msi-perkeyrgb

This progam allows to control the SteelSeries per-key RGB keyboard backlighting on MSI laptops such as the GE63VR. It will not work on models with region-based backlighting (such as GE62VR and others). For those you should use tools like MSIKLM.

This is an unofficial tool, I am not affiliated to MSI nor SteelSeries in any way.

Installation

If you are on Archlinux, use this AUR package : msi-perkeyrgb (not up-to-date with the Git version yet)

For Ubuntu or others :

git clone https://github.com/Askannz/msi-perkeyrgb
cd msi-perkeyrgb/
sudo python3 setup.py install
sudo cp 99-msi-rgb.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

After installation, you must reboot your computer (necessary for the udev rule to take effect, if you don't you will run into permission problems)

Features

Keys can be assigned a fixed color ("steady" mode), either through a configuration file for each individual key, or via a command-line argument for the whole keyboard,

A few select presets are also available for supported models, which emulate vendor-provided SteelSeries configurations.

Compatibility

This tool should probably work on any recent MSI laptop with a per-key RGB keyboard. It was tested with the following models :

Model	Basic color support
GE63	Yes
GE73	Yes
GE75	Yes
GL63	Yes
GS63	Yes
GS65	Yes
GS75	Yes
GT63	Yes
GT75	Yes

If you have some additional test results, feel free to open a GitHub issue to help expand this list !

Requirements

• Python 3.4+
• setuptools
  • Archlinux : # pacman -S python-setuptools
  • Ubuntu : # apt install python3-setuptools
  • Fedora : # dnf install python3-setuptools
• libhidapi 0.8+
  • Archlinux : # pacman -S hidapi
  • Ubuntu : # apt install libhidapi-hidraw0
  • Fedora : # dnf install hidapi

Permissions

IMPORTANT : you need to have read/write access to the HID interface of your keyboard. The included udev rule should take care of that, but here are some instructions just in case :

The HID interface is shown as /dev/hidraw* where * can be 0, 1, 2... (there can be more than one if you have a USB mouse or keyboard plugged in). Find the right one (try them all if necessary) and give yourself permissions with # chmod 666 /dev/hidraw*.

Usage

Simple usage

Steady color :

msi-perkeyrgb --model <MSI model> -s <COLOR>

Built-in preset (see --list-presets for available options) :

msi-perkeyrgb --model <MSI model> -p <preset>

Advanced usage

Set from configuration file :

msi-perkeyrgb --model <MSI model> -c <path to your configuration file>

The configuration file allows you to set individual key configurations. It can have any extension. See the dedicated wiki page for its syntax and examples.

How does it work, and credits

The SteelSeries keyboard is connected to the MSI laptop by two independent interfaces :

• A PS/2 interface to send keypresses
• a USB HID-compliant interface to receive RGB commands

Talking to the RGB controller from Linux is a matter of sending the correct binary packets on the USB HID interface. I used Wireshark to capture the traffic between the SteelSeries Engine on Windows and the keyboard, and then analyzed the captured data to figure out the protocol used. I was only able to reverse-engineer the simple "steady color" commands, but that work was massively improved upon by TauAkiou, who figured out the rest of the protocol and implemented the remaining effects (UPDATE: effects support been disabled for now, for security reasons. See https://github.com/Askannz/msi-perkeyrgb/issues/24 ). His work include an amazingly detailed write-up of the protocol which you can read here.

Also thanks to tbh1 for providing packet dumps of presets effects.

The HID communication code was inspired by other tools designed for previous generations of MSI laptops, such as MSIKLM.