path: root/gpsd.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC
   "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
   "docbook/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY gpsdsock	 "/var/run/gpsd.sock">
]>
<refentry id='gpsd.8'>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>gpsd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo class='date'>9 Aug 2004</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv id='name'>
<refname>gpsd</refname>
<refpurpose>interface daemon for GPS receivers</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsynopsisdiv id='synopsis'>

<cmdsynopsis>
  <command>gpsd</command>
      <arg choice='opt'>-F <replaceable>control-socket</replaceable></arg>
      <!-- arg choice='opt'>-R
      <replaceable>rtcm-listener-port</replaceable></arg -->
      <arg choice='opt'>-S <replaceable>listener-port</replaceable></arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-b </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-l </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-G </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-n </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-N </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-h </arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-P <replaceable>pidfile</replaceable></arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-D <replaceable>debuglevel</replaceable></arg>
      <arg choice='opt'>-V </arg>
      <arg rep='repeat'>
	   <group><replaceable>source-name</replaceable></group>
      </arg>
</cmdsynopsis>
</refsynopsisdiv>

<refsect1 id='description'><title>DESCRIPTION</title>

<para><application>gpsd</application> is a monitor daemon that watches
a TCP/IP port (2947 by default), waiting for applications to request
information from GPSes or differential-GPS radios attached to the host
machine.  Each GPS or radio is expected to be direct-connected to the
host via a USB or RS232C serial port.  The port may be specified to
<application>gpsd</application> at startup, or it may be set via a
command shipped down a local control socket (e.g. by a USB hotplug
script). Given a GPS device by either means,
<application>gpsd</application> discovers the correct port speed and
protocol for it.</para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> should be able to query any GPS
that speaks either the standard textual NMEA 0183 protocol, or the
(differing) extended NMEA dialects used by MKT-3301, iTrax, Motorola
OnCore, Sony CXD2951, and Ashtech/Thales devices.  It can also
interpret the binary protocols used by EverMore, Garmin, Navcom,
Rockwell/Zodiac, SiRF, Trimble, and uBlox ANTARIS devices. It can read
heading and attitude information from the Oceanserver 5000 digital
compass.</para>

<para>The GPS protocols supported by your instance of
<application>gpsd</application> may differ depending on how it was
compiled; general-purpose versions support many, but it can be built
with protocol subsets down to a singleton for use in constrained
environments. For a list of the GPS protocols supported by your
instance, see the output of <command>gpsd -l</command></para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> effectively hides the
differences among the GPS types it supports. It also knows about and
uses commands that tune these GPSes for lower latency. </para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> can use differential-GPS
corrections from a DGPS radio or over the net, from a ground station
running a DGPSIP server or a Ntrip broadcaster that reports RTCM-104
data; this will shrink position errors by roughly a factor of four.
When <application>gpsd</application> opens a serial device emitting
RTCM-104, it automatically recognizes this and uses the device as a
correction source for all connected GPSes that accept RTCM corrections
(this is dependent on the type of the GPS; not all GPSes have the
firmware capability to accept RTCM correction packets). See 
<xref linkend='accuracy'/> and <xref linkend='files'/> for discussion.</para>

<para>The program accepts the following options:</para>
<variablelist remap='TP'>
<varlistentry>
<term>-F</term>
<listitem>
<para>Create a control socket for device addition and removal
commands.  You must specify a valid pathname on your local filesystem;
this will be created as a Unix-domain socket to which you can write
commands that edit the daemon's internal device list.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<!-- varlistentry>
<term>-R</term>
<listitem><para>Set TCP/IP port on which to listen for DGPSIP clients
(default is 2101). The option -R 0 will disable serving DGPSIP
clients.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry -->
<varlistentry>
<term>-S</term>
<listitem><para>Set TCP/IP port on which to listen for GPSD clients
(default is 2947).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-b</term>
<listitem><para>Broken-device-safety, otherwise known as read-only
mode. Some popular bluetooth and USB receivers lock up or become
totally inaccessible when probed or reconfigured. This switch prevents
gpsd from writing to a receiver.  This means that
<application>gpsd</application> cannot configure the receiver for
optimal performance, but it also means that
<application>gpsd</application> cannot break the receiver. A better
solution would be for Bluetooth to not be so fragile. A platform
independent method to identify serial-over-Bluetooth devices would
also be nice.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-G</term>
<listitem><para>This flag causes <application>gpsd</application> to
listen on all addresses (INADDR_ANY) rather than just the loopback
(INADDR_LOOPBACK) address. For the sake of privacy and security, PVT
information is now private to the local machine until the user makes
an effort to expose this to the world. Listening on the loopback by
default is a change from previous behaviour.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-l</term>
<listitem><para>List all drivers compiled into this
<application>gpsd</application> instance. The letters to the left of
each driver name are the <application>gpsd</application> 
control commands supported by that driver.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-n</term>
<listitem><para>Don't wait for a client to connect before polling
whatever GPS is associated with it. It is thought that some GPSes
go to a standby mode (drawing less power) before the host machine
asserts DTR, so waiting for the first actual request might save
battery power on portable equipment.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-N</term>
<listitem><para>Don't daemonize; run in foreground.  Also suppresses
privilege-dropping.  This switch is mainly useful for debugging.
Its meaning may change in future versions.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-h</term>
<listitem><para>Display help message and terminate.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-P</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specify the name and path to record the daemon's process ID.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-D</term>
<listitem>
<para>Set debug level. At debug levels 2 and above,
<application>gpsd</application> reports incoming sentence and actions
to standard error if <application>gpsd</application> is in the foreground
(-N) or to syslog if in the background.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-V</term>
<listitem>
<para>Dump version and exit.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>Arguments are interpreted as the names of data sources.
Normally, a data source is the name of a local serial device from
which the daemon may expect GPS data.</para>

<para>A data source name may also be a URI pointing to a specific
network GNSS service (GPSD server, DGPSIP server or Ntrip broadcaster).
If the URI starts with "ntrip://" Ntrip will be used; if the URI starts
with "dgpsip://", DGPSIP will be used; if the URI starts with "gpsd://",
gps protocols will be used. <application>Gpsd</application> defaults to
DGPSIP if no protocol is defined. GPSD URIs take an optional argument to
select the wire protocol: raw, nmea or gpsd - these correspond to "R=2",
"R=1" and "W=1" modes. For Ntrip services that require authentication, a
prefix of the form "username:password@" can be added before the name of
the Ntrip broadcaster.  If a suffix of the service name begins with ":"
it is interpreted as a port number, overriding the default IANA-assigned
port of 2101.  For Ntrip service you must specify which stream to use;
the stream is given in the form "/streamname". !n example DGPSIP URI could
be "dgpsip://dgpsip.example.com" and a Ntrip URI could be
"ntrip://foo:bar@ntrip.example.com:80/example-stream". A gpsd URI could be
"gpsd://gpsd.example.com:12000/dev/gps1?raw". <!-- If this
option is not given, <application>gpsd</application> will hunt for a
DGPSIP server. --></para>

<para>Internally, the daemon maintains a device list holding the
pathnames of GPSes known to the daemon. Initially, this list is the
list of device-name arguments specified on the command line.  That
list may be empty, in which case the daemon will have no devices on
its search list until they are added by a control-socket command (see
<xref linkend='devices'/> for details on this).  Daemon startup will
abort with an error if neither any devices nor a control socket are
specified.</para>

<para>Clients communicate with the dameon via textual request and
responses.  Currently there are two supported protocols, but there
may be only one in the future. It is a bad idea for applications to
speak either protocol directly: rather, they should use the
<application>libgps</application> client library and take appropriate
care to conditionalize their code on the major and minor API version
symbols.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='old_protocol'><title>OLD PROTOCOL</title>

<warning><para><emphasis>Do not rely on being able to use this
protocol directly!</emphasis> This protocol has run out of command
namespace and is not flexible enough to handle report types other than
for GPS devices.  Thus, it is in the process of being replaced by a
new, JSON-based protocol documented in a later section; development on
the old protocol has ceased and support for it may be removed at any
time after the new one is deemed mature.</para></warning>

<para>Under the old protocol, each client will at any given time be
listening to only one of the GPSes on the internal device list (this
restriction is removed under the new JSON-based protocol).  By default, a
client's device is the one that most recently shipped information to
the daemon at the time the client first requests GPS
information.</para>

<para>Each request normally consists of a single ASCII
character followed by a newline.  Case of the request character is
ignored.  Each request returns a line of response text ended by a
CR/LF.  Requests and responses are as follows, with %f standing for a
decimal float numeral and %d for decimal integer numeral:</para>

<para>Any command other than L, F, K, W=0 or R=0 is considered a
request for GPS information and will cause a GPS device to be
connected to the client's channel.</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>a</term>
<listitem><para>The current altitude as "A=%f", meters above mean sea level.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>b</term>
<listitem><para>The B command with no argument returns four fields
giving the parameters of the serial link to the GPS as "B=%d %d %c
%d"; baud rate, byte size, parity (N, O or E for no parity, odd, or
even) and stop bits (1 or 2).</para>

<para>The command "B=%d" sets the baud rate, not changing parity or
stop bits; The command "B=%d [78] [NOE] [12]" (B followed by
whitespace; followed by a numeric speed; followed by one of the digits
7 or 8; followed by whitespace; followed by one of the letters 'N',
'O', or 'E'; followed by whitespace; followed by one of the digits '1'
or 2') sets not only speed but word length, parity, and stop bits.</para>

<para>For both forms, watch the response, because it is
possible for this to fail if the GPS does not support a
speed-switching command or only supports some combinations of
serial modes.  In case of failure, the daemon and GPS will
continue to communicate at the old speed.  Both forms are rejected
if more than one client is attached to the channel.</para>

<para>Use this command with caution.  On USB and Bluetooth GPSes it is
also possible for serial mode setting to fail either because the
serial adaptor chip does not support non-8N1 modes or because the
device firmware does not properly synchronize the serrial adaptor chip
with the UART on the GPS chipset whjen the speed changes. These
failures can hang your device, possibly requiring a GPS power cycle or (in
extreme cases) physically disconnecting the NVRAM backup battery.</para>

<para>(Older versions of <application>gpsd</application> supported
changing speed only.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>c</term>
<listitem>
<para>C with no following = asks the daemon to return the cycle time
of the attached GPS, if any.  If there is no attached device it will
return "C=?".</para>

<para>If the driver has the capability to change sampling rate the
command "C=%f" does so, setting a new cycle time in seconds. The "C="
form is rejected if more than one client is attached to the
channel.</para>

<para>If the driver has the capability to change sampling rate, this
command always returns "C=%f %f" giving the current cycle time in
seconds and the minimum possible cycle time.  If the driver does not
have the capability to change sampling rate, this returns, as "C=%f",
the cycle time in seconds only.</para>

<para>Either number may be fractional, indicating a GPS cycle shorter
than a second; however, if >1 the cycle time must be a whole number. Also
note that relatively few GPSes have the ability to set sub-second
cycle times; consult your hardware protocol description to make sure
this works.</para>

<para>This command will return "C=?" at start of session, before the
first full packet has been received from the GPS, because the GPS type is
not yet known. To set up conditions for a real answer, issue it after
some command that reads position/velocity/time information from the
device.</para>

<!--
<para>The second field of the C return may be 0, indicating no hard
lower limit on the cycle time. On an NMEA device of this kind it is
possible to try to push more characters through per cycle than the
time to transmit will allow. You must set the time high enough to let
all sentences come through.  Here are the maxima to use for
computation:</para>

<table frame='all'>
<tgroup cols='2'>
<tbody>
<row><entry>ZDA       </entry><entry>36</entry></row>
<row><entry>GLL       </entry><entry>47</entry></row>
<row><entry>GGA       </entry><entry>82</entry></row>
<row><entry>VTG       </entry><entry>46</entry></row>
<row><entry>RMC       </entry><entry>77</entry></row>
<row><entry>GSA       </entry><entry>67</entry></row>
<row><entry>GSV       </entry><entry>60 (per line, thus 180 for a set of 3)</entry> </row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>The transmit time for a cycle (which must be less than 1 second)
is the total character count multiplied by 10 and divided by the baud
rate. A typical budget is GGA, RMC, GSA, 3*GSV = 82+75+67+(3*60) =
404.</para>
-->
</listitem>

</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>d</term>
<listitem><para>Returns the UTC time in the ISO 8601 format,
"D=yyyy-mm-ddThh:nmm:ss.ssZ". Digits of precision in the fractional-seconds
part will vary and may be absent.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>e</term>
<listitem>
<para>Returns "E=? %f %f": estimated position errors in meters
&mdash; horizontal, and vertical (95% confidence
level).  Note: many GPSes do not supply these numbers.  When the
GPS does not supply them, <application>gpsd</application> computes
them from satellite DOP using fixed figures for expected non-DGPS
and DGPS range errors in meters.  A value of '?' for either of these
numbers should be taken to mean that component of DOP is not
available. The ? value is a backwards-compatibility placeholder; some
early versions of GPSD returned a total error estimate there.
See also the 'q' command.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>f</term>
<listitem><para>Gets or sets the active GPS device name. The bare
command 'f' requests a response containing 'F=' followed by the name
of the active GPS device.  The other form of the command is 'f=', in
which case all following printable characters up to but not including
the next CR/LF are interpreted as the name of a trial GPS device. If
the trial device is in <application>gpsd</application>'s device list,
it is opened and read to see if a GPS can be found there.  If it can,
the trial device becomes the active device for this client.</para>

<para>The 'f=' command may fail if the specified device name is not on
the daemon's device list.  This device list is initialized with the
paths given on the command line, if any were specified.  For security
reasons, ordinary clients cannot change this device list; instead,
this must be done via the daemon's local control socket declared with
the -F option.</para>

<para>Once an 'f=' command succeeds, the client is tied to the
specified device until the client disconnects.</para>

<para>Whether the command is 'f' or 'f=' or not, and whether it succeeds
or not, the response always lists the name of the client's device.</para>

<para>(At protocol level 1, the F command failed if more than one
client was attached, and multiple devices were not supported.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>g</term>
<listitem>
<para>With =, accepts a single argument which may have any of the
values 'gps', 'ais', 'rtcm104v2', or 'rtcm104v3' , with case ignored.
This specifies the type of information the client wants and forces a
device assignment.  Without =, forces a device assignment but doesn't
force the type. This command is optional; if it is not given, the R, W
and B commands will bind the client to whatever available device the 
daemon finds first. All other commands require a GPS and will attempt
to bind the client to one.</para>

<para>This command returns either '?' if no device of the specified
type(s) could be assigned, otherwise a string ('GPS', 'AIS' or
'RTCM104v2') identifying the kind of information the attached device
returns.</para>

<para>(Earlier versions accepted 'RTCM104' and returned 'RTCM104'
rather than 'RTCM104v2')</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<!--
<varlistentry>
<term>h</term>
<listitem>
<para>Heading, "H=%f" in degrees from true north.  Only available from
True North Technologies or comparable digital compass devices (c.f. 't')</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-->

<varlistentry>
<term>i</term>
<listitem><para>Returns a text string identifying the GPS.  The string
may contain spaces and is terminated by CR-LF.  This command will
return '?' at start of session, before the first full packet has been
received from the GPS, because its type is not yet known.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>j</term>
<listitem>
<para>Get or set buffering policy; this only matters for NMEA devices
which report fix data in several separate sentences during the poll
cycle (and in particular it <emphasis>doesn't</emphasis> matter for
SiRF chips).  The default (j=0) is to clear all fix data at the start
of each poll cycle, so until the sentence that reports a given piece
of data arrives queries will report ?.  Setting j=1 will disable this,
retaining data from the previous cycle.  This is a per-user-channel
bit, not a per-device one.  The j=0 setting is hyper-correct and never
displays stale data, but may produce a jittery display; the j=1 setting
allows stale data but smooths the display.</para>

<para>(At protocol level below 3, there was no J command.  Note, this
command is experimental and its semantics are subject to change.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>k</term>
<listitem><para>Returns a line consisting of "K=" followed by an
integer count of of all GPS devices known to
<application>gpsd</application>, followed by a space, followed by a
space-separated list of the device names. This command lists devices
the daemon has been pointed at by the command-line argument(s) or an
add command via its control socket, and has successfully recognized as
GPSes.  Because GPSes might be unplugged at any time, the presence of
a name in this list does not guarantee that the device is available.</para>

<para>(At protocol level 1, there was no K command.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>l</term>
<listitem><para>Returns four fields: the major protocol/API revision number,
the minor revision number, the gpsd version, and a list of accepted
request letters. Note: earlier versions of this command returned only
three fields, omitting the minor revision number.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>m</term>
<listitem><para>The NMEA mode as "M=%d". 0=no mode value yet seen,
1=no fix, 2=2D (no altitude), 3=3D (with altitude).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>n</term>
<listitem><para>Get or set the GPS driver mode.  Without argument,
reports the mode as "N=%d"; N=0 means NMEA mode and N=1 means
alternate mode (binary if it has one, for SiRF and Evermore chipsets
in particular).  With argument, set the mode if possible; the new mode
will be reported in the response. The "N=" form is rejected if more
than one client is attached to the channel.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>o</term>
<listitem>
<para>Attempts to return a complete time/position/velocity report as a
unit.  Any field for which data is not available being reported as ?.
If there is no fix, the response is simply "O=?", otherwise a tag and
timestamp are always reported.  Fields are as follows, in order:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>tag</term> <listitem><para>A tag identifying the last sentence
received.  For NMEA devices this is just the NMEA sentence name; the
talker-ID portion may be useful for distinguishing among results
produced by different NMEA talkers in the same wire.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>timestamp</term>
<listitem><para>Seconds since the Unix epoch, UTC. May have a
fractional part of up to .01sec precision.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>time error</term>
<listitem><para>Estimated timestamp error (%f, seconds,
95% confidence).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>latitude</term>
<listitem><para>Latitude as in the P report (%f, degrees).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>longitude</term>
<listitem><para>Longitude as in the P report (%f, degrees).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>altitude</term>
<listitem><para>Altitude as in the A report (%f, meters).  If the mode
field is not 3 this is an estimate and should be treated as
unreliable.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>horizontal error estimate</term>
<listitem><para>Horizontal error estimate as in the E report
(%f, meters).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>vertical error estimate</term>
<listitem><para>Vertical error estimate as in the E report
(%f, meters).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>course over ground</term>
<listitem><para>Track as in the T report (%f, degrees).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>speed over ground</term>
<listitem><para>Speed (%f, meters/sec). Note: older versions
of the O command reported this field in knots.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>climb/sink</term>
<listitem><para>Vertical velocity as in the U report
(%f, meters/sec).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>estimated error in course over ground</term>
<listitem><para>Error estimate for course (%f, degrees, 95% confidence).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>estimated error in speed over ground</term>
<listitem><para>Error estimate for speed (%f, meters/sec, 95%
confidence). Note: older experimental versions of the O command
reported this field in knots.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>estimated error in climb/sink</term>
<listitem><para>Estimated error for climb/sink
(%f, meters/sec, 95% confidence).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>mode</term>
<listitem><para>The NMEA mode (%d, ?=no mode value yet seen,
1=no fix, 2=2D, 3=3D). (This field was not reported at protocol
levels 2 and lower.)</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>p</term>
<listitem><para>Returns the current position in the form "P=%f %f";
numbers are in degrees, latitude first.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>q</term>
<listitem>
<para>Returns "Q=%d %f %f %f %f %f": a count of satellites used in the
last fix, and five dimensionless dilution-of-precision (DOP) numbers
&mdash; spherical, horizontal, vertical, time, and total geometric.
These are computed from the satellite geometry; they are factors by
which to multiply the estimated UERE (user error in meters at
specified confidence level due to ionospheric delay, multipath
reception, etc.) to get actual circular error ranges in meters (or
seconds) at the same confidence level. See also the 'e' command.
Note: Some GPSes may fail to report these, or report only one of them
(often HDOP); a value of 0.0 should be taken as an indication that the
data is not available.</para>

<para>Note: Older versions of <application>gpsd</application> reported
only the first three DOP numbers, omitting time DOP and total DOP.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>r</term>
<listitem><para>Sets or toggles 'raw' mode. Return "R=0" or "R=1" or
"R=2". In raw mode you read the NMEA data stream from each
GPS. (Non-NMEA GPSes get their communication format translated to NMEA
on the fly.)  If the device is a source of RTCM-104 corrections, the
corrections are dumped in the textual format described in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>rtcm104</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>. If
the device is a source of AIS data, AIS packets are dumped in CSV
form with each field (other than padding fields) dumped as an unscaled
integer or string, whichever is appropriate.</para>

<para>The command 'r' immediately followed by the digit '1' or the
plus sign '+' sets raw mode.  The command 'r' immediately followed by
the digit '2' sets super-raw mode; for non-NMEA (binary) GPSes or
RTCM-104 sources this dumps the raw binary packet.  The command 'r'
followed by the digit '0' or the minus sign '-' clears raw mode.  The
command 'r' with neither suffix toggles raw mode.</para>

<para>Note: older versions of <application>gpsd</application> did not
support super-raw mode.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>s</term>
<listitem><para>The NMEA status as "S=%d". 0=no fix, 1=fix,
2=DGPS-corrected fix.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>t</term>
<listitem>
<para>Track made good; course "T=%f" in degrees from true north.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>u</term>
<listitem><para>Current rate of climb as "U=%f" in meters per second.
Some GPSes (not SiRF-based) do not report this, in that case
<application>gpsd</application> computes it using the altitude from
the last fix (if available).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>v</term>
<listitem><para>The current speed over ground as "V=%f" in knots.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>w</term>
<listitem><para>Sets or toggles 'watcher' mode (see the description
below). Return "W=0" or "W=1".The command 'w' immediately followed by
the digit '1' or the plus sign '+' sets watcher mode.  The command 'w'
followed by the digit '0' or the minus sign '-' clears watcher mode.
The command 'w' with neither suffix toggles watcher
mode.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>x</term>
<listitem><para>Returns "X=0" if the GPS is offline, "X=%f" if
online; in the latter case, %f is a timestamp from when the device
was activated or the last sentence was received.</para>

<para>(At protocol level 1, the nonzero response was always 1.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>y</term>
<listitem>
<para>Returns Y=, followed by a sentence tag, followed by a timestamp
(seconds since the Unix epoch, UTC) and a count, followed by that many
quintuples of satellite PRNs, elevation/azimuth pairs (elevation an integer
formatted as %d in range 0-90, azimuth an integer formatted as %d in range
0-359), signal strengths in decibels, and 1 or 0 according as the satellite
was or was not used in the last fix. Each number is followed by one space.
The count field was formerly limited 12 - this is no longer the case, since
receivers with more than 12 channels are common and there are enough
satellites in orbit to have more than 12 usable.</para>

<para>(At protocol level 1, this response had no tag or timestamp.)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>z</term> <listitem><para>The Z command returns daemon profiling
information of interest to <application>gpsd</application>
developers. The format of this string is subject to change without
notice.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>$</term> <listitem><para>The $ command returns daemon profiling
information of interest to <application>gpsd</application>
developers. The format of this string is subject to change without
notice.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>Note that a response consisting of just ? following the =
means that there is no valid data available.  This may mean either
that the device being queried is offline, or (for
position/velocity/time queries) that it is online but has no fix.</para>

<para>Requests can be concatenated and sent as a string;
<application>gpsd</application> will then respond with a
comma-separated list of replies.</para>

<para>Every <application>gpsd</application> reply will start with the
string "GPSD" followed by the replies. Examples:</para>

<screen>
      query:       "p\n"
      reply:       "GPSD,P=36.000000 123.000000\r\n"

      query:       "d\n"
      reply:       "GPSD,D=2002-11-16T02:45:05.12Z\r\n"

      query:       "va\n"
      reply:       "GPSD,V=0.000000,A=37.900000\r\n"
</screen>

<para>The recommended mode for clients is watcher mode.  In watcher
mode <application>gpsd</application> ships a line of data to the
client each time the GPS gets either a fix update or a satellite
picture, but rather than being raw NMEA the line is a gpsd 'o' or 'y'
response.  Additionally, watching clients get notifications in the
form X=0 or X=%f when the online/offline status of the GPS
changes, and an I response giving the device type when the
user is assigned a device.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='new_protocol'><title>NEW PROTOCOL</title>

<para>The new GPSD protocol is built on top of JSON, JaveScript
Object Notation. Use of this metaprotocol to pass structured
data between daemon and client avoids the non-extensibility
problems of the old protocol, and permits a richer set of record types
to be passed up to clients.</para>

<para>A request line is introduced by "?" and may include multiple
commands.  Commands begin with a command identifier, followed either
by a terminating ';' or by an equal sign "=" and a JSON object treated
as an argument.  Any ';' or newline indication (either LF or CR-LF)
after the end of a command is ignored. All request lines must be
composed of US-ASCII characters and may be no more than 80 characters
in length, exclusive of the trailing newline.</para>

<para>Responses are JSON objects all of which have a "class" attribute
the value of which is either the name of the invoking command 
or one of the strings "DEVICE" or "ERROR". Their length
limit is 1024 characters, including trailing newline.</para>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term>?VERSION;</term> 
<listitem><para>Returns an object with the following attributes:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>VERSION object</title>
<tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "VERSION"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>release</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Public release level</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>rev</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Internal revision-control level.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>api_major</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>API major revision level..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>api_minor</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>API minor revision level..</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"VERSION","version":"2.40dev","rev":$Id$,"api_major":3,"api_minor":1}
</programlisting>


</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?DEVICES;</term> 
<listitem><para>Returns a device list object with the
following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>DEVICES object</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "DEVICES"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>devices</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>list</entry>
        <entry>List of device descriptions</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>The list components have the following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>Device-description object</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "DEVICE"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>path</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Pathname of the device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>activated</entry>
	<entry>At device activation and device close time.</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Time the device last sent data.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>flags</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>integer</entry>
        <entry>Bit vector of property flags.  Currently defined flags are:
        describe packet types seen so far (GPS, RTCM2, RTCM3,
	AIS). Won't be reported if empty, e.g. before
	<application>gpsd</application> has seen identifiable packets
	from the device.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>driver</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>GPSD's name for the device driver type. Won't be reported before
	<application>gpsd</application> has seen identifiable packets
	from the device.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>driver</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>GPSD's name for the device driver type.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>subtype</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Firmware version or other subtype ID. Not always reported.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>Device flags</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>C #define</entry>
	<entry>Value</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>SEEN_GPS</entry>
	<entry>0x01</entry>
	<entry>GPS data has been seen on this device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>SEEN_RTCM2</entry>
	<entry>0x02</entry>
	<entry>RTCM2 data has been seen on this device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>SEEN_RTCM3</entry>
	<entry>0x04</entry>
	<entry>RTCM3 data has been seen on this device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>SEEN_AIS</entry>
	<entry>0x08</entry>
	<entry>GPS data has been seen on this device</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class"="DEVICES","devices":[
    {"class":"DEVICE","path":"/dev/pts/1","flags":1,"driver":"SiRF binary"},
    {"class":"DEVICE","path":"/dev/pts/3","flags":4,"driver":"AIVDM"}]}
</programlisting>

<para>The daemon occasionally ships a bare DEVICE object to the client
(that is, one not inside a DEVICES wrapper). The data content of these
objects will be described later in the section covering
notifications.</para>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?TPV;</term> 
<listitem><para>Opens a GPS-class device, if available, and requests a
time/position/velocity report object in reply. Mainly intended as a
test command: production clients should use ?WATCH to set up
report streaming.</para>

<para>Here are the elements of a TPV object.  If there is no GPS device
available, only the "class" field will reliably be present.  Others
may be reported or not depending on the fix quality.</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>TPV object</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "TPV"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>tag</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Type tag associated with this GPS sentence; from an NMEA
	device this is just the NMEA sentence type..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>device</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Name of originating device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>time</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Seconds since the Unix epoch, UTC. May have a
	fractional part of up to .01sec precision.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>ept</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Estimated timestamp error (%f, seconds, 95% confidence).</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>lat</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Latitude in degrees: +/- signifies West/East</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>lon</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Longitude in degrees: +/- signifies North/South.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>alt</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Altitude in meters.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>eph</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Horizontal circular error in meters, 95% confidence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>epv</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Estimated vertical error in meters, 95% confidence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>track</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Course over ground, degrees from true north.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>speed</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Speed over ground, meters per second.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>climb/sink</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Climb (postive) or sink (negative) rate, meters per 
	second.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>epd</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Direction error estinmate in degrees, 95% confifdence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>eps</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Speed error estinmate in meters/sec, 95% confifdence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>epc</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Climb/sink error estinmate in meters/sec, 95% confifdence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mode</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>NMEA mode: %d, 0=no mode value yet seen, 1=no fix, 2=2D, 3=3D.</entry>
</row>

</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"TPV","tag":"MID2","device":"/dev/pts/1",
    "time":1118327688.280,"ept":0.005,
    "lat":46.498293369,"lon":7.567411672,"alt":1343.127, 
    "eph":36.000,"epv":32.321,
    "track":10.3788,"speed":0.091,"climb":-0.085,"mode":3}
</programlisting>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?SKY;</term> 
<listitem><para>Opens a GPS-class device, if available, and requests a
skyview report object in reply. Mainly intended as a test command:
production clients should use ?WATCH to set up report
streaming..</para>

<para>Here are the elements of a SKY object.  If there is no GPS device
available, or no skyview has been reported yet, only the "class" field
will reliably be present.</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>SKY object</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "SKY"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>tag</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Type tag associated with this GPS sentence; from an NMEA
	device this is just the NMEA sentence type..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>device</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Name of originating device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>time</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Seconds since the Unix epoch, UTC. May have a
	fractional part of up to .01sec precision.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>reported</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Count of satellites in skyview.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>satellites</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>list</entry>
        <entry>List of satellite objects in skyview</entry>
</row>

</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>The satellite list objects have the following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>Satellite object</title>
<tgroup cols="3" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>PRN</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>PRN ID of the satellite</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>az</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Azimuth, degrees from true north.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>el</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Elevation in degrees.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>ss</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Signal strength in dB.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>used</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>boolean</entry>
        <entry>Used in current solution?</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Note that satellite objects do not have a "class" field.., as
they are never shipped outside of a SKY object.</para>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"SKY","tag":"MID2","device":"/dev/pts/1","time":1118327688.280
    "reported":8,"satellites":[
        {"PRN":23,"el":6,"az":84,"ss":0,"used":false},
        {"PRN":28,"el":7,"az":160,"ss":0,"used":false},
        {"PRN":8,"el":66,"az":189,"ss":44,"used":true},
        {"PRN":29,"el":13,"az":273,"ss":0,"used":false},
        {"PRN":10,"el":51,"az":304,"ss":29,"used":true},
        {"PRN":4,"el":15,"az":199,"ss":36,"used":true},
        {"PRN":2,"el":34,"az":241,"ss":43,"used":true},
        {"PRN":27,"el":71,"az":76,"ss":43,"used":true}]}
</programlisting>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?WATCH</term> 
<listitem>

<para>This command sets watcher mode. It also sets or elicits a
report of per-subscriber buffering policy and the raw bit.  An
argument WATCH object changes the subscriber's policy. The respunce
describes the subscriber's policy.</para>

<para>A WATCH object has the following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>WATCH object</title>
<tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "WATCH"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>raw</entry> 
        <entry>No</entry> 
        <entry>integer</entry>
	<entry>Controls 'raw' mode. When this attribute is set
	to 1 for a channel, <application>gpsd</application> reports
	the unprocessed data stream from whatever device is attached.
	(Non-NMEA GPSes get their communication format translated to
	NMEA on the fly.)  If the device is a source of RTCM2
	corrections, the corrections are dumped in the textual format
	described in
	<citerefentry><refentrytitle>rtcm104</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>. If
	the device is a source of AIS data, AIS packets are dumped in
	CSV form with each field (other than padding fields) dumped as
	an unscaled integer or string, whichever is
	appropriate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>buffer_policy</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>integer</entry>
        <entry>Get or set buffering policy; this only matters for NMEA
	devices which report fix data in several separate sentences
	during the poll cycle (and in particular it
	<emphasis>doesn't</emphasis> matter for SiRF chips).  The
	default (0) is to clear all fix data at the start of each poll
	cycle, so until the sentence that reports a given piece of
	data arrives queries will report ?.  Setting 1 will disable
	this, retaining data from the previous cycle.  The 0 setting is
	hyper-correct and never displays stale data, but may produce a
	jittery display; the 1 setting allows stale data but smooths
	the display.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>scaled</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>boolean</entry>
        <entry>If true, apply scaling divisors to output before
	dumping; default is false. Applies only to AIS reports.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"WATCH", "raw":1,"buffer_policy":1."scaled":true}
</programlisting>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?CONFIGDEV</term> 
<listitem>

<para>This command reports (when followed by ':') or sets (when
followed by by '=' and a CONFIGDEV object) device-specific control
bits, notably the device's speed and serial mode and the native-mode
bit.  It will be rejected if more than one client is attached to the
channel.</para>

<para>Pay attention to the response, because it is
possible for this command to fail if the GPS does not support a
speed-switching command or only supports some combinations of
serial modes.  In case of failure, the daemon and GPS will
continue to communicate at the old speed.</para>

<para>Use this command with caution.  On USB and Bluetooth GPSes it is
also possible for serial mode setting to fail either because the
serial adaptor chip does not support non-8N1 modes or because the
device firmware does not properly synchronize the serrial adaptor chip
with the UART on the GPS chipset whjen the speed changes. These
failures can hang your device, possibly requiring a GPS power cycle or (in
extreme cases) physically disconnecting the NVRAM backup battery.</para>

<para>A CONFIGDEV object has the following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>CONFIGCHAN object</title>
<tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "CONFIGDEV"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>device</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Name the device for which the control bits are
	being reported, or for which they are to be applied. This 
        attribute may be omitted only when there is exactly one 
        subscribed channel.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>bps</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>integer</entry>
        <entry>Device speed in bits per second.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>serialmode</entry> 
        <entry>No</entry> 
        <entry>string</entry>
	<entry><para>Parameters of the serial link to the GPS as
        "$d%c%d"; byte size, parity (N, O or E for no parity, odd, or
	even) and stop bits (1 or 2).</para></entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>native</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>integer</entry>
        <entry>0 means NMEA mode and 1 means
	alternate mode (binary if it has one, for SiRF and Evermore chipsets
	in particular). Attempting to set this mode on a non-GPS
	device will yield an error.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>cycle</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>real</entry>
        <entry>Device cycle time in seconds.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mincycle</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>real</entry>
        <entry>Device minimum cycle time in seconds. Reported from 
	?CONFIGDEV when (and only when) the rate is switchable. It is 
	read-only and not settable.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"CONFIDEV", "speed":4800,"serialmode":"8N1","native":0}
</programlisting>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>When a client is in watcher mode, the daemon may ship it
device status notifications.  These notications will be DEVICE
objects; the table below describes the circumstances and the 
meaning of the attributes.</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>DEVICE notification object</title>
<tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>When?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>path</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Pathname of the cevice.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>activated</entry>
	<entry>At device activation and device close time.</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Time the device was activated, 
	or 0 if it is being closed.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>subtype</entry>
	<entry>When the daemon sees a delayed response to a probe for
	subtype or firmware-version information.</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
	<entry>Whatever version information the device returned.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"DEVICE","path":"/dev/pts1","activated":0}
</programlisting>

<para>The daemon may ship an error object in response to a
syntactically invalid command line or unknown command. It has
the following elements:</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>ERROR notification object</title>
<tgroup cols="4" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Name</entry>
	<entry>Always?</entry>
	<entry>Type</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>class</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Fixed: "ERROR"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>message</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
	<entry>Textual error message</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"ERROR","message":"Unrecognized request '?FOO'"}
</programlisting>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='devices'><title>GPS DEVICE MANAGEMENT</title>

<para><application>gpsd</application> maintains an internal list of
GPS devices.  If you specify devices on the command line, the list is
initialized with those pathnames; otherwise the list starts empty.
Commands to add and remove GPS device paths from the daemon's device
list must be written to a local Unix-domain socket which will be
accessible only to programs running as root.  This control socket will
be located wherever the -F option specifies it.</para>

<para>When <application>gpsd</application> is properly installed along
with hotplug notifier scripts feeding it device-add commands over the
control socket, <application>gpsd</application> should require no
configuration or user action to find devices.</para>

<para>Sending SIGHUP to a running <application>gpsd</application>
forces it to close all GPSes and all client connections.  It will then
attempt to reconnect to any GPSes on its device list and resume
listening for client connections.  This may be useful if your GPS
enters a wedged or confused state but can be soft-reset by pulling
down DTR.</para>

<para>To point <application>gpsd</application> at a device that may be
a GPS, write to the control socket a plus sign ('+') followed by the
device name followed by LF or CR-LF.  Thus, to point the daemon at
<filename>/dev/foo</filename>. send "+/dev/foo\n".  To tell the daemon
that a device has been disconnected and is no longer available, send a
minus sign ('-') followed by the device name followed by LF or
CR-LF. Thus, to remove <filename>/dev/foo</filename> from the search
list. send "-/dev/foo\n".</para>

<para>To send a control string to a specified device, write to the
control socket a '!', followed by the device name, followed by '=',
followed by the control string.</para>

<para>To send a binary control string to a specified device, write to the
control socket a '&amp;', followed by the device name, followed by '=',
followed by the control string in paired hex digits.</para>

<para>Your client may await a response, which will be a line beginning
with either "OK" or "ERROR".  An ERROR reponse to an add command means
the device did not emit data recognizable as GPS packets; an ERROR
response to a remove command means the specified device was not in
<application>gpsd</application>'s device list. An ERROR response to a
! command means the daemon did not recognize the devicename
specified.</para>

<para>The control socket is intended for use by hotplug scripts and
other device-discovery services.  This control channel is separate
from the public <application>gpsd</application> service port, and only
locally accessible, in order to prevent remote denial-of-service and
spoofing attacks.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='accuracy'><title>ACCURACY</title>

<para>The base User Estimated Range Error (UERE) of GPSes is 8 meters
or less at 66% confidence, 15 meters or less at 95% confidence. Actual
horizontal error will be UERE times a dilution factor dependent on current
satellite position.  Altitude determination is more sensitive to
variability to atmospheric signal lag than latitude/longitude, and is
also subject to errors in the estimation of local mean sea level; base
error is 12 meters at 66% confidence, 23 meters at 95% confidence.
Again, this will be multiplied by a vertical dilution of precision
(VDOP) dependent on satellite geometry, and VDOP is typically larger
than HDOP.  Users should <emphasis>not</emphasis> rely on GPS altitude for
life-critical tasks such as landing an airplane.</para>

<para>These errors are intrinsic to the design and physics of the GPS
system.  <application>gpsd</application> does its internal
computations at sufficient accuracy that it will add no measurable
position error of its own.</para>

<para>DGPS correction will reduce UERE by a factor of 4, provided you
are within about 100mi (160km) of a DGPS ground station from which you
are receiving corrections.</para>

<para>On a 4800bps connection, the time latency of fixes provided by
<application>gpsd</application> will be one second or less 95% of the
time.  Most of this lag is due to the fact that GPSes normally emit
fixes once per second, thus expected latency is 0.5sec.  On the
personal-computer hardware available in 2005, computation lag induced
by <application>gpsd</application> will be negligible, on the order of
a millisecond.  Nevertheless, latency can introduce significant errors
for vehicles in motion; at 50km/h (31mi/h) of speed over ground, 1
second of lag corresponds to 13.8 meters change in position between
updates.</para>

<para>The time reporting of the GPS system itself has an intrinsic
accuracy limit of 0.000,000,340 =
3.4&times;10<superscript>-7</superscript> seconds.  A more important
limit is the GPS tick rate.  While the one-per-second PPS pulses
emitted by serial GPS units are timed to the GPS system's intrinsic
accuracy limit,the satellites only emit navigation messages at
0.01-second intervals, and the timestamps in them only carry
0.01-second precision. Thus, the timestamps that
<application>gpsd</application> reports in time/position/velocity
messages are normally accurate only to 1/100th of a second.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='ntp'><title>USE WITH NTP</title>

<para>gpsd can provide reference clock information to
<application>ntpd</application>, to keep the system clock synchronized
to the time provided by the GPS receiver.  This facility is
only available when the daemon is started from root.  If you're going
to use <application>gpsd</application> you probably want to run it
<option>-n</option> mode so the clock will be updated even when no
clients are active.</para>

<para>Note that deriving time from messages received from the GPS is
not as accurate as you might expect.  Messages are often delayed in
the receiver and on the link by several hundred milliseconds, and this
delay is not constant.  On Linux, <application>gpsd</application>
includes support for interpreting the PPS pulses emitted at the start
of every clock second on the carrier-detect lines of some serial
GPSes; this pulse can be used to update NTP at much higher accuracy
than message time provides.  You can determine whether your GPS emits
this pulse by running at -D 5 and watching for carrier-detect state
change messages in the logfile.</para>

<para>When <application>gpsd</application> receives a sentence with a
timestamp, it packages the received timestamp with current local time
and sends it to a shared-memory segment with an ID known to
<application>ntpd</application>, the network time synchronization
daemon.  If <application>ntpd</application> has been properly
configured to receive this message, it will be used to correct the
system clock.</para>

<para>Here is a sample <filename>ntp.conf</filename> configuration
stanza telling <application>ntpd</application> how to read the GPS
notfications:</para>

<programlisting>
server 127.127.28.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4
fudge 127.127.28.0 time1 0.420 refid GPS

server 127.127.28.1 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4 prefer
fudge 127.127.28.1 refid GPS1
</programlisting>

<para>The magic pseudo-IP address 127.127.28.0 identifies unit 0 of
the <application>ntpd</application> shared-memory driver; 127.127.28.1
identifies unit 1.  Unit 0 is used for message-decoded time and unit 1
for the (more accurate, when available) time derived from the PPS
synchronization pulse.  Splitting these notifications allows
<application>ntpd</application> to use its normal heuristics to weight
them.</para>

<para>With this configuration, <application>ntpd</application> will
read the timestamp posted by <application>gpsd</application> every 16
seconds and send it to unit 0.  The number after the parameter time1
is an offset in seconds.  You can use it to adjust out some of the
fixed delays in the system.  0.035 is a good starting value for the
Garmin GPS-18/USB, 0.420 for the Garmin GPS-18/LVC.</para>

<para>After restarting ntpd, a line similar to the one below should
appear in the output of the command "ntpq -p" (after allowing a couple
of minutes):</para>

<screen>
remote	   refid      st t when poll reach  delay    offset  jitter
=========================================================================
+SHM(0)	  .GPS.      0 l   13   16  377    0.000    0.885   0.882
</screen>

<para>If you are running PPS then it will look like this:</para>

<screen>
remote	   refid      st t when poll reach  delay    offset  jitter
=========================================================================
-SHM(0)	  .GPS.      0 l   13   16  377    0.000    0.885   0.882
*SHM(1)	  .GPS1.     0 l   11   16  377    0.000   -0.059   0.006
</screen>

<para>When the value under "reach" remains zero, check that gpsd is
running; and some application is connected to it or the '-n' option was
used.  Make sure the receiver is locked on to at least one satellite,
and the receiver is in SiRF binary, Garmin binary or NMEA/PPS mode.  Plain
NMEA will also drive ntpd, but the accuracy as bad as one second.  When
the SHM(0) line does not appear at all, check the system logs for error
messages from ntpd.</para>

<para>When no other reference clocks appear in the NTP configuration,
the system clock will lock onto the GPS clock.  When you have previously
used <application>ntpd</application>, and other reference clocks appear
in your configuration, there may be a fixed offset between the GPS clock
and other clocks.  The <application>gpsd</application> developers would
like to receive information about the offsets observed by users for each
type of receiver.  Please send us the output of the "ntpq -p" command
and the make and type of receiver.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='dbus'><title>USE WITH D-BUS</title>

<para>On operating systems that support D-BUS,
<application>gpsd</application> can be built to broadcast GPS fixes to
D-BUS-aware applications.  As D-BUS is still at a pre-1.0 stage, we
will not attempt to document this interface here.  Read the
<application>gpsd</application> source code to learn more.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='security'><title>SECURITY AND PERMISSIONS ISSUES</title>

<para><application>gpsd</application>, if given the -G flag, will
listen for connections from any reachable host, and then disclose the
current position.  Before using the -G flag, consider whether you
consider your computer's location to be sensitive data to be kept
private or something that you wish to publish.</para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> must start up as root in order
to open the NTPD shared-memory segment, open its logfile, and create
its local control socket.  Before doing any processing of GPS data, it
tries to drop root privileges by setting its UID to "nobody" (or another
userid as set by configure) and its group ID to the group of the initial
GPS passed on the command line &mdash; or, if that device doesn't exist,
to the group of <filename>/dev/ttyS0</filename>.</para>

<para>Privilege-dropping is a hedge against the possibility that
carefully crafted data, either presented from a client socket or from
a subverted serial device posing as a GPS, could be used to induce
misbehavior in the internals of <application>gpsd</application>.
It ensures that any such compromises cannot be used for privilege
elevation to root.</para>

<para>The assumption behind <application>gpsd</application>'s
particular behavior is that all the tty devices to which a GPS might
be connected are owned by the same non-root group and allow group
read/write, though the group may vary because of distribution-specific
or local administrative practice.  If this assumption is false,
<application>gpsd</application> may not be able to open GPS devices in
order to read them (such failures will be logged).</para>

<para>In order to fend off inadvertent denial-of-service attacks by
port scanners (not to mention deliberate ones),
<application>gpsd</application> will time out inactive client
connections.  Before the client has issued a command that requests a
channel assignment, a short timeout (60 seconds) applies.  There is no
timeout for clients in watcher or raw modes; rather,
<application>gpsd</application> drops these clients if they fail to
read data long enough for the outbound socket write buffer to fill.
Clients with an assigned device in polling mode are subject to a
longer timeout (15 minutes).</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='limitations'><title>LIMITATIONS</title>

<para>If multiple NMEA talkers are feeding RMC, GLL, and GGA sentences
to the same serial device (possible with an RS422 adapter hooked up to
some marine-navigation systems), an 'O' response may mix an altitude
from one device's GGA with latitude/longitude from another's RMC/GLL
after the second sentence has arrived.</para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> may change control settings on
your GPS (such as the emission frequency of various sentences or
packets) and not restore the original settings on exit.  This is a
result of inadequacies in NMEA and the vendor binary GPS protocols,
which often do not give clients any way to query the values of control
settings in order to be able to restore them later.</para>

<para>If your GPS uses a SiRF chipset at firmware level 231, and it is
after 31 May 2007, reported UTC time may be off by the difference
between 13 seconds and whatever leap-second correction is currently
applicable, from startup until complete subframe information is
received (normally about six seconds).  Firmware levels 232 and up
don't have this problem.  You may run <application>gpsd</application> at
debug level 4 to see the chipset type and firmware revision
level.</para>

<para>When using SiRF chips, the VDOP/TDOP/GDOP figures and associated
error estimates are computed by <application>gpsd</application> rather
than reported by the chip.  The computation does not exactly match
what SiRF chips do internally, which includes some satellite weighting
using parameters <application>gpsd</application> cannot see.</para>

<para>Autobauding on the Trimble GPSes can take as long as 5 seconds
if the device speed is not matched to the GPS speed.</para>

<para>If you are using an NMEA-only GPS (that is, not using SiRF or
Garmin or Zodiac binary mode) and the GPS does not emit GPZDA at the
start of its update cycle (which most consumer-grade NMEA GPSes do
not) and it is after 2099, then the century part of the dates
<application>gpsd</application> delivers will be wrong.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='files'><title>FILES</title>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><filename>/dev/ttyS0</filename></term>
<listitem>
<para>Prototype TTY device. After startup,
<application>gpsd</application> sets its group ID to the owner of this
device if no GPS device was specified on the command line does not
exist.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<!--
<varlistentry>
<term><filename>/usr/share/gpsd/dgpsip-servers</filename></term>
<listitem>
<para>A text file listing DGPSIP servers worldwide.  If no DGPSIP
server is specified at startup (via the -d option)
<application>gpsd</application> will look here to find the
nearest one.  Each line has three space-separated fields:
latitude (decimal degrees), longitude (decimal degrees) and
a server name (optionally followed by a colon and a port number).
Text following # on a line is ignored.  Blank lines are ignored.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
-->
</variablelist>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='standards'><title>APPLICABLE STANDARDS</title>

<para>The official NMEA protocol standard is available on paper from
the <ulink url='http://www.nmea.org/pub/0183/'>National Marine
Electronics Association</ulink>, but is proprietary and expensive; the
maintainers of <application>gpsd</application> have made a point of
not looking at it.  The <ulink url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/">GPSD
website</ulink> links to several documents that collect publicly
disclosed information about the protocol.</para>

<para><application>gpsd</application> parses the following NMEA
sentences: RMC, GGA, GLL, GSA, GSV, VTG, ZDA.  It recognizes these
with either the normal GP talker-ID prefix, or with the II prefix
emitted by Seahawk Autohelm marine navigation systems, or with the IN
prefix emitted by some Garmin units.  It recognizes one vendor
extension, the PGRME emitted by some Garmin GPS models.</para>

<para>Note that <application>gpsd</application> returns pure decimal
degrees, not the hybrid degree/minute format described in the NMEA
standard.</para>

<para>Differential-GPS corrections are conveyed by the RTCM-104
proocol. The applicable standard for RTCM-104 V2 is <citetitle>RTCM
Recommended Standards for Differential NAVSTAR GPS Service</citetitle>
RTCM Paper 194-93/SC 104-STD.  The applicable standard for RTCM-104 V3
is <citetitle>RTCM Standard 10403.1 for Differential GNSS Services -
Version 3</citetitle> RTCM Paper 177-2006-SC104-STD.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='see_also'><title>SEE ALSO</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gps</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>libgps</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>libgpsd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsprof</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsfake</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpsctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>gpscat</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>rtcm-104</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
</para>
</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='maintainer'><title>AUTHORS</title>

<para>Remco Treffcorn, Derrick Brashear, Russ Nelson, Eric S. Raymond,
Chris Kuethe.  This manual page by Eric S. Raymond
<email>esr@thyrsus.com</email>.  There is a project site at <ulink
url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/">here</ulink>.</para>
</refsect1>

</refentry>