I wrote a script to show how I’d do that:
#!/bin/bash
port="1-1.1" # as shown by lsusb -t: {bus}-{port}(.{subport})
bind_usb() {
echo "$1" >/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind
}
unbind_usb() {
echo "$1" >/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
}
unbind_usb "$port"
# sleep 1 # enable delay here
bind_usb "$port"
First you need to get the bus and port number of the usb port in question. You can do that with lsusb and any device you recognize in lsusb’s output, I use a Sandisk pendrive here:
$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04f2:b39a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 112: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 019: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 018: ID 0424:2504 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 001 Device 022: ID 0781:5567 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Blade
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
$ lsusb -t
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/3p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/8p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 22, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 2: Dev 18, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 19, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
|__ Port 1: Dev 19, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
|__ Port 7: Dev 112, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
|__ Port 7: Dev 112, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
|__ Port 8: Dev 5, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
|__ Port 8: Dev 5, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
From the output of lsusb you get the bus and device number of the device, then search this device in the output of lsusb -t to get the bus and port number (sometimes with subports). The syntax is:
1-2.3 # for Bus 1 Port 2 Subport 3 – strip leading zeroes!
Use this as port in the script. Now you just need to make it executable with chmod +x /path/to/script and run it with root permissions:
sudo /path/to/script
I didn’t need one for my pendrive, but it may be necessary for you to add a delay between unbinding and binding again, that’s what the commented out sleep 1 line is for – you can experiment with the values, e.g. sleep 0.5 for half a second.
Note that this approach shows how to disable and enable again a certain USB port, if you want a specific device to be unbound and rebound again you’ll have to use the same USB port for this to work. One could think of a way to parse lsusb’s output to dynamically get the bus and port number of a specific device every time the script is called, this would allow you to use any USB port, but I feel that would be an overkill here.
Suggestions taken from this linux.com blog article.
