Linux lsusb Command - Print Information about USB on System

Universal Serial Bus or USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals such as keyboards, pointing devices, printers, digital cameras, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters" - Source: Wikipedia

Since it became an industry standard, now it’s hard to see a computer without USB port on it. The usage of USB Flashdisk makes it more popular. On Linux, we have lsusb to list the USB devices and its properties.

What is lsusb

From its manual page, lsusb is defined as:

A utility for displaying information about USB buses in the system and the devices connected to them.

How to run lsusb

To run lsusb, you can type lsusb directly from console.

$ lsusb

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 17ef:4811 Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]
Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0a5c:217f Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller

lsusb will show you the drivers and device which is internally attached on your system.

This is how to read the output. I grab the last line from above output :

Bus 008 Device 002 : ID 0a5c:217f Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller

• Bus 008 : means where the device is attached
• Device 002 : means this is the second device that attach
• ID : means the ID number of this device
• Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller : means its manufacturer name and device name

We also see that we also have USB 2.0 root hub drivers and USB 1.1 root hub drivers attach in our system.

This is also shown using dmesg command. Here's an example of it.

$ dmesg |grep -i usb

[ 0.353138] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 0.353150] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 0.353182] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 0.730026] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[ 0.730116] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[ 0.748019] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[ 0.748169] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 0.748336] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
[ 0.768019] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[ 0.768147] hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 0.768236] ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
[ 0.768251] uhci_hcd: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver

How to list USB details

Use -v paramater to do it. Here's a sample of it.

$ lsusb -v

Interface Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 4
bInterfaceNumber 1
bAlternateSetting 5
bNumEndpoints 2
bInterfaceClass 224 Wireless
bInterfaceSubClass 1 Radio Frequency
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
iInterface 0
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x83 EP 3 IN
bmAttributes 1
Transfer Type Isochronous
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 1
Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x03 EP 3 OUT
bmAttributes 1
Transfer Type Isochronous
Synch Type None
Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 1

Find how many USB devices are connected

To find it use this command

$ find /dev/bus

Then you will have an output like this:

/dev/bus
/dev/bus/usb
/dev/bus/usb/008
/dev/bus/usb/008/002
/dev/bus/usb/008/001
/dev/bus/usb/007
/dev/bus/usb/007/001
/dev/bus/usb/006
/dev/bus/usb/006/001
/dev/bus/usb/005
/dev/bus/usb/005/001
/dev/bus/usb/004
/dev/bus/usb/004/001
/dev/bus/usb/003
/dev/bus/usb/003/001
/dev/bus/usb/002
/dev/bus/usb/002/004
/dev/bus/usb/002/003
/dev/bus/usb/002/001
/dev/bus/usb/001
/dev/bus/usb/001/001

Using lsusb command combine with -D parameter, you can print the detail of specific device. Here's a sample to view Broadcom Bluetooth device.

$ lsusb -D /dev/bus/usb/008/002

Device: ID 0a5c:217f Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller
Couldn't open device, some information will be missing
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 2.00
bDeviceClass 224 Wireless
bDeviceSubClass 1 Radio Frequency
bDeviceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bMaxPacketSize0 64
idVendor 0x0a5c Broadcom Corp.
idProduct 0x217f Bluetooth Controller
bcdDevice 3.60
iManufacturer 1
iProduct 2
iSerial 3
bNumConfigurations 1
Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2

Find your Mass Storage

Since lsusb -v give us a very detail information, you may miss something to read. We can focus to specific information using grep command. Here are some samples.

Mass storage will have a vendor name and ID. We can use it as a starting point.

$ lsusb -v |grep -Ei '(idVendor|Mass\ Storage)'

idVendor 0x1005 Apacer Technology, Inc.
bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage

You can see, that we have one USB Mass Storage attached on our system from Apacer Technology, Inc.

Dump the physical USB device hierarchy as a tree

Use -t parameter to fulfill this purpose.

$ lsusb -t

/: Bus 08.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 07.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 06.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 05.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci_hcd/6p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 4, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 3, If 0, Class='bInterfaceClass 0x0e not yet handled', Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 3, If 1, Class='bInterfaceClass 0x0e not yet handled', Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci_hcd/6p, 480M

The number 12M and 480M are indicating the transfer rate speed of USB type.

• 12M means 12Mbit/s which is a USB 1.0 / 1.1 type
• 480M means 480Mbit/s which is a USB 2.0 type

If you found 5.0G, it means that you have USB 3.0 type. It has 5.0Gbit/s transfer rate. Linux recognize the detail of USB devices from '/var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids' . You can visit to Linux-USB.org to get the newest list of USB ID's or a practical guide to the universal serial bus.

That's all about lsusb command on daily basis. You can use lsusb command to do a diagnostic activity about your USB devices on your system. As usual, you can explore more detail by reading lsusb manual page. Just type man lsusb to see its manual page.