mbpkbdbacklightctl is program for controlling keyboard backlight on MacBook Pro When initiated, it sets the amount of backlight to a default value of 75 but the program can also be called with an argument:

$ mbpkbdbacklightctl 100

which would set the backlight amount to an value of 100 and the default will be set to 100 for this instance of the program The optional argument must be an integer in the range of 0 to 255

The program will also turn off the keyboard backlight if no keyboard and mouse events has occured for at least 20 seconds, and will turn it back on when such event is detected

The program requires libxss to detect idle time of keyboard and mouse events

v0.3 release notes: Turns off keyboard backlight when no keyboard or mouse events has been detected for 20 seconds and turns it back on when such event is detected. Sets the backlight to an initial amount of 75, but accepts an integer value as argument to replace the 75 with a value between 0 and 255.

tested on: MacBook Pro 5,5 13" (Core2Duo 2.53GHz)