Provided by: alsa-utils_1.2.11-1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       alsactl - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver

SYNOPSIS

       alsactl [options] [store|restore|init] <card # or id or device>

       alsactl monitor <card # or id>

       alsactl info <card # or id>

       alsactl [clean] <card # or id or device> [[control identifiers]]

DESCRIPTION

       alsactl  is  used  to  control  advanced  settings  for  the ALSA soundcard drivers. It supports multiple
       soundcards. If your card has features that you can't seem to control from a mixer application,  you  have
       come to the right place.

COMMANDS

   Introduction
       The  <card>  argument  is  optional.  If  no soundcards are specified, setup for all cards will be saved,
       loaded or monitored.

   store <card>
       This command saves the current driver state for the selected soundcard to the configuration file.

   restore <card>
       This command loads driver state for the selected soundcard from  the  configuration  file.  If  restoring
       fails (eventually partly), the init action is called.

   nrestore <card>
       This command is like restore, but it notifies also the daemon to do new rescan for available soundcards.

   init <card>
       This command tries to initialize all devices to a default state. If device is not known, error code 99 is
       returned.

   daemon
       This command manages to save periodically the sound state.

   rdaemon
       This command is like daemon but restore the sound state at first.

   kill <cmd>
       This command notifies the daemon to do the specified operation (quit, rescan, save_and_quit).

   monitor <card>
       This command is for monitoring the events received from the given control device.

   info <card>
       This command shows the general information in the YAML format collected from  the  given  control  device
       (sound card).

   clean <card> [filter]
       This command cleans the controls created by applications.

       The  optional  element  identifiers  are accepted as a filter. One extra argument is parsed as an element
       identifiers.

       Example: alsactl clean 0 "name='PCM'" "name='Mic Phantom'"

   dump-state
       This command dumps the current state (all cards) to stdout.

   dump-cfg
       This command dumps the current configuration (all cards) to stdout.  Note that  the  configuration  hooks
       are evaluated.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Help: show available flags and commands.

       -d, --debug
              Use debug mode: a bit more verbose.

       -v, --version
              Print alsactl version number.

       -f, --file
              Select the configuration file to use. The default is /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.

       -a, --config-dir
              Select the boot / hotplug ALSA configuration directory to use. The default is /var/lib/alsa.

       -l, --lock
              Use  the file locking to serialize the concurrent access to the state file (this option is default
              for the global state file).

       -L, --no-lock
              Do not use the file locking to serialize the concurrent access to the state  file  (including  the
              global state file).

       -O, --lock-state-file
              Select the state lock file path.

       -F, --force
              Used  with  restore  command.   Try  to restore the matching control elements as much as possible.
              This option is set as default now.

       -g, --ignore
              Used with store, restore and init commands. Do not show 'No soundcards found' and do  not  set  an
              error exit code when soundcards are not installed.

       -P, --pedantic
              Used  with  restore command.  Don't restore mismatching control elements.  This option was the old
              default behavior.

       -I, --no-init-fallback
              Don't initialize cards if restore fails.  Since version 1.0.18, alsactl tries  to  initialize  the
              card  with  the  restore  operation as default.  But this can cause incompatibility with the older
              version.  The caller may expect that the state won't be touched if no  state  file  exists.   This
              option takes the restore behavior back to the older version by suppressing the initialization.

       -r, --runstate
              Save  restore and init state to this file. The file will contain only errors.  Errors are appended
              with the soundcard id to the end of file.

       -R, --remove
              Remove runstate file at first.

       -E, --env #=#
              Set environment variable (useful for init action or you  may  override  ALSA_CONFIG_PATH  to  read
              different or optimized configuration - may be useful for "boot" scripts).

       -i, --initfile
              The configuration file for init. By default, PREFIX/share/alsa/init/00main is used.

       -p, --period
              The store period in seconds for the daemon command.

       -e, --pid-file
              The pathname to store the process-id file in the HDB UUCP format (ASCII).

       -b, --background
              Run the task in background.

       -s, --syslog
              Use syslog for messages.

       -n, --nice
              Set the process priority (see 'man nice')

       -c, --sched-idle
              Set the process scheduling policy to idle (SCHED_IDLE).

       -D, --ucm-defaults
              Execute  also  the  'defaults'  section  from  the UCM configuration. The standard behaviour is to
              execute only 'once' section.

       -U, --no-ucm
              Skip the UCM init even if available. It may be useful for the test the legacy init configuration.

FILES

       /var/lib/alsa/asound.state (or whatever file you specify with the -f  flag)  is  used  to  store  current
       settings  for  your  soundcards.  The  settings  include  all  the  usual soundcard mixer settings.  More
       importantly, alsactl is capable of controlling other card-specific features that mixer apps usually don't
       know about.

       The  configuration  file  is  generated automatically by running alsactl store. Editing the configuration
       file by hand may be necessary for some soundcard features (e.g. enabling/disabling  automatic  mic  gain,
       digital output, joystick/game ports, some future MIDI routing options, etc).

SEE ALSO

        amixer(1), alsamixer(1), aplay(1), alsactl_init(7)

BUGS

       None known.

AUTHOR

       alsactl  is  by  Jaroslav  Kysela  <perex@perex.cz>  and  Abramo  Bagnara <abramo@alsa-project.org>. This
       document is by Paul Winkler <zarmzarm@erols.com>.

                                                   07 May 2014                                        ALSACTL(1)