flipit - control the X10 Firecracker (CM17A)
flipit [flip (a-p)(1-16) (on|off)] [repeat...]
This document describes flipit version 0.1.2.
Flipit allows you to control X10 devices with your Unix computer by means of a Firecracker (model number CM17A) plugged into a serial port.
X10 is a method of transmitting control commands to devices over regular home power lines. The Firecracker is a device manufactured by X10 Ltd. See http://www.x10.com/ for product information.
For more information, see http://www.lickey.com/flipit/.
Flipit has a simple command structure. The first argument must always be 'flip.' The next argument is a device specifier. Device specifiers are comprised of a house code (a letter ``a'' to ``p'') and a device code (a number 1 to 16). The next argument is either ``on'' or ``off.'' These three arguments can be repeated in this sequence, which allows to turn more than one device on or off at a time.
If everything goes well, flipit will exit with a value of zero. Upon error, it will print the reason why on stderr and exit with a non-zero exit value.
The following will turn device 5 in house code B on:
flipit flip b5 on
The following will first turn device 10 in house code C off, then turn device 16 in house code A on:
flipit flip c10 off flip a16 on
flipit reads the filename of the tty device to use from the flipit.conf file. The flipit.conf file is usually in the /usr/local/etc directory, but can be changed at compile time.
This is an ALPHA version of flipit. Not all features are implemented.
A similar and more full featured program is called BottleRocket.
Flipit doesn't create any lock files when accessing the tty.
Flipit does no security checking itself. If it finds that it can open the tty device named in flipit.conf it will be happy to do so.
Matt Armstrong <matt@lickey.com> http://www.lickey.com/flipit/