nu_plugin_dbus

Nushell plugin for interacting with D-Bus

With the commands provided by this plugin, you can interact with many of the desktop-oriented systems on UNIX-like systems that use D-Bus, including Linux and FreeBSD. You can control media players, on-screen displays, power policies, and even administer services.

Nushell provides a particularly nice environment for interacting with D-Bus, as both support typed structured data, and interacting with this on a traditional UNIX command line with tools like dbus-send and busctl is cumbersome and tricky to automate.

This plugin automatically determines the correct input types through D-Bus introspection when available, unlike either of the aforementioned tools, making it easier to interact with objects on the bus without having to implement boilerplate from documentation.

Install with Cargo

From within nushell:

cargo install --locked nu_plugin_dbus
plugin add ~/.cargo/bin/nu_plugin_dbus
plugin use dbus # or restart nu

Usage

Commands for interacting with D-Bus

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus 

Subcommands:
  dbus call - Call a method and get its response
  dbus get - Get a D-Bus property
  dbus get-all - Get all D-Bus properties for the given object
  dbus introspect - Introspect a D-Bus object
  dbus list - List all available connection names on the bus
  dbus set - Set a D-Bus property

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command

dbus call

Call a method and get its response

Returns an array if the method call returns more than one value.

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus call {flags} <object> <interface> <method> ...(args) 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response
  --signature <String> - Signature of the arguments to send, in D-Bus format.
    If not provided, they will be determined from introspection.
    If --no-introspect is specified and this is not provided, they will be guessed (poorly)
  --no-flatten - Always return a list of all return values
  --no-introspect - Don't use introspection to determine the correct argument signature
  --dest (required parameter) <String> - The name of the connection to send the method to

Parameters:
  object <string>: The path to the object to call the method on
  interface <string>: The name of the interface the method belongs to
  method <string>: The name of the method to send
  ...args <any>: Arguments to send with the method call

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬────────╮
  │ # │  input  │ output │
  ├───┼─────────┼────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ any    │
  ╰───┴─────────┴────────╯

Examples:
  Ping the D-Bus server itself
  > dbus call --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus /org/freedesktop/DBus org.freedesktop.DBus.Peer Ping

  Show a notification on the desktop for 5 seconds
  > dbus call --dest=org.freedesktop.Notifications /org/freedesktop/Notifications org.freedesktop.Notifications Notify "Floppy disks" 0 "media-floppy" "Rarely seen" "But sometimes still used" [] {} 5000

dbus get

Get a D-Bus property

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus get {flags} <object> <interface> <property> 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response
  --dest (required parameter) <String> - The name of the connection to read the property from

Parameters:
  object <string>: The path to the object to read the property from
  interface <string>: The name of the interface the property belongs to
  property <string>: The name of the property to read

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬────────╮
  │ # │  input  │ output │
  ├───┼─────────┼────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ any    │
  ╰───┴─────────┴────────╯

Examples:
  Get the currently playing song in Spotify
  > dbus get --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player Metadata
  ╭──────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
  │ xesam:title  │ Birdie                                                │
  │ xesam:artist │ [list 1 item]                                         │
  │ xesam:album  │ Love Your Love                                        │
  │ xesam:url    │ https://open.spotify.com/track/51748BvzeeMs4PIdPuyZmv │
  ╰──────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

dbus get-all

Get all D-Bus properties for the given object

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus get-all {flags} <object> <interface> 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response
  --dest (required parameter) <String> - The name of the connection to read the property from

Parameters:
  object <string>: The path to the object to read the property from
  interface <string>: The name of the interface the property belongs to

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬────────╮
  │ # │  input  │ output │
  ├───┼─────────┼────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ record │
  ╰───┴─────────┴────────╯

Examples:
  Get the current player state of Spotify
  > dbus get-all --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player
  ╭────────────────┬────────╮
  │ CanPlay        │ true   │
  │ Volume         │ 0.43   │
  │ PlaybackStatus │ Paused │
  ╰────────────────┴────────╯

dbus introspect

Introspect a D-Bus object

Returns information about available nodes, interfaces, methods, signals, and properties on the given object path

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus introspect {flags} <object> 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response
  --dest (required parameter) <String> - The name of the connection that owns the object

Parameters:
  object <string>: The path to the object to introspect

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬────────╮
  │ # │  input  │ output │
  ├───┼─────────┼────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ record │
  ╰───┴─────────┴────────╯

Examples:
  Look at the MPRIS2 interfaces exposed by Spotify
  > dbus introspect --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 | explore

  Get methods exposed by KDE Plasma's on-screen display service
  > dbus introspect --dest=org.kde.plasmashell /org/kde/osdService | get interfaces | where name == org.kde.osdService | get 0.methods

  List objects exposed by KWin
  > dbus introspect --dest=org.kde.KWin / | get children | select name

dbus list

List all available connection names on the bus

These can be used as arguments for --dest on any of the other commands.

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus list {flags} (pattern) 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response

Parameters:
  pattern <string>: An optional glob-like pattern to filter the result by (optional)

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬──────────────╮
  │ # │  input  │    output    │
  ├───┼─────────┼──────────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ list<string> │
  ╰───┴─────────┴──────────────╯

Examples:
  List all names available on the bus
  > dbus list

  List top-level freedesktop.org names on the bus (e.g. matches `org.freedesktop.PowerManagement`, but not `org.freedesktop.Management.Inhibit`)
  > dbus list org.freedesktop.*
  ╭───┬───────────────────────────────╮
  │ 0 │ org.freedesktop.DBus          │
  │ 1 │ org.freedesktop.Flatpak       │
  │ 2 │ org.freedesktop.Notifications │
  ╰───┴───────────────────────────────╯

  List all MPRIS2 media players on the bus
  > dbus list org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.**
  ╭───┬────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
  │ 0 │ org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify                 │
  │ 1 │ org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.kdeconnect.mpris_000001 │
  ╰───┴────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

dbus set

Set a D-Bus property

Search terms: dbus

Usage:
  > dbus set {flags} <object> <interface> <property> <value> 

Flags:
  -h, --help - Display the help message for this command
  --session - Send to the session message bus (default)
  --system - Send to the system message bus
  --started - Send to the bus that started this process, if applicable
  --bus <String> - Send to the bus server at the given address
  --peer <String> - Send to a non-bus D-Bus server at the given address. Will not call the Hello method on initialization.
  --timeout <Duration> - How long to wait for a response
  --signature <String> - Signature of the value to set, in D-Bus format.
    If not provided, it will be determined from introspection.
    If --no-introspect is specified and this is not provided, it will be guessed (poorly)
  --dest (required parameter) <String> - The name of the connection to write the property on

Parameters:
  object <string>: The path to the object to write the property on
  interface <string>: The name of the interface the property belongs to
  property <string>: The name of the property to write
  value <any>: The value to write to the property

Input/output types:
  ╭───┬─────────┬─────────╮
  │ # │  input  │ output  │
  ├───┼─────────┼─────────┤
  │ 0 │ nothing │ nothing │
  ╰───┴─────────┴─────────╯

Examples:
  Set the volume of Spotify to 50%
  > dbus set --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player Volume 0.5