Raspberry IR Blaster Installation

These steps will store the config in /etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/, the binary files in /usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/ and the systemd service will be called irblaster.service. None of these names are fixed, any of them can be changed without re-building the application, so long as they are changed consistently for all steps in this file.

First build the server and RemoteBuilder applications. There are publish profiles for building with Visual Studio targeting the Raspberry Pi. After building the applications copy them to /usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/RemoteBuilder and /usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/Server/ on the Pi.

Make the applications executable.

sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/Server/RaspberryIRBlaster.Server
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/RemoteBuilder/RaspberryIRBlaster.RemoteBuilder

You can optionally add an entry to your .bash_aliases file to make calling the RemoteBuilder easier.

alias irbrb='/usr/local/bin/RaspberryIRBlaster/RemoteBuilder/RaspberryIRBlaster.RemoteBuilder --config=/etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/'

Create the config directory and allow your user (usually pi) to write to the remotes folder.

sudo mkdir /etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/Remotes
sudo chgrp pi /etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/Remotes
sudo chmod 775 /etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/Remotes

Upload the General.json file from this directory to /etc/RaspberryIRBlaster/General.json. Make any changes you want to make to this file.

• For ListenAtUrl you can use values like http://*:8000 to listen on all interfaces on port 8000 or you can use http://localhost:8000 to only listen on the IPv4 and IPv6 loopback addresses. Note this is ignored by the server when using systemd socket activation, but you should still set it since the RemoteBuilder will still use it and so will the server if you start it at the console.
• The IRRXDevice and IRTXDevice parameters only need to be specified if you have more than one IR device of a particular type. So if you have one TX and one RX device you can leave these at null and the application will auto select the device. If however you have multiple transmitters and/or multiple receivers you will need to use a value like /dev/lirc5.
• The IdleShutdownMins parameter can be used to shutdown the application when it is idle of the specified number of minutes - intended to be used with socket activation. Set to zero to disable.

systemd

This section is optional since you can simply run the IR Blaster server at the console if you want, but it is often useful to have systemd run it in the background instead. Choose either the socket activation method -OR- the standalone method.

systemd - Socket Activation

Create the file /etc/systemd/system/irblaster.service from one of the templates in this folder.

Create the file /etc/systemd/system/irblaster.socket from the template in this folder. Change the port number if you want, it should be the same port number as what is in ListenAtUrl.

Run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to have systemd read the new files.

Run sudo systemctl enable irblaster.socket to make the new socket start at boot (optional).

systemd - Standalone

Create the file /etc/systemd/system/irblaster.service from one of the templates in this folder. Comment out the PrivateNetwork=true line (only in the sandboxed template) and uncomment the WantedBy line in the Install section.

Run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to have systemd read the new files.

Run sudo systemctl enable irblaster.service to make the new service start at boot (optional).