The can-utils package

Using the C language to read or write data to a CAN device is, of course, the best way to do it. However, there is a quicker way, that is, using the can-utils package. It can be installed as usual, and it holds lots of useful programs we can use to manage our CAN devices.

Note

The package's repository is at https://gitorious.org/linux-can/can-utils .

The main two utilities for a basic CAN bus usage are cansend and candump. The first one is used to send a single CAN frame through a CAN device, and its syntax is reported here:

# cansend --help
Usage: cansend <device> <can_frame>.

Tip

Unluckily, the CAN tools have no man pages, and all the related documentation must be retrieved from the Internet or using the internal help messages.

Here is a usage example where we send a message on the can0 interface with 0x5AA as identifier and 0xde, 0xad, 0xbe, and 0xef as data bytes (note that this tool always assumes that the values are given in hexadecimal):

# cansend can0...