How to reverse engineer simple usb device [windows -> linux]

Question

I'd like to reverse engineer my usb beer-can refrigurator, which does connect via USB on windows and via simple GUI tray-tool can set/query temperature.

I was thinking about running virtualboxed driver and capturing usb communications via wireshark and usbmon interface.

Anyone know of handy guide/tools that would help me reverse engineer this and possibly write simple userspace tool / driver?

Answer 1

VMWare can capture USB traffic between the device and the VM. A VMWare engineer even made an open-source tool for analyzing and visualizing USB logs - Virtual USB analyzer.

• Web site
• Tutorial

Alternatively, a tool for converting VMWare logs to .pcap for analyzing in Wireshark is available from Sogeti.

Answer 2

Matt Cutts wrote a series of blog posts outlining the general approach of reverse-engineering a USB device and getting it working with linux, and explaining how he did this for a USB controlled toy missile launcher. You may find them a useful starting point.

• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reverse-engineering-a-windows-usb-driver/
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/playing-with-a-usb-missile-launcher/
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/linux-usb-device-driver-info/
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/compile-a-simple-usb-program-in-linux/