[PATCH v3 0/1] leds: Introduce the multi_max_intensity sysfs attribute

Armin Wolf
2026-04-09T21:06:40Z

This patch series was born out of of a mailing list thread [1] where
i asked how to properly model a RGB LED as a multicolor LED. Said
LED has some exotic properties:

1. 5 global brightness levels.
2. 50 intensity levels for each R/G/B color components.

The current sysfs interface mandates that the maximum intensity value
for each color component should be the same as the maximum global
brightness. This makes sense for LEDs that only emulate global
brightness using led_mc_calc_color_components(), but causes problems
for LEDs that perform global brightness control in hardware.

Faking a maximum global brightness of 50 will not work in this case,
as the hardware can change the global brightness on its own. Userspace
applications might also prefer to know the true maximum brightness
value.

Because of this i decided to add a new sysfs attribute called
"multi_max_intensity". This attribute is similar to the
"max_brightness" sysfs attribute, except that it targets the intensity
values inside the "multi_intensity" sysfs atribute. I also decided to
cap intensity values comming from userspace to said maximum intensity
values to relieve drivers from doing it themself. This was already
proposed in a unrelated patch [2] and might break some misbehaving
userspace applications that do not respect max_brightness.

#include <linux/module.h>
#include <linux/init.h>
#include <linux/led-class-multicolor.h>

static int test_brightness_set_blocking(struct led_classdev *led_cdev,
enum led_brightness brightness)
{
struct led_classdev_mc *mc_cdev = lcdev_to_mccdev(led_cdev);

for (int i = 0; i < mc_cdev->num_colors; i++) {
if (mc_cdev->subled_info[i].intensity > 30)
return -EIO;
}

return 0;
}

static struct mc_subled subleds[] = {
{
.color_index = LED_COLOR_ID_RED,
.max_intensity = 0,
.channel = 1,
},
{
.color_index = LED_COLOR_ID_GREEN,
.max_intensity = 0,
.channel = 2,
},
{
.color_index = LED_COLOR_ID_BLUE,
.max_intensity = 0,
.channel = 3,
},
};

static struct led_classdev_mc led_mc_cdev = {
.led_cdev = {
.max_brightness = 255,
.color = LED_COLOR_ID_MULTI,
.flags = LED_CORE_SUSPENDRESUME | LED_REJECT_NAME_CONFLICT,
.brightness_set_blocking = test_brightness_set_blocking,
},
.num_colors = ARRAY_SIZE(subleds),
.subled_info = subleds,
};

static int __init test_init(void)
{
struct led_init_data init_data = {
.devicename = "test-led",
.default_label = "multicolor:" LED_FUNCTION_KBD_BACKLIGHT,
.devname_mandatory = true,
};

return led_classdev_multicolor_register_ext(NULL, &led_mc_cdev, &init_data);
}
module_init(test_init);

static void __exit test_exit(void)
{
led_classdev_multicolor_unregister(&led_mc_cdev);
}
module_exit(test_exit);

MODULE_AUTHOR("Armin Wolf <W_Armin@gmx.de>");
MODULE_DESCRIPTION("Multicolor LED test device");
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-leds/2d91a44e-fce2-42dc-b529-133ab4a191f0@gmx.de/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-leds/20260123-leds-multicolor-limit-intensity-v1-1-b37761c2fdfd@pengutronix.de/

Changes since v2:
- add Reviewed-by tags
- fix spelling mistake

Changes since v1:
- use sysfs_emit_at()
- fix documentation issues

Changes since RFC:
- rework documentation
- drop useless defines
- reduce amount of driver code churn

Armin Wolf (1):
leds: Introduce the multi_max_intensity sysfs attribute

.../ABI/testing/sysfs-class-led-multicolor | 19 ++++++--
Documentation/leds/leds-class-multicolor.rst | 21 ++++++++-
drivers/leds/led-class-multicolor.c | 47 ++++++++++++++++++-
drivers/leds/leds-lp50xx.c | 1 +
drivers/leds/rgb/leds-ncp5623.c | 4 +-
include/linux/led-class-multicolor.h | 30 +++++++++++-
6 files changed, 113 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

--
2.39.5