IrDA Utilities

Dag Brattli

Abstract

The IrDA Utils package is a collection of programs, that enables the
use of the IrDA protocols. Some user-space configuration is required
in order to make IrDA work for your machine, and some IrDA features
like IrOBEX is actually implemented in user-space.

1 Introduction

IrDA is an exciting way of communicating with remote devices. IrDA
uses infrared wireless communication so no cables are required. Speeds
range from 9600bps to 4Mbps. The types of devices that support IrDA
are LAN adapters, PDA's, printers, laptops, mobile phones etc.

Linux-IrDA is a GNU implementation of the IrDA protocols specifications
written from scratch. Linux-IrDA supports most of the IrDA protocols
like IrLAP, IrLMP, IrIAP, IrTTP, IrLPT, IrLAN, IrCOMM and IrOBEX.

Most of the features are implemented in the kernel, so you must enable
IrDA support in the kernel before you can use any of the tools and
programs mentioned in this document.

2 Getting started

First of all you need to install the tools in this package. Make and
make install should do that for you. By default it will install the
files in /etc/irda, and in /usr/sbin. If you don't like that, you
should edit the makefile.

2.2 irattach

irattach uses the irtty module which connects to the Linux TTY and serial
driver. This works well for most machines, but limits the speed to
115200bps (IrDA SIR mode). If you want higher speeds, you must use a
special device driver for the IrDA chipset used by your machine.  Currently
there are not that many device drivers implemented, mostly because it's
very hard to get the documentation, and the drivers are in fact quite hard
to implement even if you are lucky and get the documentation for the
chipset.

If you are one of the lucky people which have a chipset that is supported,
then you don't need to use irattach anymore. Now you just have to insmod
the driver like this:

For more info, please read irattach/README

3 Other programs

irdadump  Is a program that displays all the frames sent, and received
          on the infrared link. 

irdaping  Makes it possible to try and ping a remote device using
          IrDA test frames. Not all devices implements support for test
          frames. 

irkbd     Implements support for the mouse and keyboard protocol as
          used by the Tekram IR-660 infrared docking station. 

findchip  Tries to find out which IrDA chipset your machine is using. Try
          out "./findchip -v" to check it out.

irsockets A collections of programs which uses IrDA sockets.

psion     File transfer program for exchanging files with your Psion PDA

Have fun! 
