LIRCD(8)
NAME
lircd - decodes infrared signals and provides them on a Unix domain
socket.
SYNOPSIS
lircd [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 /dev/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 /dev/lircd
- -H --driver=driver
- use given driver
- -d --device=device
- read from given device
- -l --listen[=port]
- listen for network connections on port
- -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
OPTIONS
The --permission option gives the file permission of /dev/lircd if it
has to be created in octal representation. Read the documentation for
chmod(1) 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 /dev/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 probably 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 connections on the given port. The default port is 8765. No security checks
are currently implemented.
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.
With the --output option you can select Unix domain socket, which lircd will write remote key codes to. The default currently is /dev/lircd.
With the --pidfile option you can select the lircd daemon pid file. The default currently is /var/run/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.
FILES
The config file for lircd is located in /etc/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.
DAEMONS
lircd and lircmd(8) 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(8) has to be started after lircd as it connects to the socket lircd provides.
If you start lircd or lircmd(8) 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(8) are daemons.
Daemons always run in background.
SEE ALSO
- The documentation for lirc is maintained as html pages. They are
located under html/ in the documentation directory.