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There are various methods to control the keyboard backlight brightness level.

## Any vendor

There are a variety ways to manage the brightness level and different helpers tools to accomplish this, such as brightnessctl or light.

The `sys` pseudo-file system exposes an interface to the keyboard backlight. The current brightness level can be get by reading `/sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness`. For example to get the maximum brightness level:

    $ cat /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/max_brightness

To set the brightness to 1:

    # echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness

When using `brightnessctl` you can get a list of available brightness controls with `brightnessctl --list`, then to show the kbd backlight information:

    $ brightnessctl --device='tpacpi::kbd_backlight' info

This will show the absolute and relative current value and the maximum absolute value. To set a different value:

    $ brightnessctl --device='tpacpi::kbd_backlight' set 1

### xset

Some keyboard manufactores are not recognized by brightnessctl or light, but you can use xorg-xset to control its lights if you are running Xorg.

The first parameter `led` turns on the led, and `-led` turns it off, the `NUMBER` parameters accepts integers for 1 to 32 (each number corresponds to a led in you system, keyboards seem to generally be number 3), or 'on' and 'off' (on will turn ALL lights on, and off will turn ALL lights off).

To turn on the lights:

    $ xset led NUMBER

To turn off the lights:

    $ xset -led NUMBER

### D-Bus

You can control your computer keyboard backlight via the D-Bus interface. The benefits of using it are that no modification to device files is required and it is vendor agnostic.

The following is an example implementation in Python 3. Install upower and dbus-python packages then place the following script in `/usr/local/bin/` and make it executable. You can then map your keyboard shortcuts to run `/usr/local/bin/kb-light.py + x` and `/usr/local/bin/kb-light.py - x` to increase and decrease your keyboard backlight level by `x` amounts.

Tip: You should try with an x = `1` to determine the limits of the keyboard backlight levels

    /usr/local/bin/kb-light.py

    #!/usr/bin/env python3

    import dbus
    import sys

    def kb_light_set(delta):
        bus = dbus.SystemBus()
        kbd_backlight_proxy = bus.get_object('org.freedesktop.UPower', '/org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight')
        kbd_backlight = dbus.Interface(kbd_backlight_proxy, 'org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight')

        current = kbd_backlight.GetBrightness()
        maximum = kbd_backlight.GetMaxBrightness()
        new = max(0, min(current + delta, maximum))

        if 0 <= new <= maximum:
            current = new
            kbd_backlight.SetBrightness(current)

        # Return current backlight level percentage
        return 100 * current / maximum

    if __name__ ==  '__main__':
        if len(sys.argv) == 2 or len(sys.argv) == 3:
            if sys.argv[1] == "--up" or sys.argv[1] == "+":
                if len(sys.argv) == 3:
                    print(kb_light_set(int(sys.argv[2])))
                else:
                    print(kb_light_set(17))
            elif sys.argv[1] == "--down" or sys.argv[1] == "-":
                if len(sys.argv) == 3:
                    print(kb_light_set(-int(sys.argv[2])))
                else:
                    print(kb_light_set(-17))
            else:
                print("Unknown argument:", sys.argv[1])
        else:
            print("Script takes one or two argument.", len(sys.argv) - 1, "arguments provided.")

Alternatively the following bash one-liner will set the backlight to the value specified in the argument:

    setKeyboardLight () {
        dbus-send --system --type=method_call  --dest="org.freedesktop.UPower" "/org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight" "org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight.SetBrightness" int32:$1
    }

#### On GNOME

The following can be run from a terminal or mapped to keybindings

    $ gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power --object-path /org/gnome/SettingsDaemon/Power --method org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power.Keyboard.StepUp
    $ gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power --object-path /org/gnome/SettingsDaemon/Power --method org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power.Keyboard.StepDown

#### On MATE

This article or section needs language, wiki syntax or style improvements. See Help:Style for reference.

Reason: Informal and unclear description. No relevance to MATE. (Discuss in Talk:Keyboard backlight)

In case you use MATE environment you might get tired with repeated lighting keyboard backlight while logging in, unlocking screen or waking up dimmed display. Following setup prevent from automatic lighting up during any action. The only triggers remain plugging in the adapter and fresh boot. After that you can control keyboard backlight only via hotkeys (eg. ThinkPad Fn + spacebar).

To prevent automatic lighting up just edit file `/usr/share/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.UPower.conf` as follows (two occurrences of "deny"):

    /usr/share/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.UPower.conf

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- -*- XML -*- -->

    <!DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC
     "-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN"
     "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd">
    <busconfig>
      <!-- Only root can own the service -->
      <policy user="root">
        <allow own="org.freedesktop.UPower"/>
      </policy>
      <policy context="default">

        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable"/>

        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Peer"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower.Device"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties"/>
        <deny  send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower.Wakeups"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties"/>

        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.UPower"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.UPower.Device"/>
        <deny  send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
               send_interface="org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
    	   send_interface="org.freedesktop.UPower.Wakeups"/>
      </policy>
    </busconfig>

Category:

- Keyboards

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