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Without unplugging my keyboard I'd like to disable it from the terminal; I was hoping that this could be done using rmmod but based on my currently loaded modules it doesn't look like it is possible.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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    The HID ("human interface device") module is probably built-in. Some of the USB stuff may not be tho, so you could try pulling one of those (lsmod | grep usb). Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 16:04
  • Hmmm: wpkg.org/Disable_/_enable_keyboard_and_mouse_in_Linux Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 16:05

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Reset to default
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There are pretty good directions on doing it here, titled: Disable / enable keyboard and mouse in Linux.

Example

You can list the devices with this command.

$ xinput --list "Virtual core pointer" id=0 [XPointer] "Virtual core keyboard" id=1 [XKeyboard] "Keyboard2" id=2 [XExtensionKeyboard] "Mouse2" id=3 [XExtensionKeyboard]

And disable the keyboard with this:

$ xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 0

And enable it with this one:

$ xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 1

This only works for disabling the keyboard through X. So if you're on a system that isn't running X this won't work.

List of properties

You can use this command to get a list of all the properties for a given device:

$ xinput --list-props 2 Device 'Virtual core keyboard': Device Enabled (124): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (126): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
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    Will it be reactivated if unplugged and plugged back in? Might be tricky to get a response from the machine (unless it's a laptop) otherwise :) Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 16:13
  • Yeah these disable device questions always seem loaded for the "ok so how do I re-enable it" piece. Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 16:15
  • I would add that this disables the keyboard only for X11 and not for any TTY. Also you can still switch to the TTYs with Ctrl+Alt+F? Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 16:33
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    @terdon Make sure you have a working SSH connection before experimenting. Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 22:37
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    Can we not use xinput float <id> and xinput reattach <id> <master>? Is it any different? It feels intuitive though. Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 7:30

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