USBHIDACTION(1) BSD General Commands Manual USBHIDACTION(1)NAMEusbhidaction — perform actions according to USB HID controls
SYNOPSISusbhidaction [-diev] -c config-file -f device [-p pidfile] [-t tablefile]
arg ...
DESCRIPTION
The usbhidaction utility can be used to execute commands when certain
values appear on HID controls. The normal operation for this program is
to read the configuration file and then become a daemon and execute com‐
mands as the HID items specify. If a read from the HID device fails, the
program dies; this will make it die when the USB device is unplugged.
The options are as follows:
-d Toggle the daemon flag.
-e Instruct usbhidaction to die early. Useful when specified with
multiple verbose options to see how files are parsed.
-i Ignore HID items in the configuration file that do not exist in
the device.
-v Be verbose, and do not become a daemon.
-c config-file
Specify a path name for the configuration file.
-t tablefile
Specify a path name for the HID usage table file.
-f device
Specify a path name for the device to operate on. If device is
numeric, it is taken to be the USB HID device number. If it is a
relative path, it is taken to be the name of the device under
/dev. An absolute path is taken to be the literal device path‐
name.
-p pidfile
Specify an alternate file in which to store the process ID.
The configuration file will be re-read if the process gets a SIGHUP sig‐
nal.
CONFIGURATION
The configuration file has a very simple format. Each line describes an
action; if a line begins with a whitespace, it is considered a continua‐
tion of the previous line. Lines beginning with ‘#’ are considered as
comments.
Each line has four parts: a name of a USB HID item, a value for that
item, a debounce value, and an action. There must be whitespace between
the parts.
The item names are similar to those used by usbhidctl(1), but each part
must be prefixed by its page name.
The value is simply a numeric value. When the item reports this value,
the action will be performed. If the value is ‘*’, it will match any
value.
The debounce value is an integer not less than 0. The value of 0 indi‐
cates that no debouncing should occur. A value of 1 will only execute
the action when the state changes. Values greater than one specify that
an action should be performed only when the value changes by that amount.
The action is a normal command that is executed with system(3). Before
it is executed some substitution will occur: ‘$n’ will be replaced by the
nth argument on the command line, ‘$V’ will be replaced by the numeric
value of the HID item, ‘$N’ will be replaced by the name of the control,
and ‘$H’ will be replaced by the name of the HID device.
FILES
/usr/share/misc/usb_hid_usages The HID usage table.
/var/run/usbaction.pid The default location of the PID file.
EXAMPLES
The following configuration file can be used to control a pair of Philips
USB speakers with the HID controls on the speakers.
# Configuration for various Philips USB speakers
Consumer:Volume_Up 1 0 mixer -f $1 vol +1
Consumer:Volume_Down 1 0 mixer -f $1 vol -1
# mute not supported
#Consumer:Mute 1 0 mixer -f $1 mute
Consumer:Channel_Top.Microsoft:Base_Up 1 0 mixer -f $1 bass +1
Consumer:Channel_Top.Microsoft:Base_Down 1 0 mixer -f $1 bass -1
A sample invocation using this configuration would be
usbhidaction-f /dev/uhid1 -c conf /dev/mixer1
The following example controls the mixer volume using a Logitech Wingman.
Notice the debounce of 1 for buttons and 5 for the slider.
Button:Button_1 1 1 mixer vol +10
Button:Button_2 1 1 mixer vol -10
Generic_Desktop:Z * 5 mixer vol `echo $V | awk '{print int($$1/255*100)}'`
SEE ALSOusbhidctl(1), usbhid(3), uhid(4), usb(4)HISTORY
The usbhidaction command first appeared in NetBSD 1.6. The usbhidaction
command appeared in FreeBSD 5.1.
BSD April 9, 2003 BSD
