC=m

Source: https://gist.github.com/okineadev/77a51c2526cd83bfbdbfa4163d1ed216

Next, build the kernel:

sudo make -j$(nproc)
# I'm not sure if the following commands are necessary, but I ran them just in case
sudo make -j$(nproc) modules
sudo make -j$(nproc) modules_install

kernel is ready!

---

When mounting a flash drive from usbipd, the following error appears:

usbipd: error: Loading vhci_hcd failed.

For a temporary solution I just run sudo modprobe vhci_hcd, later I will look into this problem and post the solution here

UPD: ✅ Fixed with echo "vhci_hcd" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf