1LIRCD(8) System Administration Utilities LIRCD(8)
2
6 lircd - LIRC daemon decodes infrared signals and provides them on a
7 Unix domain socket.
8
10 lircd [options] [config-file]
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13 The main task of lircd is to decode the infrared signals and provide an
14 uniform interface for client applications. Clients can connect to lircd
15 through a Unix domain socket which is located in var/run/lirc/lircd.
16 Using this socket they will get the infrared codes received by lircd
17 and they can send commands to lircd.
18 -h --help
20 display this message
21 -v --version
23 display version
24 -n --nodaemon
26 don't fork to background
27 -p --permission=mode
29 file permissions for /var/run/lirc/lircd
30 -H --driver=driver
32 use given driver
33 -d --device=device
35 read from given device
36 -l --listen[=[address:]port]
38 listen for network connections
39 -c --connect=host[:port]
41 connect to remote lircd server
42 -o --output=socket
44 output socket filename
45 -P --pidfile=file
47 daemon pid file
48 -L --logfile=file
50 daemon log file
51 -r --release[=suffix]
53 auto-generate release events
54 -a --allow-simulate
56 accept SIMULATE command
57 -u --uinput
59 generate Linux input events
60 -R --repeat-max=limit
62 allow at most this many repeats
63
65 The --permission option gives the file permission of var/run/lirc/lircd
66 if it has to be created in octal representation. Read the documentation
67 for chmod for further details. If no --permission option is given when
68 the socket is initially created the default is to give all users read
69 and write permissions (0666 in octal representation). If
70 /var/run/lirc/lircd already exists this option has no effect.
71 With the --device option you can select the character device which
73 lircd should read from. The default currently is /dev/lirc but it prob‐
74 ably will change in future.
75 If you're using the dev/input driver, you can use name=STRING or
77 phys=STRING to select the device; lircd will look in /dev/input to find
78 a device with a matching description. This is useful in case the device
79 name isn't fixed. STRING may contain the '*' and '?' wildcards and '\'
80 to mark them as literal.
81 With the --listen option you can let lircd listen for network connec‐
83 tions on the given address/port. The default address is 0.0.0.0, which
84 means that connections on all network interfaces will be accepted. The
85 default port is 8765. No security checks are currently implemented.
86 The listening lircd instance will send all IR events to the connecting
87 lircd instances.
88 The --connect option allows you to connect to other lircd servers that
90 provide a network socket at the given host and port number. The number
91 of such connections is currently limited to 100. The connecting lircd
92 instance will receive IR events from the lircd instance it connects to.
93 With the --output option you can select Unix domain socket, which lircd
95 will write remote key codes to. The default currently is
96 var/run/lirc/lircd.
97 With the --pidfile option you can select the lircd daemon pid file.
99 The default currently is /var/run/lirc/lircd.pid.
100 With the --logfile option you can select the lircd daemon log file.
102 The default currently is /var/log/lircd. Note that this option will
103 only be available if you compiled lircd without syslog support.
104 The --release option enables automatic generation of release events for
106 each button press. lircd will append the given suffix to the button
107 name for each release event. If no suffix is given the default suffix
108 is '_UP'.
109 The --allow-simulate option will enable the SIMULATE command which can
111 be issued using irsend(1). This will allow simulating arbitrary IR
112 events from the command line. Use this option with caution because it
113 will give all users with access to the lircd socket wide control over
114 you system. E.g. if you have configured your system to shut down by a
115 button press on your remote control, everybody will be able to shut
116 down your system from the command line.
117 On Linux systems the --uinput option will enable automatic generation
119 of Linux input events. lircd will open /dev/input/uinput and inject key
120 events to the Linux kernel. The key code depends on the name that was
121 given a button in the lircd config file, e.g. if the button is named
122 KEY_1, the '1' key code will be generated. You will find a complete
123 list of possible button names in /usr/include/linux/input.h.
124 The --repeat-max option sets an upper limit to the number of repeats
126 when sending a signal. The current default is 600. A SEND_START request
127 will repeat the signal this many times. Also, if the number of repeats
128 in a SEND_ONCE request exceeds this number, it will be replaced by this
129 number.
130
132 The config file for lircd is located in /etc/lirc/lircd.conf. lircd has
133 its own log file in /var/log/lircd (beginning with LIRC version 0.6.1
134 you can configure lircd to use syslogd for log messages; then it
135 depends on your system configuration where log messages will show up).
136 You can make lircd reread its config file and reopen its log file by
137 sending the HUP signal to the program. That way you can rotate old log
138 files.
139
141 lircd and lircmd are daemons. You should start them in some init script
142 depending on your system. There are some example scripts for different
143 distributions in the contrib directory. lircmd has to be started after
144 lircd as it connects to the socket lircd provides.
145 If you start lircd or lircmd from your shell prompt you will usually
147 get back immediately to the prompt. Often people think that the program
148 has died. But this is not an error. lircd and lircmd are daemons. Dae‐
149 mons always run in background.
150
152 The documentation for lirc is maintained as html pages. They are
153 located under html/ in the documentation directory.
154lircd 0.9.0 March 2011 LIRCD(8)