.TH acpid 8 ""

.\" Portions Copyright (c) 2001 Sun Microsystems

.\" Portions Copyright (c) Tim Hockin (thockin@hockin.org)

.SH NAME

acpid \- Advanced Configuration and Power Interface event daemon

.SH SYNOPSIS

\fBacpid\fP [\fIoptions\fP]

.SH DESCRIPTION

\fBacpid\fP is designed to notify user-space programs of ACPI events.

\fBacpid\fP should be started during the system boot, and will run as a

background process, by default.  It will open an events file

(\fI/proc/acpi/event\fP by default) and attempt to read whole lines which

represent ACPI events.  If the events file does not exist, \fBacpid\fP will

attempt to connect to the Linux kernel via the input layer and netlink.  When an

ACPI event is received from one of these sources, \fBacpid\fP will examine a

list of rules, and execute the rules that match the event. \fBacpid\fP will

ignore all incoming ACPI events if a lock file exists (\fI/var/lock/acpid\fP by

default).

.PP

\fIRules\fP are defined by simple configuration files.  \fBacpid\fP

will look in a configuration directory (\fI/etc/acpi/events\fP by default),

and parse all regular files with names that consist entirely of upper and

lower case letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens (similar to

.BR run-parts (8))

that do not begin with a period ('.') or end with a tilde (~).

Each file must define two things: an \fIevent\fP and an

\fIaction\fP.  Any blank lines, or lines where the first character is a

hash ('#') are ignored.  Extraneous lines are flagged as warnings, but

are not fatal.  Each line has three tokens: the key, a literal equal sign,

and the value.  The key can be up to 63 characters, and is case-insensitive

(but whitespace matters).  The value can be up to 511 characters, and is

case and whitespace sensitive.

.PP

The event value is a regular expression (see

.BR regcomp (3)),

against which events are matched.

.PP

The action value is a commandline, which will be invoked via \fI/bin/sh\fP

whenever an event matching the rule in question occurs.  The commandline may

include shell-special characters, and they will be preserved.  The only special

characters in an action value are "%" escaped.  The string "%e" will be

replaced by the literal text of the event for which the action was invoked.

This string may contain spaces, so the commandline must take care to quote the "%e" if it wants a single token.  The string "%%" will be replaced by a

literal "%".  All other "%" escapes are reserved, and will cause a rule to

not load.

.PP

This feature allows multiple rules to be defined for the same event (though no

ordering is guaranteed), as well as one rule to be defined for multiple events.

To force \fBacpid\fP to reload the rule configuration, send it a SIGHUP.

.PP

The pseudo-action \fI<drop>\fP causes the event to be dropped

completely and no further processing undertaken; clients connecting

via the UNIX domain socket (see below) will not be notified of the

event. This may be useful on some machines, such as certain laptops which

generate spurious battery events at frequent intervals. The name of

this pseudo-action may be redefined with a commandline option.

.PP

In addition to rule files, \fBacpid\fP also accepts connections on a UNIX

domain socket (\fI/var/run/acpid.socket\fP by default).  Any application may

connect to this socket.  Once connected, \fBacpid\fP will send the text of

all ACPI events to the client.  The client has the responsibility of filtering

for messages about which it cares.  \fBacpid\fP will not close the client

socket except in the case of a SIGHUP or \fBacpid\fP exiting.

.PP

For faster startup, this socket can be passed in as stdin so that \fBacpid\fP

need not create the socket.  In addition, if a socket is passed in as stdin, 

\fBacpid\fP will not daemonize.  It will be run in foreground.  This behavior 

is provided to support

.BR systemd (1).

.PP

.B acpid

will log all of its activities, as well as the stdout and stderr of any

actions, to syslog.

.PP

All the default files and directories can be changed with commandline options.

.SH OPTIONS

.TP 12

.BI \-c "\fR, \fP" \-\-confdir " directory"

This option changes the directory in which \fBacpid\fP looks for rule

configuration files.  Default is \fI/etc/acpi/events\fP.

.TP 12

.BI \-C "\fR, \fP" \-\-clientmax " number"

This option changes the maximum number of non-root socket connections which

can be made to the \fBacpid\fP socket.  Default is \fI256\fP.

.TP 12

.BI \-d "\fR, \fP" \-\-debug

This option increases the \fBacpid\fP debug level by one.

.TP

.BI \-e "\fR, \fP" \-\-eventfile " filename"

This option changes the event file from which \fBacpid\fP reads events.

Default is \fI/proc/acpi/event\fP.

.TP

.BI \-n "\fR, \fP" \-\-netlink

This option forces \fBacpid\fP to use the Linux kernel input layer and netlink interface for ACPI events.

.TP

.BI \-f "\fR, \fP" \-\-foreground

This option keeps \fBacpid\fP in the foreground by not forking at startup,

and makes it log to stderr instead of syslog.

.TP

.BI \-l "\fR, \fP" \-\-logevents

This option tells \fBacpid\fP to log information about all events and actions.

.TP

.BI \-L "\fR, \fP" \-\-lockfile " filename"

This option changes the lock file used to stop event processing.

Default is \fI/var/lock/acpid\fP.

.TP

.BI \-g "\fR, \fP" \-\-socketgroup " groupname"

This option changes the group ownership of the UNIX domain socket to which

\fBacpid\fP publishes events.

.TP

.BI \-m "\fR, \fP" \-\-socketmode " mode"

This option changes the permissions of the UNIX domain socket to which

\fBacpid\fP publishes events.  Default is \fI0666\fP.

.TP

.BI \-s "\fR, \fP" \-\-socketfile " filename"

This option changes the name of the UNIX domain socket which \fBacpid\fP opens.

Default is \fI/var/run/acpid.socket\fP.

.TP

.BI \-S "\fR, \fP" \-\-nosocket " filename"

This option tells \fBacpid\fP not to open a UNIX domain socket.  This

overrides the \fI-s\fP option, and negates all other socket options.

.TP

.BI \-p "\fR, \fP" \-\-pidfile " filename"

This option tells \fBacpid\fP to use the specified file as its pidfile.  If

the file exists, it will be removed and over-written.

Default is \fI/var/run/acpid.pid\fP.

.TP

.BI \-r "\fR, \fP" \-\-dropaction " action"

This option defines the pseudo-action which tells \fBacpid\fP to abort

all processing of an event, including client notifications.

Default is \fI<drop>\fP.

.TP

.BI \-t "\fR, \fP" \-\-tpmutefix

This option enables special handling of the mute button for certain

ThinkPad models with mute LEDs that get out of sync with the mute state

when the mute button is held down.  With this option, the mute button

will generate the following events in sync with the number of presses

(and, by extension, the state of the LED):

.IP

.br

button/mute MUTE (key pressed) K

.br

button/mute MUTE (key released) K

.TP

.BI \-v "\fR, \fP" \-\-version

Print version information and exit.

.TP

.BI \-h "\fR, \fP" \-\-help

Show help and exit.

.SH EXAMPLE

This example will shut down your system if you press the power button.

.PP

Create a file named /etc/acpi/events/power that contains the following:

.IP

.br

event=button/power

.br

action=/etc/acpi/power.sh "%e"

.PP

Then create a file named /etc/acpi/power.sh that contains the following:

.IP

/sbin/shutdown \-h now "Power button pressed"

.PP

Now, when \fBacpid\fP is running, a press of the power button will cause the

rule in /etc/acpi/events/power to trigger the script in /etc/acpi/power.sh.

The script will then shut down the system.

.SH TROUBLESHOOTING

\fBacpid\fP is a simple program that runs scripts in response to ACPI

events from the kernel.  When there's trouble, the problem is rarely

with \fBacpid\fP itself.  The following are some suggestions for

finding the most common sources of ACPI-related problems.

.PP

When troubleshooting \fBacpid\fP, it is important to be aware that other parts

of a system might be handling ACPI events.

.BR systemd (1)

is capable of handling the power switch and various other

events that are commonly handled by \fBacpid\fP.  See the description of

HandlePowerKey in

.BR logind.conf (5)

for more.  Some window managers also

take over \fBacpid\fP's normal handling of the power button and other events.

.PP

.BR kacpimon (8)

can be used to verify that the expected ACPI events are

coming in.  See the man page for

.BR kacpimon (8)

for the proper procedure.

If the events aren't

coming in, you've probably got a kernel driver issue.

.PP

If the expected events are coming in, then you'll need

to check and see if your window manager is responsible for

handling these events.  Some are, some aren't.  (E.g. in Ubuntu

14.04 (Unity/GNOME), there are settings for the laptop lid in the

System Settings > Power > "When the lid is closed" fields.)

If your window manager is responsible for handling the problematic

event, and you've got it configured properly, then you may have a

window manager issue.

.PP

Lastly, take a look in \fI/etc/acpi/events\fP (see above).  Is there

a configuration file in there for the event

in question (e.g. /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn for laptop lid open/close

events)?  Is it properly connected to a

script (e.g. /etc/acpi/lid.sh)?  Is that script working?  It's not

unusual for an \fBacpid\fP script to check and see if there is a window

manager running, then do nothing if there is.  This means it is up

to the window manager to handle this event.

.SH DEPENDENCIES

\fBacpid\fP should work on any linux kernel released since 2003.

.SH FILES

.PD 0

.B /proc/acpi/event

.br

.B /dev/input/event*

.br

.B /etc/acpi/

.br

.B /var/run/acpid.socket

.br

.B /var/run/acpid.pid

.br

.B /var/lock/acpid

.br

.PD

.SH BUGS

There are no known bugs.  To file bug reports, see \fBPROJECT WEBSITE\fP 

below.

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR regcomp (3)

.BR sh (1)

.BR socket (2)

.BR connect (2)

.BR init (1)

.BR systemd (1)

.BR acpi_listen (8)

.BR kacpimon (8)

.SH PROJECT WEBSITE

http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpid2/

.SH AUTHORS

Ted Felix <ted@tedfelix.com>

.br

Tim Hockin <thockin@hockin.org>

.br

Andrew Henroid