Writing udev rules - wildcards?

Question

Is it possible to use wildcard characters when writing udev rules? I have multiseat and i want to assign every device (keyboard, mouse etc) that gets connected to a certain USB hub - or even better, a specific port on the front of the PC - to seat1. It's kind of cumbersome to have to redo new rules each time i swap stuff around or don't remember in which USB slot each device was connected.

Using just simple udev rules, as generated by 'loginctl attach' command:

TAG=="seat", ENV{ID_FOR_SEAT}=="usb-pci-0000_00_14_0-usb-0_5_3", ENV{ID_SEAT}="seat1"

Maybe its a good idea, to add the code you have already to the question. — Marco, Jul 26 '23 at 05:08
UDEV rules accept some simple shell style pattern matching ... So, something like usb-pci-* should work. — Raffa, Jul 26 '23 at 14:53
Also please see how pattern matching is used here: https://askubuntu.com/a/1478053/968501 — Raffa, Jul 26 '23 at 15:27
@Raffa Thanks, i searched all manpages i could think of, including that one, except not for the phrase "pattern character" ...this is a clear case of poor documentation of udev. — dolt, Jul 26 '23 at 20:17

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 26 '23 at 15:19

Is it possible to use wildcard characters when writing udev rules?

Yes, it's possible according to man udev:

Most of the fields support shell glob pattern matching and alternate patterns. The following special characters are supported:

   "*"
       Matches zero or more characters.
"?"
       Matches any single character.
"[]"
       Matches any single character specified within the brackets. For example, the pattern
       string "tty[SR]" would match either "ttyS" or "ttyR". Ranges are also supported via
       the "-" character. For example, to match on the range of all digits, the pattern
       "[0-9]" could be used. If the first character following the "[" is a "!", any
       characters not enclosed are matched.
"|"
       Separates alternative patterns. For example, the pattern string "abc|x" would match
       either "abc" or "x".

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 11 '24 at 13:36

I have multiseat and i want to assign every device (keyboard, mouse etc) that gets connected to a certain USB hub

You can assign a USB controller to a seat. Everything that gets plugged into is is automatically assigned to the same seat as the controller.

No wildcard required.

Writing udev rules - wildcards?

2 Answers2