Set bindings in i3 to control keyboard backlight

Giorgos Keramidas wrote a script that relies in dbus and UPower - which most desktop distros have up and running.

I would recommend using this instead of scripts that write to /sys/class/... as they need to be run as root - either through sudo or a by having SUID set - and that is bad security practice.

Basic usage is as simple as

kbdbacklight up
kbdbacklight down
kbdbacklight [ 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 ]

Add this to the i3 config

# increase/decrease keyboard brightness
bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessUp exec kbdbacklight up
bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessDown exec kbdbacklight down 

The script itself is very simple

#!/bin/sh
# By Giorgos Keramidas

# backlight_get
#       Print current keyboard brightness from UPower to stdout.
backlight_get()
{
    dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply=literal --system         \
        --dest='org.freedesktop.UPower'                                 \
        '/org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight'                          \
        'org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight.GetBrightness'             \
        | awk '{print $2}'
}

# backlight_get_max
#       Print the maximum keyboard brightness from UPower to stdout.
backlight_get_max()
{
    dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply=literal --system       \
        --dest='org.freedesktop.UPower'                               \
        '/org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight'                        \
        'org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight.GetMaxBrightness'        \
        | awk '{print $2}'
}

# backlight_set NUMBER
#       Set the current backlight brighness to NUMBER, through UPower
backlight_set()
{
    value="$1"
    if test -z "${value}" ; then
        echo "Invalid backlight value ${value}"
    fi

    dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply=literal --system       \
        --dest='org.freedesktop.UPower'                               \
        '/org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight'                        \
        'org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight.SetBrightness'           \
        "int32:${value}}"
}

# backlight_change [ UP | DOWN | NUMBER ]
#       Change the current backlight value upwards or downwards, or
#       set it to a specific numeric value.
backlight_change()
{
    change="$1"
    if test -z "${change}" ; then
        echo "Invalid backlight change ${change}."                    \
            "Should be 'up' or 'down'." >&2
        return 1
    fi

    case ${change} in
    [1234567890]|[[1234567890][[1234567890])
        current=$( backlight_get )
        max=$( backlight_get_max )
        value=$( expr ${change} + 0 )
        if test ${value} -lt 0 || test ${value} -gt ${max} ; then
            echo "Invalid backlight value ${value}."                  \
                "Should be a number between 0 .. ${max}" >&2
            return 1
        else
            backlight_set "${value}"
            notify-send -t 800 "Keyboard brightness set to ${value}"
        fi
        ;;

    [uU][pP])
        current=$( backlight_get )
        max=$( backlight_get_max )
        if test "${current}" -lt "${max}" ; then
            value=$(( ${current} + 1 ))
            backlight_set "${value}"
            notify-send -t 800 "Keyboard brightness set to ${value}"
        fi
        ;;

    [dD][oO][wW][nN])
        current=$( backlight_get )
        if test "${current}" -gt 0 ; then
            value=$(( ${current}  - 1 ))
            backlight_set "${value}"
            notify-send -t 800 "Keyboard brightness set to ${value}"
        fi
        ;;

    *)
        echo "Invalid backlight change ${change}." >&2
        echo "Should be 'up' or 'down' or a number between"           \
            "1 .. $( backlight_get_max )" >&2
        return 1
        ;;
    esac
}

if test $# -eq 0 ; then
    current_brightness=$( backlight_get )
    notify-send -t 800 "Keyboard brightness is ${current_brightness}"
else
    # Handle multiple backlight changes, e.g.:
    #   backlight.sh up up down down up
    for change in "$@" ; do
        backlight_change "${change}"
    done
fi

Just save somewhere in your PATH and enjoy. I went with the name kbdbacklight and used it in the examples and i3 config above, please be mindful to update those if you name it differently.

Please note that Giorgio's script also makes use of notify-send, so make sure you have the right package installed (libnotify-bin on Debian and Ubuntu) or comment/remove those lines from the script.

Use light:

bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessUp     exec light -k -A 10
bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessDown   exec light -k -U 10

It is available in a packaged version for Arch and Fedora at the moment. But you can always build if from source easily. Find the git repository here: https://github.com/haikarainen/light .