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A description of the format is available in the lircd.conf(5) manpage. In fact you probably don't need to know anything about it except that it's maybe the most important part of the package.
lircmd can be used to emulate a mouse with your remote control. Depending on the config file described in the next section it converts IR signals into mouse events. It currently supports three mouse protocols (MouseSystems, IntelliMouse and IMPS/2). For compatibility reasons the default protocol is the MouseSystems protocol but the preferred is the IntelliMouse protocol. The advantage of this protocol is its wheel-mouse support. That way you can for example configure Netscape to scroll if you press certain buttons.
IMPS/2 used to be the preferred protocol since it also has wheel-mouse support and IntelliMouse was not available. However PS/2 protocol specifies that the mouse must accept and reply to specific commands, and that can not be done through the pipe lircmd uses. For this reason IntelliMouse support was written and is currently the preferred protocol.
lircmd can basically be used with two applications: X11 and gpm Using gpm makes no sense with a modern X installation since this supports multiple mouses natively.
Put this section in your Xorg.conf file to use the lircmd emulated mouse in addition to your normal one.
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "LIRC-Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IntelliMouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
If your distribution does not have uinput enabled by default (i. e., there is a /dev/uinput device) add to the file /etc/modules the entry:
uinput
To make this device writable for regular users create a new file /etc/udev/rules.d/55-uinput with one line
KERNEL=="uinput", MODE="0666"
However, this has security implications. The preferred setup is to use the example rule in the contrib directory which makes /dev/uinput accessible for the lirc user, and then run lircmd as this user
Another alternative is to run lircmd as root. In this case this no udev rule is required, but it raises other security concerns.
Finally, run lircmd with the --uinput option (which can be set in lirc_options.conf).
LIRC ships with systemd support files. To start lircmd, use
# systemd start lircmd.service
To make it start at boot time use:
# systemd enable lircmd.service
The config file for lircmd is quite simple. Just look at the example in the contrib directory. Some drivers even already bring their config file for lircmd with them so lircmd is ready to run.
You can choose between MouseSystems, IntelliMouse and IMPS/2 protocol. The default is MouseSystems protocol.
Change the values here if your mouse pointer is moving too fast/slow. Usually the mouse pointer moves 1 pixel every time it receives a signal. The values here specify how much mouse movement accelerates if you hold down the according button on your remote control for a longer timer. The start value is the threshold that starts acceleration. Then the amount of pixels is calculated with the following formula: x=repeat*multiplier, where repeat is the number of repeated signals. max specifies the maximum number of pixels the pointer can move due to a single command.
I recommend that you use a special button to activate the mouse daemon with this command. You will see whenever the daemon is activated/deactivated directly on the screen. If you omit this command the daemon will always be active.
The difference between ACTIVATE and TOGGLE_ACTIVATE is how you leave the mouse mode. With TOGGLE_ACTIVATE you have to press the button that you use to enter the mode to leave it. With ACTIVATE you will leave mouse mode as soon as you press a button that is not used for any function in the config file.
The obvious functionality. You can even get better granularity by combing different commands (copied from the config file for AnimaX remotes):
MOVE_N ANIMAX_MOUSE_PAD MOUSE_NNE MOVE_NE ANIMAX_MOUSE_PAD MOUSE_NNE
This also demonstrates that all commands are executed beginning at the top.
This will only work with IntelliMouse and IMPS/2 protocols and indicates movement of the wheel.
This simulates according events for the left (x=1), middle (x=2) or right (x=3) mouse button.
Pressing ignored buttons won't cause the mouse daemon to deactivate. This is useful, for example, if your remote sends separate press or release codes that you have mapped in your lircd.conf. This only makes sense if you use ACTIVATE instead of TOGGLE_ACTIVATE.
'*' is allowed as wild card for button and remote. Please note that every line that fits to the received signal will be executed. Parsing starts at the top of the file.
The lircrc file is used to map the key symbols defined in lircd.conf to application-specific strings. Thus, this file cannot be configured until lircd has been configured to provide proper key symbols as displayed by irw.
The lircrc file should be placed in the home directory as ~/.config/lircrc. Optionally you can create a system-wide configuration file located in /etc/lirc/lircrc which will be used when no lircrcfile can be found in the user's home directory. The idea is to have configuration information of all clients in one place. That lets you keep a better overview of clients and simplifies the use of modes explained later.
The preferred setup is to have a main ~/.lircrc which includes a number of other files, typically living in ~/.config/lircrc/*. The contrib directory contains a number of example files, most of which created using lirc-config-tool for an ordinary MCE remote
First I will explain the syntax of the lircrcfile itself. The file consists of one or more of the following constructions:
begin
prog = ...
remote = ...
button = ...
[button = ...] (optional, for key sequences)
repeat = ...
delay = ...
ignore_first_events = ...
config = ...
[config = ...] (optional, for toggle button behaviour)
mode = ...
flags = ...
end
Bringing it to the point the above says which program (prog) should do what (config, mode, flags) if you press a certain button (remote, button) a specified time (repeat, delay). By default for each remote signal received the lircrc config file is read from top to bottom and each matching configuration is executed in order of appearance.
begin mode
...
end mode
All configurations embraced by this mode construct will stay
inactive until the program enters the given mode by using the
mode token. Please note that configurations outside a mode
will always stay active even though you enter a specific mode.
To prevent the execution of such "global"
configurations you can place these at the end of the config
file below all mode constructs and use the quit flag
described below to stop execution of further configurations
when a match happens inside a mode block.
If mode is equal to the name of a client application this
application will always start in this mode. Consider this
situation: you want to start xawtv with
irexec and enter the tv mode. Then irexec
would enter the tv mode but xawtv would begin without any mode
enabled. By renaming the mode from tv to
xawtv you can solve this problem.
The following are valid flags:
begin
flags = startup_mode
mode = browser
end
If you press a button on your remote the lircrc is searched from top to bottom for matching configurations. Be aware that the search is not stopped by a match unless you have specified the quit flag in the matching configuration. You should also be aware that if a configuration changes the current mode, the change takes effect immediately, which means that the further search for matching configurations beginning at the next configuration further down will take place with the new mode setting.
It is possible to split the lirc configuration into several files by using the include command. It tells the parser to read the specified file before resuming the current one:
include ~/.config/lirc/xawtv
If the specified filename begins with "~/", "~" will be substituted with the content of the HOME environment variable. The filename also can be put inside <> and "" characters which in contrast to the C preprocessor do not have special meanings.
A simple example for a lircrc file (supposing you using an AnimaX remote and use the sample files for this remote from the remotes database. If you have another remote change remote= and button= according to your remote [t definitions are made in the lircd.conf file]):
begin
remote = ANIMAX
button = MENU_DOWN
prog = irexec
repeat = 0
config = echo "Hello world!"
end
If you have saved this as ~/.config/lircrc , start irexec. Press the button which is selected in the button= line and you will see a 'Hello world!' on your screen. As you can see irexec is a simple program launcher. Of course you can do a lot more than just start programs. Be aware that irexec will wait for the started program to finish, before it will resume it function. If this is not what you want, you should add a "&" at the end of the config line to start the desired program in background.
Differences in the order of configurations in lircrc can lead to completely different results, as this example shows:
begin order
begin
button = OK
prog = irexec
config = echo "This is printed last"
end
end order
begin
button = OK
prog = irexec
config = echo "This is printed first"
mode = order
flags = quit
end
Using this order on first key stroke of OK
"This is printed first"
will appear - the command is executed and the mode 'order' is entered. The second stroke (and every further one) will lead to
"This is printed last"
"This is printed first"
Both configs are executed, even though the second is outside the mode; the quit flag has no effect - no other config is following it in the lircrc file.
Changing the order within the lircrc to
begin
button = OK
prog = irexec
config = echo "This is printed first"
mode = order
flags = quit
end
begin order
begin
button = OK
prog = irexec
config = echo "This is printed last"
end
end order
will lead to
"This is printed first"
on every stroke. The second config is never executed: even though the mode is changed it can not take effect (because of the quit flag). To achieve unrestricted usage of keys within modes place all mode-configurations before all other configurations; and use quit flags within the mode if you don't want other configurations to be executed.
If you start a LIRC client program, it reads your ~/.config/lircrc and reacts only on prog= entries which point to itself. All programs should give you the possibility to use an alternative config file. If you have included more than one program in your lircrc, then start all these programs, they react only to their according entries in lircrc. This also leads to a disadvantage of the mode concept. If you don't start all client programs at a time the mode they currently are in may differ between applications. Also key sequences might not be recognized equally because all programs then don't have the same starting point. In order to solve this problem there is the lircrcd program since version 0.8.0. lircrcd's purpose is to synchronise all clients and maintain a common mode for all applications. In order to use the lircrcd feature you have to explicitly enable it by adding the following line at the beginning of the file:
lircrc_class default
This directive can only be used in a top-level file, not in an
included one. The string default could actually be
any identifier; clients using a lircrc with the same string will
synchronized.
In versions before 0.9.2 the same effect was acheived with a "shebang",
a first line in the file #! lircrcd From 0.9.2+, the
support for this deprecated and it will be removed in an upcoming
release.
The LIRC package contains the irsend tool for sending infrared signals to e.g. your TV or CD player. For reliable transmission a good config file is even more important than for receiving. A discussion of all the infrared protocols is way beyond the scope of this manual but when creating a config file at least read the hints at the end of this manual. You can find exact timing specifications for most common protocols in files retrieved from the remotes database located using irdb-get find generic
LIRC also provides interfaces to develop applications which sends data. Sine 0.9.2, the primary interface is the client API.