LIRCD(8) System Administration Utilities LIRCD(8)NAMElircd - LIRC daemon decodes infrared signals and provides them on a
Unix domain socket.
SYNOPSISlircd [options] [config-file]
DESCRIPTION
The main task of lircd is to decode the infrared signals and provide an
uniform interface for client applications. Clients can connect to lircd
through a Unix domain socket which is located in var/run/lirc/lircd.
Using this socket they will get the infrared codes received by lircd
and they can send commands to lircd.
-h --help
display this message
-v --version
display version
-n --nodaemon
don't fork to background
-p --permission=mode
file permissions for /var/run/lirc/lircd
-H --driver=driver
use given driver
-d --device=device
read from given device
-l --listen[=[address:]port]
listen for network connections
-c --connect=host[:port]
connect to remote lircd server
-o --output=socket
output socket filename
-P --pidfile=file
daemon pid file
-L --logfile=file
daemon log file
-r --release[=suffix]
auto-generate release events
-a --allow-simulate
accept SIMULATE command
-u --uinput
generate Linux input events
-R --repeat-max=limit
allow at most this many repeats
OPTIONS
The --permission option gives the file permission of var/run/lirc/lircd
if it has to be created in octal representation. Read the documentation
for chmod for further details. If no --permission option is given when
the socket is initially created the default is to give all users read
and write permissions (0666 in octal representation). If
/var/run/lirc/lircd already exists this option has no effect.
With the --device option you can select the character device which
lircd should read from. The default currently is /dev/lirc but it prob‐
ably will change in future.
If you're using the dev/input driver, you can use name=STRING or
phys=STRING to select the device; lircd will look in /dev/input to find
a device with a matching description. This is useful in case the device
name isn't fixed. STRING may contain the '*' and '?' wildcards and '\'
to mark them as literal.
With the --listen option you can let lircd listen for network connec‐
tions on the given address/port. The default address is 0.0.0.0, which
means that connections on all network interfaces will be accepted. The
default port is 8765. No security checks are currently implemented.
The listening lircd instance will send all IR events to the connecting
lircd instances.
The --connect option allows you to connect to other lircd servers that
provide a network socket at the given host and port number. The number
of such connections is currently limited to 100. The connecting lircd
instance will receive IR events from the lircd instance it connects to.
With the --output option you can select Unix domain socket, which lircd
will write remote key codes to. The default currently is
var/run/lirc/lircd.
With the --pidfile option you can select the lircd daemon pid file.
The default currently is /var/run/lirc/lircd.pid.
With the --logfile option you can select the lircd daemon log file.
The default currently is /var/log/lircd. Note that this option will
only be available if you compiled lircd without syslog support.
The --release option enables automatic generation of release events for
each button press. lircd will append the given suffix to the button
name for each release event. If no suffix is given the default suffix
is '_UP'.
The --allow-simulate option will enable the SIMULATE command which can
be issued using irsend(1). This will allow simulating arbitrary IR
events from the command line. Use this option with caution because it
will give all users with access to the lircd socket wide control over
you system. E.g. if you have configured your system to shut down by a
button press on your remote control, everybody will be able to shut
down your system from the command line.
On Linux systems the --uinput option will enable automatic generation
of Linux input events. lircd will open /dev/input/uinput and inject key
events to the Linux kernel. The key code depends on the name that was
given a button in the lircd config file, e.g. if the button is named
KEY_1, the '1' key code will be generated. You will find a complete
list of possible button names in /usr/include/linux/input.h.
The --repeat-max option sets an upper limit to the number of repeats
when sending a signal. The current default is 600. A SEND_START request
will repeat the signal this many times. Also, if the number of repeats
in a SEND_ONCE request exceeds this number, it will be replaced by this
number.
FILES
The config file for lircd is located in /etc/lirc/lircd.conf. lircd has
its own log file in /var/log/lircd (beginning with LIRC version 0.6.1
you can configure lircd to use syslogd for log messages; then it
depends on your system configuration where log messages will show up).
You can make lircd reread its config file and reopen its log file by
sending the HUP signal to the program. That way you can rotate old log
files.
DAEMONSlircd and lircmd are daemons. You should start them in some init script
depending on your system. There are some example scripts for different
distributions in the contrib directory. lircmd has to be started after
lircd as it connects to the socket lircd provides.
If you start lircd or lircmd from your shell prompt you will usually
get back immediately to the prompt. Often people think that the program
has died. But this is not an error. lircd and lircmd are daemons. Dae‐
mons always run in background.
SEE ALSO
The documentation for lirc is maintained as html pages. They are
located under html/ in the documentation directory.
lircd 0.9.0 March 2011 LIRCD(8)
