This is the output of lsusb:

ID 07d0:4959 Dazzle Kingsun KS-959 Infrared Adapter

After the insertion of the adapter, udev will automatically load the kernel modules irda and ks959_sir. In /var/log/syslog we read:

[ 3431.686628] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=07d0, idProduct=4959
[ 3431.686637] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 3431.686640] usb 1-5: Product: USB to IRDA
[ 3431.686642] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Kingsun CO.
[ 3431.795253] NET: Registered protocol family 23
[ 3431.833083] KingSun KS-959 IRDA/USB found at address 3, Vendor: 7d0, Product: 4959
[ 3431.833083] ks959_sir: IrDA: Registered KingSun KS-959 device irda0
[ 3431.833083] usbcore: registered new interface driver ks959-sir

The irda0 device just created is a network device, we can see it with ifconfig -a. The kernel exposes some info at /sys/class/net/irda0/.

To use the adapter as a serial port, we need to load the kernel module ircomm-tty, the module will create several devices /dev/ircomm*, those are the serial devices we will use.

Now we run the irattach program to bring the irda0 port up and to link the Linux-IrDA stack to that port:

irattach irda0

Because the kernel module is loaded automatically by udev, we don't need to declare the irda0 alias nor the kernel module options into /etc/modprobe.d/irda-utils. irattach will just bring up the interface and set some sysctl.

Now we can use the serial device /dev/ircomm0, e.g with pilot-xfer or with minicom(1):

pilot-memos -p /dev/ircomm0