path: root/gpsd.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!--
This file is Copyright (c) 2010 by the GPSD project
BSD terms apply: see the file COPYING in the distribution root for details.
-->
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC
   "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY gpsdsock	 "/var/run/gpsd.sock">
]>
<refentry id='gpsd.8'>
<refentryinfo><date>9 Aug 2004</date></refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>gpsd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo class="source">The GPSD Project</refmiscinfo>
<refmiscinfo class="manual">GPSD Documentation</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='quickstart'><title>QUICK START</title>

<para>If you have a GPS attached on the lowest-numbered USB port of a
Linux system, and want to read reports from it on TCP/IP port 2947, it
will normally suffice to do this:</para>

<programlisting>
gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0
</programlisting>

<para>For the lowest-numbered serial port:</para>

<programlisting>
gpsd /dev/ttyS0
</programlisting>

<para>Change the device number as appropriate if you need to use a
different port. Command-line flags enable verbose logging, a control
port, and other optional extras but should not be needed for basic
operation; the one exception, on very badly designed hardware, might
be <option>-b</option> (which see).</para>

<para>On Linux systems supporting udev, <application>gpsd</application>
is normally started automatically when a USB plugin event fires (if it
is not already running) and is handed the name of the newly active 
device. In that case no invocation is required at all.</para>

<para>For your initial tests set your GPS hardware to speak NMEA, as
<application>gpsd</application> is guaranteed to be able to process
that. If your GPS has a native or binary mode with better perfornance
that <application>gpsd</application> knows how to speak,
<application>gpsd</application> will autoconfigure that mode.</para>

<para>You can verify correct operation by first starting
<application>gpsd</application> and then
<application>xgps</application>, the X windows test client.</para>

<para>If you have problems, the GPSD project maintains a <ulink
url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/faq.html">FAQ</ulink> to assist
troubleshooting.</para>

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

<para><application>gpsd</application> is a monitor daemon that collects
information from GPSes, differential-GPS radios, or AIS receivers
attached to the host machine.  Each GPS, DGPS radio, or AIS receiver
is expected to be direct-connected to the host via a USB or RS232C
serial device.  The serial device 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 orv TNT
Revolution digital compasses.</para>

<para>The GPS reporting formats 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. By using
<application>gpsd</application> as an intermediary applications 
avoid contention for serial devices.</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>Client applications will communicate with <application>gpsd</application>
via a TCP/IP port, 2947 by default).  Both IPv4 and IPv6 connections
are supported and a client may connect via either.</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>-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 mode, 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, TPV
information is now private to the local machine until the user makes
an effort to expose this to the world.</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. Some RS232 GPSes wait in a standby mode
(drawing less power) when the host machine is not asserting DTR, and
some cellphone and handheld embedded GPSes have similar behaviors.
Accordingly, waiting for a watch request to open the device may save
battery power. (This capability is rare in consumer-grade devices and
nonexistent in USB GPSes which lack a DTR line.)</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.</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 device pathname of a local device from
which the daemon may expect GPS data. But there are three other
special source types recognized, for a total of four:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Local serial or USB device</term>
<listitem>
<para>A normal Unix device name of a serial or USB device to which a
sensor is attached. Example:
<filename>/dev/ttyUSB0</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>TCP feed</term>
<listitem>
<para>A URI with the prefix "tcp://", followed by a hostname, a
colon, and a port number. The daemon will open a socket to the
indicated address and port and read data packets from it, which will 
be interpreted as though they had been issued by a serial device. Example:
<filename>tcp://data.aishub.net:4006</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>UDP feed</term>
<listitem>
<para>A URI with the prefix "udp://", followed by a hostname, a
colon, and a port number. The daemon will open a socket listening for
UDP datagrams arriving on the indicated address and port, which will 
be interpreted as though they had been issued by a serial device. Example:
<filename>udp://127.0.0.1:5000</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Ntrip caster</term>
<listitem>
<para>A URI with the prefix "ntrip://" followed by the name of an
Ntrip caster (Ntrip is a protocol for broadcasting differential-GPS
fixes over the net). For Ntrip services that require authentication, a
prefix of the form "username:password@" can be added before the name
of the Ntrip broadcaster.  For Ntrip service, you must specify which
stream to use; the stream is given in the form "/streamname". An
example DGPSIP URI could be "dgpsip://dgpsip.example.com" and a Ntrip
URI could be
"ntrip://foo:bar@ntrip.example.com:80/example-stream". Corrections
from the caster will be send to each attached GPS with the capability
to accept them.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>DGPSIP server</term>
<listitem>
<para>A URI with the prefix "dgpsip://" followed by a hostname, a
colon, and an optional colon-separated port number (defaulting to
2101). The daemon will handshake with the DGPSIP server and 
read RTCM2 correction data from it. Corrections
from the server will be set to each attached GPS with the capability
to accept them.Example:
<filename>dgpsip://dgps.wsrcc.com:2101</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>(The "ais:://" source type supported in some older versions of
the daemon has been retired in favor of the more general
"tcp://".)</para>

<para>Internally, the daemon maintains a device pool holding the
pathnames of devices and remote servers 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>When a device is activated (i.e. a client requests data from it),
gpsd attempts to execute a hook from
<filename>/etc/gpsd/device-hook</filename> with first command line argument
set to the pathname of the device and the second to
<option>ACTIVATE</option>. On deactivatation it does the same passing
<option>DEACTIVATE</option> for the second argument.</para>

<para>Clients communicate with the daemon via textual request and
responses. It is a bad idea for applications to speak the 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 protocol
version symbols.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='protocol'><title>REQUEST/RESPONSE PROTOCOL</title>

<para>The 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>

<para>The remainder of this section documents the core GPSD protocol.
Extensions are docomented in the following sections. The extensions 
may not be supported in your <application>gpsd</application> instance 
if it has been compiled with a restricted feature set.</para>

<para>Here are the core-protocol responses:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>TPV</term> 
<listitem>
<para>A TPV object is a time-position-velocity report. The "class" and "mode"
fields 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>epx</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Longitude error estimate in meters, 95% confidence.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>epy</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Latitude error estimate 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</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Climb (positive) or sink (negative) rate, meters per 
	second.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>epd</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Direction error estimate 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>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert validity bits in the top-level set member for each
field actually received; see gps.h for bitmask names and values.</para>

<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>A SKY object reports a sky view of the GPS satellite positions.
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>xdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Longitudinal dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>ydop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Latitudinal dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>vdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Altitude dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>tdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Time dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>hdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Horizontal dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get a
	circular error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>pdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Spherical dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>gdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Hyperspherical dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>xdop</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Longitudinal dilution of precision, a dimensionsless
	factor which should be multiplied by a base UERE to get an
	error estimate.</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>Many devices compute dilution of precision factors but do nit
include them in their reports.  Many that do report DOPs report only
HDOP, two-dimensial circular error. <application>gpsd</application>
always passes through whatever the device actually reports, then
attempts to fill in other DOPs by calculating the appropriate
determinants in a covariance matrix based on the satellite view. DOPs
may be missing if some of these determinants are singular. It can even
happen that the device reports an error estimate in meters when the
correspoding DOP is unavailable; some devices use more sophisticated
error modeling than the covariance calculation.</para>

<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>When the C client library parses a SKY response, it
will assert the SATELLITE_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

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

<programlisting>
{"class":"SKY","tag":"MID2","device":"/dev/pts/1","time":1118327688.280
    "xdop":1.55,"hdop":1.24,"pdop":1.99,
    "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>ATT</term> 
<listitem>
<para>An ATT object is a vehicle-attitude report. It is returned by
digital-compass and gyroscope sensors; depending on device, it may 
include: heading, pitch, roll, yaw, gyroscope, and magnetic-field
readings. Because such sensors are often bundled as part of 
marine-navigation systems, the ATT response may also include
water depth.</para>

<para>The "class", "mode", and "tag" fields will reliably be present.  Others
may be reported or not depending on the specific device type.</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>ATT 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: "ATT"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>tag</entry>
	<entry>Yes</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>Yes</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Name of originating device</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>time</entry>
	<entry>Yes</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>heading</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Heading, degrees from true north.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_st</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Magnetometer status.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>pitch</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Pitch in degrees.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>pitch_st</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Pitch sensor status.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>yaw</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Yaw in degrees</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>yaw_st</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Yaw sensor status.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>roll</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Roll in degrees.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>roll_st</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>Roll sensor status.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>dip</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Roll in degrees.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_len</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Scalar magnetic field strength.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_x</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>X component of magnetic field strength.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_y</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Y component of magnetic field strength..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_z</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Z component of magnetic field strength..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>mag_len</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Scalar acceleration.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>acc_x</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>X component of acceleration.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>acc_y</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Y component of acceleration.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>acc_z</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Z component of acceleration..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>gyro_x</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>X component of acceleration.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>gyro_y</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Y component of acceleration.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>depth</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Water depth in meters.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>temperature</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>Temperature at sensir, degrees centigrade.</entry>
</row>


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

<para>The heading, pitch, and roll status codes (if present) vary by device.
For the TNT Revolution digital compasses, they are coded as follows: </para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>Device flags</title>
<tgroup cols="2" align="left" colsep="1" rowsep="1">
<thead>
<row>
	<entry>Code</entry>
	<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
	<entry>C</entry>
	<entry>magnetometer calibration alarm</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>L</entry>
	<entry>low alarm</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>M</entry>
	<entry>low warning</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>N</entry>
	<entry>normal</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>O</entry>
	<entry>high warning</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>P</entry>
	<entry>high alarm</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>V</entry>
	<entry>magnetometer voltage level alarm</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>


<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert ATT_IS.</para>

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

<programlisting>
{"class":"ATT","tag":"PTNTHTM","time":1270938096.843,
    "heading":14223.00,"mag_st":"N",
    "pitch":169.00,"pitch_st":"N", "roll":-43.00,"roll_st":"N",
    "dip":13641.000,"mag_x":2454.000,"temperature":0.000,"depth":0.000}
</programlisting>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>And here are the commands:</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>proto_major</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>API major revision level..</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>proto_minor</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>numeric</entry>
        <entry>API minor revision level..</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>The daemon ships a VERSION response to each client when the
client first connects to it.</para>

<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the VERSION_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

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

<programlisting>
{"class":"VERSION","version":"2.40dev","rev":"06f62e14eae9886cde907dae61c124c53eb1101f","proto_major":3,"proto_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>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the DEVICELIST_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

<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>?WATCH;</term> 
<listitem>

<para>This command sets watcher mode. It also sets or elicits a report
of per-subscriber policy and the raw bit.  An argument WATCH object
changes the subscriber's policy. The responce describes the
subscriber's policy. The response will also include a DEVICES
object.</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>enable</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>boolean</entry>
        <entry>Enable (true) or disable (false) watcher mode. Default
	is true.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>json</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>boolean</entry>
        <entry>Enable (true) or disable (false) dumping of JSON reports.
	Default is false.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>nmea</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>boolean</entry>
        <entry>Enable (true) or disable (false) dumping of binary
	packets as pseudo-NMEA. Default
	is false.</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 NMEA or AIVDM data stream from whatever device is attached.
	Binary GPS packets are hex-dumped.  RTCM2 and RTCM3
        packets are not dumped in raw mode. When this attribute is set to
	2 for a channel that processes binary data,
	<application>gpsd</application> reports the received data verbatim 
	without hex-dumping.</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>
<row>
	<entry>device</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>string</entry>
        <entry>If present, enable watching only of the specified device
	rather than all devices.  Useful with raw and NMEA modes
	in which device responses aren't tagged. Has no effect when
	used with enable:false.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>There is an additional boolean "timing" attribute which is 
undocumented because that portion of the interface is considered
unstable and for developer use only.</para>

<para>In watcher mode, GPS reports are dumped as TPV and SKY
responses. AIS and RTCM reporting is described in the next section.</para>

<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the POLICY_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

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

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

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?POLL;</term> 
<listitem>

<para>The POLL command requests data from the last-seen fixes on all
active GPS devices.  Devices must previously have been activated by
?WATCH to be pollable, or have been specified on the GPSD command line
together with an <option>-n</option> option.</para>

<para>Polling can lead to possibly surprising results when it is used
on a device such as an NMEA GPS for which a complete fix has to be
accumulated from several sentences. If you poll while those sentences
are being emitted, the response will contain the last complete fix
data and may be as much as one cycle time (typically 1 second)
stale.</para>

<para>The POLL response will contain a timestamped list of TPV objects
describing cached data, and a timestamped list of SKY objects
describing satellite configuration. If a device has not seen fixes, it
will be reported with a mode field of zero.</para>

<table frame="all" pgwide="0"><title>POLL 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: "POLL"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>time</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>Numeric</entry>
        <entry>Seconds since the Unix epoch, UTC. May have a
	fractional part of up to .001sec precision.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>active</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>Numeric</entry>
        <entry>Count of active devices.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>fixes</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>JSON array</entry>
        <entry>Comma-separated list of TPV objects.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>skyviews</entry>
	<entry>Yes</entry>
	<entry>JSON array</entry>
        <entry>Comma-separated list of SKY objects.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<para>Here's an example of a POLL response:</para>

<programlisting>
{"class":"POLL","timestamp":1270517274.846,"active":1,
    "fixes":[{"class":"TPV","tag":"MID41","device":"/dev/ttyUSB0",
              "time":1270517264.240,"ept":0.005,"lat":40.035093060,
              "lon":-75.519748733,"track":99.4319,"speed":0.123,"mode":2}],
    "skyviews":[{"class":"SKY","tag":"MID41","device":"/dev/ttyUSB0",
                 "time":1270517264.240,"hdop":9.20,
                 "satellites":[{"PRN":16,"el":55,"az":42,"ss":36,"used":true},
                               {"PRN":19,"el":25,"az":177,"ss":0,"used":false},
                               {"PRN":7,"el":13,"az":295,"ss":0,"used":false},
                               {"PRN":6,"el":56,"az":135,"ss":32,"used":true},
                               {"PRN":13,"el":47,"az":304,"ss":0,"used":false},
                               {"PRN":23,"el":66,"az":259,"ss":0,"used":false},
                               {"PRN":20,"el":7,"az":226,"ss":0,"used":false},
                               {"PRN":3,"el":52,"az":163,"ss":32,"used":true},
                               {"PRN":31,"el":16,"az":102,"ss":0,"used":false}
]}]}
</programlisting>

<note>
<para>Client software should not assime the field inventory of the
POLL response is fixed for all time.  As
<application>gpsd</application> collects and caches more data from
more sensor types, those data are likely to find their way 
into this response.</para>
</note>

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>?DEVICE</term> 
<listitem>

<para>This command reports (when followed by ';') the state of a
device, or sets (when followed by '=' and a DEVICE object)
device-specific control bits, notably the device's speed and serial
mode and the native-mode bit.  The parameter-setting form 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 the parameter-setting form 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
serial 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 DEVICE 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: "DEVICE"</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>path</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>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>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>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>
<row>
	<entry>bps</entry>
	<entry>No</entry>
	<entry>integer</entry>
        <entry>Device speed in bits per second.</entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>parity</entry> 
        <entry>Yes</entry> 
        <entry>string</entry>
	<entry><para>N, O or E for no parity, odd, or even.</para></entry>
</row>
<row>
	<entry>stopbits</entry> 
        <entry>Yes</entry> 
        <entry>string</entry>
	<entry><para>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>The serial parameters will be omitted in a response describing a 
TCP/IP source such as an Ntrip, DGPSIP, or AIS feed.</para>

<para>The contents of the flags field should be interpreted as follows:</para>

<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>AIS data has been seen on this device</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>

<!--
<para>The mincycle member 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>
-->

<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the DEVICE_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

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

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

</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>When a client is in watcher mode, the daemon will ship it DEVICE
notifications when a device is added to the pool or
deactivated.</para>

<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the DEVICE_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

<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>

<para>When the C client library parses a response of this kind, it
will assert the ERR_SET bit in the top-level set member.</para>

</refsect1>
<refsect1 id='ais-rtcm'><title>AIS AND RTCM DUMP FORMATS</title>

<para>AIS support is an extension.  It may not be present if your
instance of <application>gpsd</application> has been built with
a restricted feature set.</para>

<para>AIS packets are dumped as JSON objects with class "AIS".  Each
AIS report object contains a "type" field giving the AIS message type
and a "scaled" field telling whether the remainder of the fields are
dumped in scaled or unscaled form. Other fields have names and types
as specified in the <ulink
url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/AIVDM.html">AIVDM/AIVDO Protocol
Decoding</ulink> document; each message field table may be directly
interpreted as a specification for the members of the corresponding
JSON object type.</para>

<para>RTCM2 corrections are dumped in the JSON format described in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>rtcm104</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>

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

<para><application>gpsd</application> maintains an internal list of
GPS devices (the "device pool").  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>A device may will also be dropped from the pool if GPSD gets a zero
length read from it. This  end-of-file condition indicates that the'
device has been disconnected.</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 pool. 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 in ionospheric signal lag than latitude/longitude is, 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 and later, 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>

<para>GPS date reporting has a Y2K-like problem for which
<application>gpsd</application> cannot compensate; GPS dates
are shipped as (week, second) pairs in which the week part is a 10 
or 13-bit counter. When the counter rolls over, a GPS receiver
may see and report a date 1024 or 8192 weeks in the past.</para>

<para>To interpret the 2-digit years shipped in NMEA sentences,
<application>gpsd</application> needs to know the base century and may
not have it in advance of a GPZDA sentence. If the system clock at
daemon startup time was at or later than the GPS epoch of 6 Jan 1981
00:00:00 (excluding negative, 0, and small positive values), it is
used to compute the base century.  (This is the
<emphasis>only</emphasis> way in which <application>gpsd</application>
relies on the system clock.)  Note that this computation may lead to
errors if the daemon is started up before a transition but continues
running after it wuthout a ZDA.</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), a 'TPV' 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, 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>

<para>Generation of position error estimates (eph, epv, epd, eps, epc)
from the incomplete data handed back by GPS reporting protocols
involves both a lot of mathematical black art and fragile
device-dependent assumptions.  This code has been bug-prone in tbe
past and problems may still lurk there.</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>/etc/gpsd/device-hook</filename></term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional file containing the device activation/deactivation script.
</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 GN prefix used
by GLONASS, or with the II prefix emitted by Seahawk Autohelm marine
navigation systems, or with the IN prefix emitted by some Garmin
units.  It recognizes some vendor extensions: the PGRME emitted by some
Garmin GPS models, the OHPR emitted by Oceanserver digital compasses,
the PTNTHTM emitted by True North digital compasses, and the PASHR 
sentences emitted by some Ashtech GPSes.</para>

<para>Note that <application>gpsd</application> JSON 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>

<para>AIS is defined by ITU Recommendation M.1371,
<citetitle>Technical Characteristics for a Universal Shipborne
Automatic Identification System Using Time Division Multiple
Access</citetitle>. The AIVDM/AIVDO format understood by this progeam
is defined by IEC-PAS 61162-100, <citetitle>Maritime navigation and
radiocommunication equipment and systems</citetitle></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 <ulink
url="http://gpsd.berlios.de/">project site</ulink>.</para>
</refsect1>

</refentry>