r-cuse2net implements a CUSE device which relays operations on it to a remote server.

At the moment, only the most important functionality for TTY devices is implemented.

It was implemented to make serial devices in podman containers available and allow reconnecting them without restarting the container.

It consists of:

• a server part (cuse2net-dev) which listens on the network and speaks with the real device. This program does not need special permission

• a client part (cuse2net-cuse) which implements the cuse device and speaks with the server. This program requires access to /dev/cuse (see SECURITY below)

Run character devices over network

Usage: cuse2net-dev [OPTIONS] --device <DEVICE>

Options:
      --log-format <FMT>  log format [default: default] [possible values: default, compact, full, json]
  -l, --listen <IP>       ip address to listen on [default: ::]
  -p, --port <PORT>       port to listen on [default: 8000]
  -d, --device <DEVICE>   device
  -h, --help              Print help
  -V, --version           Print version

Run character devices over network

Usage: cuse2net-cuse [OPTIONS] --server <server:port> --device <DEVICE>

Options:
      --log-format <FMT>      log format [default: default] [possible values: default, compact, full, json]
  -s, --server <server:port>  device major number
  -m, --major <node-major>    device major number
      --minor <node-minor>    device minor number
  -d, --device <DEVICE>       device name (without /dev)
  -h, --help                  Print help
  -V, --version               Print version

cuse2net-dev --device /dev/serial/by-path/pci-0000:00:14.0-usb-0:3:1.0-port0 --listen 127.0.0.1 --port 9001

cuse2net-cuse --device ttyCUSE0 --major 450 --minor 100 --server 127.0.0.1:9000

or (when using the systemd services in contrib/

# cat <<EOF >/etc/sysconfig/cuse2net-ttyCUSE0.conf
SERVER_IP=127.0.0.1
SERVER_PORT=9000
CUSE_MAJOR=450
CUSE_MINOR=100
# RUST_LOG=debug
EOF

# systemctl enable cuse2net-cuse@ttyCUSE0

podman run --device=/dev/ttyCUSE0:rwm ...
esptool esp32 -p /dev/ttyCUSE0 ...

cuse2net-cuse can run as an arbitrary user and needs only access to /dev/cuse. But in opposite to the related /dev/fuse device, it is not recommended to open its permissions too much (e.g. do not make it world accessible).

CUSE allows reading and writing of arbitrary memory of a program which runs an ioctl() on it.

Hence, keep permissions of /dev/cuse restricted and run cuse2net-cuse as a privileged user.

Program should run as a privileged user (see above). There is no special risk regarding the CUSE related operations

Program needs access to the real device which can be accomplished by special udev rules.

It runs ioctl requested from the client program. At the moment only a limited amount of ioctl are allowed, but when arbitrary ones are possible, special crafted arguments might override memory and allow attacks on the server.

As written above, the program that accesses the device generated by cuse2net-cuse is defenseless at its mercy.

• make ioctl on server side non-blocking

• implement more ioctl

• implement USB

• create an abstraction over ioctls; currently, it is expected that ioctl codes on server and client side are identical

• ESP32 IDF