= gpsd(8)
:date: 15 May 2025
:keywords: gps, gpsd, gnss
:manmanual: GPSD Documentation
:mansource: GPSD, Version {gpsdver}
:robots: index,follow
:sectlinks:
:toc: macro
:type: manpage

include::../www/inc-menu.adoc[]

== NAME

gpsd - interface daemon for GPS receivers

== SYNOPSIS

*gpsd* [OPTIONS]

*gpsd* -h

*gpsd* -V

== QUICK START

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, as root:

----
# gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0
----

For the lowest-numbered serial port:

----
# gpsd /dev/ttyS0
----

*gpsd* may be started as a normal user, or by using sudo, but some
functionality will be lost.  Best to start as root.  See
*SECURITY AND PERMISSIONS ISSUES* below.

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 *-b* (which
see).

On Linux systems supporting udev, *gpsd* 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.

For your initial tests set your GPS hardware to speak NMEA, as *gpsd* is
guaranteed to be able to process that. If your GPS has a native or
binary mode with better performance that *gpsd* knows how to speak, *gpsd*
may autoconfigure that mode.

You can verify correct operation by first starting *gpsd*.  Then *xgps*,
the X windows test client or *cgps* the curses based terminal client.

If you have problems, the GPSD project maintains helpful information
online.  Some links are at the end of this man page.

== DESCRIPTION

*gpsd* 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 directly
connected to the host via a USB or RS232C serial device. The serial
device may be specified to *gpsd* 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, *gpsd* discovers the
correct port speed and protocol for it.

*gpsd* should be able to query any GPS that speaks either the standard
textual NMEA 0183 protocol, or the (differing) extended NMEA dialects
used by MTK-3301, iTrax, Motorola OnCore, Sony CXD2951, Ashtech/Thales
and some other devices. It can also interpret the binary protocols used
by EverMore, Garmin, Javad, Navcom, Rockwell/Zodiac, SiRF, Trimble, and
u-blox devices. Under Linux it can read NMEA2000 packets through the
kernel CAN socket. It can read heading and attitude information from the
TNT Revolution digital compasses.

The GPS reporting formats supported by your binary of *gpsd* 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 binary, see the output of *gpsd -l*

*gpsd* 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 *gpsd* as an intermediary, applications avoid contention
for serial devices.

*gpsd* 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 may shrink position errors.
When *gpsd* 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).

Client applications typically communicate with *gpsd* via a TCP/IP port,
port 2947 by default. Both IPv4 and IPv6 connections are supported and a
client may connect via either.

== OPTIONS

The program accepts the following options:

*-?*, *-h*, *---help*::
  Display help message and terminate.
*-b*, *--readonly*::
  Broken-device-safety mode, otherwise known as read-only mode. A few
  bluetooth and USB receivers lock up or become totally inaccessible
  when probed or reconfigured; see the hardware compatibility list on
  the GPSD project website for details. This switch prevents *gpsd* from
  writing to a receiver. This means that *gpsd* cannot configure the
  receiver for optimal performance, but it also means that *gpsd* 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.
*-D LVL*, *--debug LVL*::
  Set debug level. Default is 0. At debug levels 2 and above, *gpsd*
  reports incoming sentence and actions to standard error if *gpsd* is in
  the foreground (*-N*) or to syslog if in the background. See <<LOGGING>>
  below.
*-F FILE*, *--sockfile FILE*::
  Create a control socket for device addition and removal commands.
  Default is None. 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.
*-f FRAME*, *--framing FRAME*::
  Fix the framing to the GNSS device. The framing parameter is of the
  form: [78][ENO][012]. Most GNSS are 8N1. Some Trimble default to 8O1.
  The default is to search for the correct framing.
*-G*, *--listenany*::
  This flag causes *gpsd* to listen on all addresses (INADDR_ANY) rather
  than just the loop back (INADDR_LOOPBACK) address. For the sake of
  privacy and security, *gpsd* information is private by default to the
  local machine until the user makes an effort to expose this to the
  world.

*-l*, *--drivers*::
  List all drivers compiled into this *gpsd* instance. The letters to the
  left of each driver name are the *gpsd* control commands supported by
  that driver. Then exit.
*-n*, *--nowait*::
  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).
  You should use this option if you plan to use *gpsd* to provide
  reference clock information to ntpd or chronyd.  This option will also
  enable clients to see data from the receiver sooner on connection.

*-N*, *--foreground*::
  Don't daemonize; run in foreground. This switch is mainly useful for
  debugging.
*-p*, *--passive*::
  Passive mode. Do not autoconfigure the receiver, but allow manual
  configuration changes.
*-P FILE*, *--pidfile FILE*::
  Specify the name and path to record the daemon's process ID.
*-r*, *--badtime*::
  Use GPS time even with no current fix. Some GPSs have battery powered
  Real Time Clocks (RTC's) built in, making them a valid time source
  even before a fix is acquired. This can be useful on a Raspberry Pi,
  or other device that has no battery powered RTC, and thus has no valid
  time at startup.  Use with caution.
*--port PORT*, *-S PORT*::
  Set TCP/IP port on which to listen for GPSD clients (default is 2947).
*-s SPEED*, *--speed SPEED*::
  Fix the serial port speed to the GNSS device. Allowed speeds are:
  4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 230400, 460800 and 921600. The
  default is to autobaud. Note that some devices with integrated USB
  ignore port speed.
*-V*, *--version*::
  Dump version and exit.

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:

Local serial or USB device::
  A normal Unix device name of a serial or USB device to which a sensor
  is attached. Examples: */dev/ttyS0*, or */dev/ttyUSB0*.
Local PPS device::
  A normal Unix device name of a PPS device to which a PPS source is
  attached. The device name must start with "/dev/pps" and a local
  serial or USB GPS device must also be available. Example:
  */dev/pps0*.
TCP feed::
  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:
  *tcp://data.aishub.net:4006*.
UDP feed::
  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 in the indicated address and port, which will be interpreted
  as though they had been issued by a serial device. Example:
  *udp://127.0.0.1:5000*.
Ntrip caster::
  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 sent to each attached GPS with the
  capability to accept them.
DGPSIP server::
  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:
  *dgpsip://dgps.wsrcc.com:2101*.
Remote gpsd feed::
  A URI with the prefix "gpsd://", followed by a hostname and optionally
  a colon and a port number (if the port is absent the default *gpsd* port
  will be used). Then followed optionally by a second colon and the
  remote device name The daemon will open a socket to the indicated
  address and port and emulate a *gpsd* client, collecting JSON reports
  from the remote *gpsd* instance that will be passed to local clients.
  Example: *gpsd://gpsd.io:2947:/dev/ttyAMA0*.
NMEA2000 CAN data::
  A URI with the prefix "nmea2000://", followed by a CAN devicename.
  Only Linux socket CAN interfaces are supported. The interface must be
  configured to receive CAN messages before *gpsd* can be started. If
  there is more than one unit on the CAN bus that provides GPS data,
  *gpsd* chooses the unit from which a GPS message is first seen. Example:
  *nmea2000://can0*.

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

Additionally, two serial device name have a side effect, if your
binary was compiled with the MAGIC_HAT option:

/dev/ttyAMA0::
  The UART device on a Raspberry Pi. Has the side effect of opening
  /dev/pps0 for RFC2783 1PPS data.
/dev/gpsd0::
  Generic GPS device 0. Has the side effect of opening /dev/pps0 for
  RFC2783 1PPS data.

Note, however, that if /dev/pps0 is the fake "ktimer" PPS, then
/dev/pps1 will be used instead.

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.  Daemon
startup will abort with an error if no devices and no control socket is
specified.

When a device is activated (i.e. a client requests data from it), *gpsd*
attempts to execute a hook from */etc/gpsd/device-hook* with first
command line argument set to the pathname of the device and the second
to *ACTIVATE*. On deactivation, it does the same passing
*DEACTIVATE* for the second argument.

*gpsd* can export data to client applications in three ways: via a sockets
interface, via a shared-memory segment, and via D-Bus. The next three
major sections describe these interfaces.

== LOGGING

When *gpsd* is running as a daemon (not in the foreground) is sends
all of its logging to *syslog*(3).  Logging is sent with ident "gpsd"
using facility "LOG_USER".

If you are using syslog-ng, then you can send all *gpsd*
logs to a file */var/log/gpsd*. Put this at the end of your
*/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf* file:

----
destination gpsdf { file("/var/log/gpsd"); };
filter f_gpsd { program("gpsd"); };
log { source(src); filter(f_gpsd); destination(gpsdf); };
----

== THE SOCKET INTERFACE

Clients may communicate with the daemon via textual request and
responses over a socket. It is a bad idea for applications to speak the
protocol directly: rather, they should use the libgps client library and
take appropriate care to conditionalize their code on the major and
minor protocol version symbols.

The request-response protocol for the socket interface is fully
documented in gpsd_json(5).

== SHARED-MEMORY AND DBUS INTERFACES

*gpsd* has two other (read-only) interfaces.

Whenever the daemon recognizes a packet from any attached device, it
writes the accumulated state from that device to a shared memory
segment. The C and C++ client libraries shipped with GPSD can read this
segment. Client methods, and various restrictions associated with the
read-only nature of this interface, are documented at libgps(3). The
shared-memory interface is intended primarily for embedded deployments
in which *gpsd* monitors a single device, and its principal advantage is
that a daemon instance configured with shared memory but without the
sockets interface loses a significant amount of runtime weight.

The daemon may be configured to emit a D-Bus signal each time an
attached device delivers a fix. The signal path is "path /org/gpsd", the
signal interface is "org.gpsd", and the signal name is "fix". The signal
payload layout is as follows:

.Satellite object
[cols=",",options="header",]
|===
|Type |Description
|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Time (seconds since Unix epoch)

|DBUS_TYPE_INT32 |mode

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Time uncertainty (seconds).

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Latitude in degrees.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Longitude in degrees.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Horizontal uncertainty in meter.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Altitude MSL in meters.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Altitude uncertainty in meters.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Course in degrees from true north.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Course uncertainty in meters

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Speed, meters per second.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Speed uncertainty in meters per second.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Climb, meters per second.

|DBUS_TYPE_DOUBLE |Climb uncertainty in meters per second.

|DBUS_TYPE_STRING |Device name
|===

Uncertainty values are provided by the GNSS receiver.  Check your
receiver documentation to see if is specifies what its "uncertainty"
means.

== GPS DEVICE MANAGEMENT

*gpsd* 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.

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.

When *gpsd* is installed along with working hotplug notifier scripts
feeding it device-add commands over the control socket, *gpsd* should
require no configuration or user action to find hotplug devices.

Sending SIGHUP to a running *gpsd* 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.

When *gpsd* is called with no initial devices (thus, expecting devices
to be passed to it by notifications to the control socket), and reaches
a state where there are no devices connected and no subscribers after
some devices have been seen, it shuts down gracefully. It is expected
that future device hotplug events will reactivate it.

To point *gpsd* 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 */dev/foo*. 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 */dev/foo* from the search list, send
"-/dev/foo\n".

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.

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

Your client may await a response, which will be a line beginning with
either "OK" or "ERROR". An ERROR response 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 *gpsd*'s device
pool. An ERROR response to a '!' command means the daemon did not
recognize the devicename specified.

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

== ACCURACY

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 _not_ rely on GPS altitude for life-critical
tasks such as landing an airplane.

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

DGPS correction may reduce UERE, provided you are within about 100
miles (160 km) of a DGPS ground station from which you are receiving
corrections.

On a 4800bps connection, the time latency of fixes provided by *gpsd* 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 *gpsd* will be negligible, on the
order of a millisecond. Nevertheless, latency can introduce significant
errors for vehicles in motion, at 50 km/h (31 mi/h) of speed over
ground, 1 second of lag corresponds to 13.8 meters change in position
between updates.

The time reporting of the GPS system itself has an intrinsic accuracy
limit of 14 nanoseconds, but this can only be approximated by
specialized receivers using that send the high-accuracy PPS
(Pulse-Per-Second) over RS232 to cue a clock crystal. Most GPS receivers
only report time to a precision of 0.01s or 0.001s, and with no accuracy
guarantees below 1sec.

If your GPS uses a SiRF chipset at firmware level 231, reported UTC time
may be off by the difference between whatever default leap-second offset
has been compiled in and whatever leap-second correction is currently
applicable, from startup until complete subframe information is
received. Firmware levels 232 and up don't have this problem. You may
run *gpsd* at debug level 4 to see the chipset type and firmware revision
level.

There are exactly two circumstances under which *gpsd* relies on the
host-system clock:

In the GPS broadcast signal, GPS time is represented using a week number
that rolls over after 2^10 or 2^13 weeks (about 19.6 years, or 157
years), depending on the spacecraft. Receivers are required to
disambiguate this to the correct date, but may have difficulty due to
not knowing time to within half this interval, or may have bugs. Users
have reported incorrect dates which appear to be due to this issue. *gpsd*
uses the startup time of the daemon detect and compensate for rollovers
while it is running, but otherwise reports the date as it is reported by
the receiver without attempting to correct it.

If you are using an NMEA-only GPS (that is, not using SiRF or Garmin or
Zodiac binary mode), *gpsd* relies on the system clock to tell it the
current century. If the system clock returns an invalid value near zero,
and the GPS does not emit GPZDA at the start of its update cycle (which
most consumer-grade NMEA GPSes do not) then the century part of the
dates *gpsd* delivers may be wrong. Additionally, near the century
turnover, a range of dates as wide in seconds as the accuracy of your
system clock may be referred to the wrong century.

[[ntp]]
== USE WITH NTP

*gpsd* can provide reference clock information to ntpd or chronyd, to
keep the system clock synchronized to the time provided by the GPS
receiver.

On Linux, *gpsd* 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. In addition, if your kernel
provides the RFC 2783 kernel PPS API then *gpsd* will use that for extra
accuracy.

*gpsd* communicates with *ntpd* using shared memory segments (SHMs).
The SHMs are numbered SHM(0) to SHM(7). and have a name (key) of
NTP0 to NTP7.  The first local time source on the command line may
use NTP0 and NTP1.  The second may use NTP2 and NTP3, etc.

You can see the output of *gpsd* to *ntpd* in real time with the
*ntpshmmon* command.

Other daemons, such as *ptp4l* may also be using the same SHMs to
talk to *ntpd*.

Detailed instructions for using GPSD to set up a high-quality time
service can be found among the documentation on the GPSD website.

[[dbus]]
== USE WITH D-BUS

On operating systems that support D-BUS, *gpsd* 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
*gpsd* source code to learn more.

[[security]]
== SECURITY AND PERMISSIONS ISSUES

*gpsd*, 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.

*gpsd* must start up as root in order to open the NTPD shared-memory
segment, open its logfile, and create its local control socket.
Note that starting gpsd with sudo is not the same as starting as
root.  Before doing any processing of GPS data, it tries to drop root
privileges by setting its UID to "nobody" (or another configured userid)
and its group ID to the group of the initial GPS passed on the command
line -- or, if that device doesn't exist, to the group of */dev/ttyS0*.

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 *gpsd*. It ensures that any such compromises cannot be
used for privilege elevation to root.

The assumption behind *gpsd*'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, *gpsd* may not be able to open GPS devices in order
to read them (such failures will be logged).

In order to fend off inadvertent denial-of-service attacks by port
scanners (not to mention deliberate ones), *gpsd* 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, *gpsd* 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).

=== CAPABILITIES

If your *gpsd* was compiled to support *capabilities*(7), then it may
be able to start as a normal user and retain some educed functionality,
The following capabilities will be helpful:

.caps object
[cols=",",options="header",]
|===
|Name |Description
|CAP_FOWNER| for chmod()
|CAP_SETGID| for setgid(), setgroups()
|CAP_SETUID| for setuid()
|===

You can set the capabilities by running these commands a root:

----
export CAPS='cap_fowner=ep cap_setgid=ep cap_setuid=ep'
setcap "${CAPS}" [path-to-gpsd]
----

And check the capabilities where set by running this command as a normal
user:

[subs="-quotes"]
----
getcap [path-to-gpsd]
----

== LIMITATIONS

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.

*gpsd* 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.

Some receivers do not report VDOP/TDOP/GDOP figures and associated error
estimates.  In that case they may be computed by *gpsd* instead.  This
computation does not exactly match what chips do internally, which
includes some satellite weighting using parameters *gpsd* cannot see.

Autobauding on the Trimble GPSes can take as long as 20 seconds, or
more, if the device speed is not matched to the GPS speed.  Use the
*-s* option to avoid autobaud delays.

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 the past and problems may
still lurk there.

AIDVM decoding of types 16-17, 22-23, and 25-26 is unverified.

GPSD presently fully recognizes only the 2.1 level of RTCM2 (message
types 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 16). The 2.3 message types 13, 14, and 31 are
recognized and reported. Message types 8, 10-12, 15-27, 28-30
(undefined), 31-37, 38-58 (undefined), and 60-63 are not yet supported.

The ISGPS used for RTCM2 and subframes decoder logic is sufficiently
convoluted to confuse some compiler optimizers, notably in GCC 3.x at
-O2, into generating bad code.

Devices meant to use PPS for high-precision timekeeping may fail if they
are specified after startup by a control-socket command, as opposed to
on the daemon's original command line. Root privileges are dropped
early, and some Unix variants require them in order to set the PPS line
discipline. Under Linux the POSIX capability to set the line discipline
is retained, but other platforms cannot use this code.

USB GPS devices often do not identify themselves through the USB
subsystem; they typically present as the class 00h (undefined) or class
FFh (vendor-specific) of USB-to-serial adapters. Because of this, the
Linux hotplug scripts must tell *gpsd* to sniff data from every
USB-to-serial adapter that goes active and is known to be of a type used
in GPSes. No such device is sent configuration strings until after it
has been identified as a GPS, and *gpsd* never opens a device that is
opened by another process. But there is a tiny window for non-GPS
devices not opened; if the application that wants them loses a race with
GPSD its device open will fail and have to be retried after GPSD sniffs
the device (normally less than a second later).

== FILES

*/dev/ttyS0*::
  Prototype TTY device. After startup, *gpsd* sets its group ID to the
  owning group of this device if no GPS device was specified on the
  command line does not exist.
*/etc/gpsd/device-hook*::
  Optional file containing the device activation/deactivation script.
  Note that while */etc/gpsd* is the default system configuration
  directory, it is possible to build the GPSD source code with different
  assumptions. See above for further details on the device-hook
  mechanism.
*/@RUNDIR@/chrony.XXX.sock*::
  Optional Unix domain socket provided by *chronyd* configured with a SOCK
  reference clock, where XXX is the name of the serial device (e.g. ttyS0).
  When *gpsd* is started, it will try to connect to this socket. If connected,
  it will be sending PPS timing information to *chronyd* in order to
  synchronize the system clock.
*/@RUNDIR@/chrony.clk.XXX.sock*::
  Similar to *chrony.XXX.sock*, but will be used to pass timing
  information to *chronyd* that is derived from the serial (likely NMEA)
  timing instead of PPS.

== ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

By setting the environment variable *GPSD_SHM_KEY*, you can control
the key value used to create the shared-memory segment used for
communication with the client library. This will be useful mainly when
isolating test instances of *gpsd* from production ones.

== RETURN VALUES

*0*:: on success.
*1*:: on failure

== APPLICABLE STANDARDS

The official NMEA protocol standards for NMEA0183 and NMEA2000 are
available from the National Marine Electronics Association, but are
proprietary and expensive; the maintainers of *gpsd* have made a point of
not looking at them. The GPSD project website links to several documents
that collect publicly disclosed information about the protocol.

*gpsd* parses the following NMEA sentences: RMC, GGA, GLL, GSA, GSV, VTG,
ZDA, GBS, HDT, DBT, GST. 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, or with the EC prefix
emitted by ECDIS units, or with the SD prefix emitted by depth sounders,
or with the HC and TI prefix emitted by some Airmar equipment. It
recognizes some vendor extensions: the PGRME emitted by some Garmin GPS
models, the PTNTHTM emitted by True North digital compasses, the PMTK
omitted by some San Jose Navigation GPSes, and the PASHR sentences
emitted by some Ashtech GPSes.

Note that *gpsd* JSON returns pure decimal degrees, not the hybrid
degree/minute format described in the NMEA standard.

Differential-GPS corrections are conveyed by the RTCM protocols. The
applicable standard for RTCM-104 V2 is RTCM Recommended Standards for
Differential GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite) Service RTCM Paper
136-2001/SC 104-STD. The applicable standard for RTCM-104 V3 is RTCM
Standard 10403.1 for Differential GNSS Services - Version 3 RTCM Paper
177-2006-SC104-STD. Ordering instructions for the RTCM standards are
accessible from the website of the Radio Technical Commission for
Maritime Services under "Publications".

AIS is defined by ITU Recommendation M.1371, Technical Characteristics
for a Universal Shipborne Automatic Identification System Using Time
Division Multiple Access. The AIVDM/AIVDO format understood by this
program is defined by IEC-PAS 61162-100, Maritime navigation and
radiocommunication equipment and systems. A more accessible description
of both can be found at AIVDM/AIVDO Protocol Decoding, on the references
page of the GPSD project website.

Subframe data is defined by IS-GPS-200, GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM WING
(GPSW) SYSTEMS ENGINEERING & INTEGRATION, INTERFACE SPECIFICATION
IS-GPS-200. The format understood by this program is defined
in Section 20 (Appendix II),

JSON is specified by RFC 7159, The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
Data Interchange Format.

The API for PPS time service is specified by RFC 2783, Pulse-Per-Second
API for UNIX-like Operating Systems, Version 1.0

The *gpsd* capabilities follow the proposed, but rescinded POSIX 1e
Section 25.2 Capabilities. See *capabilities*(7).

== AUTHORS

Authors: Eric S. Raymond, Chris Kuethe, Gary Miller. Former authors
whose bits have been plowed under by code turnover: Remco Treffcorn,
Derrick Brashear, Russ Nelson.

This manual page by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>.

== SEE ALSO

*gpsctl*(1), *gps*(1), *gpsprof*(1), *gpsfake*(1).  *gpscat(1), *ntpshmmon*(1),

*libgps*(3), *libgpsmm*(3)

*gpsd_json*(5)

*capabilities*(7)

*chronyd*(8), *gpsd*(8), *gpsdctl*(8), *ntpd*(8)

== RESOURCES

*Project web site:* {gpsdweb}
*GPSD FAQ:* {gpsdweb}faq.html
*GPSD Time Service HOWTO:* {gpsdweb}gpsd-time-service-howto.html
*Introduction to Time Service:* {gpsdweb}time-service-intro.html

== COPYING

This file is Copyright by the GPSD project +
SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-clause
