IREXEC(1)

💖 IREXEC — bestie's guide to one-button magic 💖

okay so this is the irexec(1) manual page from the User Commands corner of the man-verse, and babes, it is so much fun. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

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✨ NAME ✨

irexec — run programs with one button press 👆🔥

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

irexec [options] [config_file]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

irexec runs commands when an IR signal gets decoded by lircd, which is the LIRC daemon, no cap. it reads an lircrc config file, and the config = entries in there are the ones it actually executes.

so like, say your config file has this little snippet:

begin
    prog   = irexec
    button = KEY_RED
    config = echo "KEY_RED"
end

then when you push the matching button on your remote, irexec will echo KEY_RED on your terminal. iconic. 💅

the command is an arbitrary shell command, and it gets executed asynchronously — irexec does not sit around waiting for it to finish. it's giving main character energy, it's got places to be. ✨

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• config_file — the lircrc configuration file. irexec only uses the entries where prog = irexec, so don't @ it with anything else. the path defaults to ~/.config/lircrc.

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h, --help — shows you the usage summary. your lil cheat sheet. 🫶
• -v, --version — shows the version. slay.
• -d, --daemon — makes irexec fork to the background. lowkey important: in this case you should hand it a config file right there on the command line, because irexec won't be able to find any home directory. 😭
• -D, --loglevel [level] — sets how much logging info you get. [level] can be a symbolic syslog level: error, warning, info, notice or debug. lirc also defines three additional levels trace, trace and trace2, which give even more messages (trace2 bringing the most, obviously, it's the overachiever 👑). but heads up — in the log these messages are marked as debug. by default, no logging is done.
• -n, --name <name> — use this program name as the identifier in the lircd.conf file instead of the default irexec.

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🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

• LIRC_SOCKET_PATH — path to the lircd socket that irexec reads from. defaults to /var/run/lirc/lircd.

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🧚 FILES 🧚

• ~/.config/lircrc — the default config file ✨
• /etc/lirc/lircrc — the config file used by the systemd irexec service
• ~/.cache/irexec.log — the debug log. setting the XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variable relocates this file to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/irexec.log

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⭐ NOTES ⭐

okay history lesson, bestie 📜 — for versions up to 0.9.1, irexec used to wait until the executed program terminated. that's why old configuration files often have a '&' appended to the command string, just to avoid getting stuck in the command. that is not required in 0.9.2+, because it cannot wait for command completion anymore. periodt.

irexec should run as a service. the contrib directory contains a .desktop file which you could drop in ~/.local/autostart. doing so creates a service which can be handled by regular desktop tools such as gnome-tweak-tool on all major desktops. and if you need to run restricted commands like powering off the machine, sudo(8) can be used to let regular users run such commands. 🫶

an alternative is the irexec.service systemd service, which runs as root (and can run in parallel with the desktop service). running as root has severe security implications 😭💀 — please actually read the Configuration Guide in the html documentation.

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• lircrc(5) — the lircrc configuration file.

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀✨

this was irexec version 0.10.2, with the last change way back in Oct 2015 — vintage but still serving 💜. love u, go press some buttons. 👑💖