Blame view
Documentation/rfkill.txt
5.52 KB
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
1 2 |
rfkill - RF kill switch support =============================== |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
3 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
4 5 |
1. Introduction 2. Implementation details |
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
6 7 |
3. Kernel API 4. Userspace support |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
8 |
|
dc288520a rfkill: document ... |
9 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
10 |
1. Introduction |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
11 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
12 13 14 |
The rfkill subsystem provides a generic interface to disabling any radio transmitter in the system. When a transmitter is blocked, it shall not radiate any power. |
f3146aff7 rfkill: clarify m... |
15 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
16 17 18 19 |
The subsystem also provides the ability to react on button presses and disable all transmitters of a certain type (or all). This is intended for situations where transmitters need to be turned off, for example on aircraft. |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
20 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
21 22 23 24 25 26 |
The rfkill subsystem has a concept of "hard" and "soft" block, which differ little in their meaning (block == transmitters off) but rather in whether they can be changed or not: - hard block: read-only radio block that cannot be overriden by software - soft block: writable radio block (need not be readable) that is set by the system software. |
f3146aff7 rfkill: clarify m... |
27 |
|
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
28 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
29 |
2. Implementation details |
dc288520a rfkill: document ... |
30 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
31 32 33 34 35 |
The rfkill subsystem is composed of three main components: * the rfkill core, * the deprecated rfkill-input module (an input layer handler, being replaced by userspace policy code) and * the rfkill drivers. |
bed7aac94 rfkill: remove tr... |
36 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
37 38 39 40 |
The rfkill core provides API for kernel drivers to register their radio transmitter with the kernel, methods for turning it on and off and, letting the system know about hardware-disabled states that may be implemented on the device. |
bed7aac94 rfkill: remove tr... |
41 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
42 43 44 |
The rfkill core code also notifies userspace of state changes, and provides ways for userspace to query the current states. See the "Userspace support" section below. |
bed7aac94 rfkill: remove tr... |
45 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
46 |
When the device is hard-blocked (either by a call to rfkill_set_hw_state() |
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
47 48 49 50 51 52 |
or from query_hw_block) set_block() will be invoked for additional software block, but drivers can ignore the method call since they can use the return value of the function rfkill_set_hw_state() to sync the software state instead of keeping track of calls to set_block(). In fact, drivers should use the return value of rfkill_set_hw_state() unless the hardware actually keeps track of soft and hard block separately. |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
53 |
|
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
54 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
55 |
3. Kernel API |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
56 |
|
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
57 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
58 |
Drivers for radio transmitters normally implement an rfkill driver. |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
59 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
60 61 |
Platform drivers might implement input devices if the rfkill button is just that, a button. If that button influences the hardware then you need to |
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
62 |
implement an rfkill driver instead. This also applies if the platform provides |
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
63 |
a way to turn on/off the transmitter(s). |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
64 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
65 66 67 |
For some platforms, it is possible that the hardware state changes during suspend/hibernation, in which case it will be necessary to update the rfkill core with the current state is at resume time. |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
68 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
69 |
To create an rfkill driver, driver's Kconfig needs to have |
f7983f730 rfkill: improve d... |
70 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
71 |
depends on RFKILL || !RFKILL |
dc288520a rfkill: document ... |
72 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
73 74 75 76 |
to ensure the driver cannot be built-in when rfkill is modular. The !RFKILL case allows the driver to be built when rfkill is not configured, which which case all rfkill API can still be used but will be provided by static inlines which compile to almost nothing. |
dc288520a rfkill: document ... |
77 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
78 79 80 81 |
Calling rfkill_set_hw_state() when a state change happens is required from rfkill drivers that control devices that can be hard-blocked unless they also assign the poll_hw_block() callback (then the rfkill core will poll the device). Don't do this unless you cannot get the event in any other way. |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
82 |
|
5005657cb rfkill: rename th... |
83 |
|
5005657cb rfkill: rename th... |
84 |
|
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
85 |
5. Userspace support |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
86 |
|
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 |
The recommended userspace interface to use is /dev/rfkill, which is a misc character device that allows userspace to obtain and set the state of rfkill devices and sets of devices. It also notifies userspace about device addition and removal. The API is a simple read/write API that is defined in linux/rfkill.h, with one ioctl that allows turning off the deprecated input handler in the kernel for the transition period. Except for the one ioctl, communication with the kernel is done via read() and write() of instances of 'struct rfkill_event'. In this structure, the soft and hard block are properly separated (unlike sysfs, see below) and userspace is able to get a consistent snapshot of all rfkill devices in the system. Also, it is possible to switch all rfkill drivers (or all drivers of a specified type) into a state which also updates the default state for hotplugged devices. After an application opens /dev/rfkill, it can read the current state of all devices, and afterwards can poll the descriptor for hotplug or state change events. Applications must ignore operations (the "op" field) they do not handle, this allows the API to be extended in the future. Additionally, each rfkill device is registered in sysfs and there has the following attributes: |
dac24ab39 [RFKILL]: Add rfk... |
111 112 |
name: Name assigned by driver to this key (interface or driver name). |
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
113 |
type: Driver type string ("wlan", "bluetooth", etc). |
464902e81 rfkill: export pe... |
114 115 |
persistent: Whether the soft blocked state is initialised from non-volatile storage at startup. |
5005657cb rfkill: rename th... |
116 117 |
state: Current state of the transmitter 0: RFKILL_STATE_SOFT_BLOCKED |
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
118 |
transmitter is turned off by software |
5005657cb rfkill: rename th... |
119 |
1: RFKILL_STATE_UNBLOCKED |
f71fea23a rfkill: document ... |
120 |
transmitter is (potentially) active |
5005657cb rfkill: rename th... |
121 122 |
2: RFKILL_STATE_HARD_BLOCKED transmitter is forced off by something outside of |
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
123 |
the driver's control. |
ce0879e32 rfkill: improve docs |
124 125 126 127 128 129 |
This file is deprecated because it can only properly show three of the four possible states, soft-and-hard-blocked is missing. claim: 0: Kernel handles events This file is deprecated because there no longer is a way to claim just control over a single rfkill instance. |
19d337dff rfkill: rewrite |
130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 |
rfkill devices also issue uevents (with an action of "change"), with the following environment variables set: RFKILL_NAME RFKILL_STATE RFKILL_TYPE The contents of these variables corresponds to the "name", "state" and "type" sysfs files explained above. |