irattach

irattach em binds the Linux/IrDA stack to a device driver
 

irattach [<dev>] [-s] [-d dongle] [-v]

irattach binds the Linux/IrDA stack to an IrDA port. So this is something you must do in order to use IrDA on your Linux machine.

The irattach command will load the necessary IrDA driver, which will configure the IrDA hardware, and configure the IrDA stack to operate on the new IrDA port. Multiple IrDA ports can be activated through multiple irattach commands.

irattach by default uses the irtty driver which connects to the Linux TTY subsystem and use the standard Linux serial driver. This works well for most machines and configurations, but limits the baud rate to 115200bps (IrDA SIR mode). The mode of operation will work with most FIR hardware (as found in laptops - they provide serial emulation) and most serial dongles (provided the proper dongle type is specified), making it a safe choice. However, this doesn't work with USB hardware and a few other FIR hardware.

irattach can also use one of the Linux FIR drivers, with either the proper command line options or module configuration (this is documented below). This will allow you to use higher baud rates (generally up to 4Mbps). In general, Linux FIR support is not as stable and mature, due to lack of time and documentation.

irattach must be run as root or installed setuid root, as it requires root privileges. If you have compiled the IrDA stack as modules (recommended), then you will need to edit the /etc/modules.conf file. See the Infrared-HOWTO for details.

<dev> is the name of a TTY, an IrDA interface or IrDA driver.
 

bu

TTY name : this is the serial port to be configured using the irtty driver, such as /dev/ttyS0. You need to check your serial configuration or BIOS to know which serial port is the IrDA port.

bu

interface name : this is the device name of an IrDA interface, such as irda0. For this to work, either the driver need to be loaded prior to the call to irattach, or the proper alias must be set in /etc/modules.conf.

bu

module name : this is the name of an IrDA device driver module, such as irda-usb or nsc-ircc (see list below). All new IrDA interfaces created after loading the module will be configured, so this won't work if the module is already loaded. This feature is still experimental.

-s starts discovery of remote IrDA devices (note that the form "-s 1" is no longer supported)

-v shows version information (this happens, when no option is given, too)

-d dongle attaches an additional dongle driver to the IrDA port.

You need a dongle driver if you have an infrared device that connects to your computer's serial port (normal 9-pin serial port connector). These devices are called dongles, and can currently be used by any SIR driver (IrTTY or irport). This option is not compatible with FIR drivers.

The currently known (serial) dongles are:
 

bu

esi Extended Systems JetEye PC ESI-9680

bu

tekram Tekram IrMate IR-210B dongle

bu

actisys ACTiSYS IR-220L dongle

bu

actisys+ ACTiSYS IR-220L+ dongle

bu

girbil Greenwich GIrBIL dongle

bu

litelink Parallax LiteLink dongle & Extended Systems JetEye PC ESI-9680B

bu

airport N.N.

bu

old_belkin Belkin (old) SmartBeam dongle or any dongle only capable of 9600 bauds

bu

ep7211 IR port driver for the Cirrus Logic EP7211 processor (ARM based).

bu

mcp2120 Dongles based on the MCP2120 (Microchip)

bu

act200l ACTiSYS Ir-200L dongles

bu

ma600 Mobile Action ma600 dongles

If you are one of the lucky people which have a FIR chipset that is supported, you can use irattach with the interface name of the IrDA port to configure. You will need to configure /etc/conf.modules appropriately, with at least an alias of irda0 to the driver name.

You don't strictly need to use irattach with FIR drivers, you can use modprobe to load the driver and ifconfig to bring up the interface. You can also use irattach with the module name.

Of course, you need to know which FIR driver applies to your hardware. You may use findchip to get information about the FIR chip. If this doesn't help, the Infrared-HOWTO shows other means to retrieve these data.

Also, you often need to configure the Linux-serial driver to ignore the IrDA port, otherwise both drivers will conflict.

The currently known FIR drivers are:
 

bu

ali-ircc ALi FIR Controller Driver for ALi M5123 (options: io, irq, dma). This driver supports SIR, MIR and FIR (4Mbps) speeds. This chipset is used by e.g.:

The ALi M5123 FIR Controller is embedded in ALi M1543C, M1535, M1535D, M1535+, M1535D South Bridge.

bu

irda-usb IrDA-USB device driver, for USB devices/dongles that comply with the official IrDA-USB class specification, for e.g.:

ACTiSYS ACT-IR2000U

KC Technology KC-180

Extended Systems XTNDAccess ESI-9685

Note that there is another USB driver for those devices called ir-usb which is NOT compatible with the IrDA stack and conflict with irda-usb, so you need to make sure it doesn't get loaded.

bu

nsc-ircc NSC IrDA device driver (options: io, irq, dma, dongle_id, qos_mtt_bits). This chipset is used by e.g.:

IBM ThinkPad           dongle_id=0x08

HP OmniBook 6000       dongle_id=0x08

bu

sa1100_ir Infra-red driver for devices based on the StrongARM SA1100 embedded microprocessor (options: power_level, tx_lpm). This driver may support FIR on devices that can do it. This chipset is used by e.g.:

Samsung YOPY, COMPAQ iPAQ, SHARP Zaurus SL5000/5500...

bu

smc-ircc SMC IrCC controller driver (options: ircc_dma, ircc_irq). This chipset is used by e.g.:

Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook 635t Sony PCG-505TX

bu

w83977af_ir Winbond W83977AF IrDA device driver (options: io, irq, qos_mtt_bits). This chipset is used by e.g.:

Corel NetWinder

bu

toshoboe Toshiba OBOE IrDA device driver, supports Toshiba Type-O IR chipset. (options: max_baud). This chipset is used by e.g.:

Toshiba Libretto 100CT., and many more old Toshiba laptops.

bu

donauboe is a new version of toshoboe and has better FIR support and compability with the Donauoboe chip http://libxg.free.fr/lib-irda.html (options: ..). This chipset is used by e.g.:

Toshiba Libretto 100CT., Tecra 8100, Portege 7020 and many more Toshiba laptops.

bu

vlsi_ir VLSI 82C147 SIR/MIR/FIR device driver (options: ..). This chipset is used by e.g.:

HP Omnibook 800

bu

clksrc int, description "clock input source selection"
 

bu

ringsize int array (min = 1, max = 2), description "tx, rx ring descriptor size"
 

bu

sirpulse int, description "sir pulse width tuning"
 

bu

mtt_bits int, description "IrLAP bitfield representing min-turn-time"
 

Attach the IrDA stack to the second serial port and start discovery irattach /dev/ttyS1 -s

Attach the IrDA stack to the first serial port where you have an ACTiSYS dongle and start discovery irattach /dev/ttyS0 -d actisys+ -s

Attach the IrDA stack to the NSC FIR (4Mbps) device driver on a Thinkpad laptop irattach irda0 -s. Note: You must also add some entries to /etc/conf.modules:
 

options nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x09 
alias irda0 nsc-ircc 

"ioctl(TIOCGETD): %m"

"irattach: tty: set_disc(%d): %s"

"tcsetattr: %m"

"Failed to open %s: %m"

"Couldn't get device fd flags: %m"

"Couldn't set device to non-blocking mode: %m"

N.N.

irattach(8), irdaping(8), irdadump(8), findchip(8), irkbd(8), irpsion5(8), modprobe(8)
 

Linux/IrDA Project http://irda.sourceforge.net -*- Linux/IrDA-Tutorial http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/IrDA/index.html -*- Infrared-HOWTO http://mobilix.org/howtos.html -*- Infrared-Hardware-Survey http://mobilix.org/ir_misc.html
 

This manual page is written by Werner Heuser wehe@mobilix.org. It is based on the READMEs from irda-utils by the Linux/IrDA Project and the Linux/IrDA-Tutorial. It was subsequently updated and modified by Jean Tourrilhes jt@hpl.hp.com.
 

Copyright (c) 2001 Werner Heuser Copyright (c) 2002 Jean Tourrilhes
 

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts.