Retrieve write protect state of USB device in user space
 

Hi,

I'm currently struggling with the following issue:

I have to know the write protection state of USB mass storage devices which have a mechanical switch to protect the date from being overwritten.

When I attach such USB device to our hardware (embedded software project, MIPS based. kernel 2.6.10), I see that the kernel is showing me the write protection state (on or off) of the attached device. So, the kernel can anyhow detect this.

However, I can't find a way to get this information in user space (because that's where I need it).

Does anyone know how I can get this kernel info into user space? Are there specific locations/files where I can retrieve this information, like we can use /sys/block/sda/devices to get, among other things, vendor name, version number, model,...?

So far, I didn't succeed in finding the location for the write protection state of the device.

Any help much appreciated!

Best rgds,

--Geert