Bug#884595: kernel recognizes keyboards and mice as joysticks

[Markus Koschany]

retitle 884595 udev: consider blacklisting fake joystick devices
reassign 884595 udev
clone 884595 -1
reassign -1 src:linux
retitle -1 kernel recognizes keyboards and mice as joysticks
thanks

Am 18.12.2017 um 00:33 schrieb Michael Biebl:
> Control: reassign -1 powermanga
> 
> Am 17.12.2017 um 23:24 schrieb Markus Koschany:
>> Am 17.12.2017 um 23:02 schrieb Michael Biebl:
>> [...]
>>> I don't have access to such a device, but it looks like this device node
>>> /dev/input/js0 is created by the kernel.
>>> Please elaborate why this is supposed to be a bug in udev.
>>
>> I'm not familiar with udev and I would have expected that the device
>> manager is responsible for creating or handling device nodes. This could
>> also be a bug in the kernel. We have received similar bug reports [1]
>> [2] for games in the past.
>>
>> In #714399 [3] Peter De Wachter pointed out that it might be a
>> longstanding kernel bug, reported as:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28912
>> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37982
>>
>> But there is also a way to work around this issue by blacklisting such
>> devices with udev rules:
>>
>> https://github.com/denilsonsa/udev-joystick-blacklist
>>
>> I'm not sure if someone ever intends to fix these kernel bugs. If udev
>> is not responsible for creating those fake joystick devices for
>> keyboards and mice, then please consider to blacklist the affected
>> devices, so that they will not be confused with joysticks.
> 
> I'm reassigning this back to powermanga. the udev package is not a
> proper place for such a blacklist. I'll let you decide if you want to
> reassign this bug to the kernel or if you want to provide such a
> blacklist on your own.

Michael what point does it serve to reassign this bug back to
powermanga? I explained to you that keyboards and mice are recognized as
joysticks and powermanga is surely not responsible for creating device
nodes. All games and applications with joystick support are affected.

I am going to clone this bug report and reassign it to src:linux and
reassign 884595 back to udev.

Reasoning for reassignment:

The kernel is responsible for creating device nodes. Various keyboard
and mouse models are detected as joysticks though. This makes several
games hard or even impossible to control because the application code
assumes a joystick is a joystick and not a keyboard or a mouse.

There are two longstanding kernel bugs which describe the same issue for
two devices:

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28912
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37982

Here are two more Debian bug reports which describe the same issue

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=711350
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=714401

The issue is still reproducible with the latest kernel in Sid.

If this bug cannot be fixed in time for the next stable release aka
Buster then I would like to see that the udev maintainers create a
blacklist for such keyboards and mice.

Preliminary work is already available at:

https://github.com/denilsonsa/udev-joystick-blacklist

If the udev maintainers don't want to create and maintain such a
blacklist, then please mark this bug report as "wontfix" accordingly.
Please don't reassign it back to affected games and applications.
Whether I or someone else wants to provide a patch should not be the
criterion for bug assignment.

Regards,

Markus


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