Copyright © 2005-2010 by Uwe Vogt, UV Software, Friedrichshafen.
Copyright © 2012-2025 by Uwe Vogt, UV Software, Berlin.

The PCBUSB library realizes a CAN to USB user-space driver under macOS for PCAN USB interfaces from PEAK-System Technik, Darmstadt. It supports up to 8 PCAN-USB or PCAN-USB FD devices.

The dynamic library libPCBUSB is running under macOS 10.13 and later (Intel x86_64 architecture) and since version 0.10.1 under macOS 11.0 and later as Universal macOS Binary (Intel x86_64 architecture and Apple arm64 architecture).

See the MacCAN website to learn more.

This repo offers two CAN command line tools that are build upon the PCBUSB library:

• can_moni to view incoming CAN messages
• can_test to test CAN communication

Note: These utilities can also be build and used on Linux with PEAK's chardev driver.

can_moni is a command line tool to view incoming CAN messages. I hate this messing around with binary masks for identifier filtering. So I wrote this little program to have an exclude list for single identifiers or identifier ranges (see program option --exclude or just -x). Precede the list with a ~ and you get an include list.

Type can_moni --help to display all program options.

can_test is a command line tool to test CAN communication. Originally developed for electronic environmental tests on an embedded Linux system with SocketCAN, I´m using it for many years as a traffic generator for CAN stress-tests.

Type can_test --help to display all program options.

• macOS 13.0 and later (Intel and Apple silicon)
• Debian GNU/Linux 12 (Linux Kernel 6.x)

• macOS Sequoia (15.3.1) on a Mac mini (M4 Pro, 2024)
• Apple clang version 16.0.0 (clang-1600.0.26.6)

• macOS Ventura (13.7.4) on a MacBook Pro (2019)
• Apple clang version 14.0.3 (clang-1403.0.22.14.1)

• Debian 6.1.128-1 (2025-02-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
• gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0

• libPCBUSB.x.y.dylib - Version 0.13 or later (Latest is Greatest!)

• libpcanbasic.so - PCAN Driver and Library for Linux, Version 8.20

Only the following devices from PEAK-System Technik are supported:

• PCAN-USB (product code: IPEH-002021, IPEH-002022)
• PCAN-USB FD (product code: IPEH-004022)
• PCAN-USB Pro FD (item no. IPEH-004061), but only the first channel (CAN1)

• For a list of known bugs and caveats see tab Issues in the GitHub repo.
• For a list of known bugs and caveats in the underlying PCBUSB library read the documentation of the appropriated library version.

This repository contains two versions of the PCBUSB utilities that are licensed under different licences:

• Standalone Version (macOS only): This version of the utilities does not require the PCBUSB library to be installed. The utilities are offered in binary form only. The executables can be found in the folder $(PROJROOT)/Binaries.
• Open-source Version (macOS and Linux): This version links the PCBUSB library at runtime. The PCBUSB library itself is not part of this work. The source code of the utilities can be found in the folder $(PROJROOT)/Utilities.

This program is freeware without any warranty or support!
Please note the copyright and license agreements.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Note: The libPCBUSB is licensed under a freeware license without any warranty or support. The libPCBUSB is not part of this program. It can be downloaded from https://www.mac-can.com/.

Mac and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions.
PCAN is a registered trademark of PEAK-System Technik GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany.
POSIX is a registered trademark of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.
GNU C/C++ is a registered trademark of Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other company, product and service names mentioned herein may be trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective owners.

If you connect your CAN device to a real CAN network when using these utilities, you might damage your application.

E-Mail: mailto://info@mac-can.com
Internet: https://www.mac-can.com