mirror of
https://github.com/lm-sensors/lm-sensors.git
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Maciej S. Szmigiero
83cafd29f2
Most mainboards need a config file which describe which input of a monitoring chip is connected to which voltage rail, what are scaling factors of voltages that can't be measured directly by the chip, which part of the board has each temperature sensor, which fan is connected to which tachometer input of the chip, etc. All these data need to be determined either from a board schematic (if available) or by a trial-and-error method. This can be a time consuming and error-prone work, fortunately, it needs to be done just once per mainboard. Currently, however, there is no standard mechanism to share such configurations so multiple users of the same board don't basically waste their time reinventing the wheel (or recreating the same configuration again and again). Previously, a wiki on an old lm-sensors site had a 'Configurations' page where contributors could submit their configurations. Since this site is down for two years now and it does not look like it is coming back we need to find an another solution. Let's use a 'configs' directory in project repository for these files, so we can benefit from SCM infrastructure for managing them. Also, add a reminder in documentation asking people to contribute these files for benefit of the whole community and configurations for 3 mainboards for a starter. Signed-off-by: Maciej S. Szmigiero <mail@maciej.szmigiero.name>
119 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
119 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
OVERVIEW OF THE LM-SENSORS PACKAGE
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==================================
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The lm-sensors package, version 3, provides user-space support for the
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hardware monitoring drivers in Linux 2.6.5 and later. For older kernel
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versions, you have to use lm-sensors version 2.
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The directories within this package:
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* doc
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Documentation.
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* etc
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A sample configuration file for libsensors, and a script to convert
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lm-sensors version 2 configuration files to work with version 3.
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* lib
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The user-space sensors support library code (libsensors).
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* prog
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Several supporting programs. The most important ones are:
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- sensors-detect: A stand-alone program for detecting installed
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hardware and recommending specific modules to load.
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- sensors: A console tool to report sensor readings and set new
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sensor limits.
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- sensord: A daemon to watch sensor values and log problems. It
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includes RRD support.
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* configs
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This directory contains sample configurations of various boards,
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contributed by users of lm-sensors.
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Older sample configurations can be found on an old lm-sensors wiki
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archived here:
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http://web.archive.org/web/20150901092438/http://www.lm-sensors.org:80/wiki/Configurations
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Please contribute back a configuration of your board so other users with
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the same hardware won't need to recreate it again and again.
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INSTALLING LM-SENSORS
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---------------------
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See the INSTALL file.
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HARDWARE SUPPORT
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----------------
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To find out what hardware you have, just run 'sensors-detect' as root.
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Most modern mainboards incorporate some form of hardware monitoring chips.
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These chips read things like chip temperatures, fan rotation speeds and
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voltage levels. There are quite a few different chips which can be used by
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mainboard builders for approximately the same results.
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Laptops, on the other hand, rarely expose any hardware monitoring
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chip. They often have some BIOS and/or ACPI magic to get the CPU
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temperature value, but that's about it. For such laptops, the lm-sensors
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package is of no use (sensors-detect will not find anything), and you have
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to use acpi instead.
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This package doesn't contain chip-specific knowledge. It will support all
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the hardware monitoring chips your kernel has drivers for. In other words,
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if you find out that you have unsupported hardware (e.g. sensors-detect
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told you so) then it means that you need a more recent kernel, or you
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even need to wait for a new kernel driver to be written. Updating the
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lm-sensors package itself will not help.
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LIBSENSORS
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----------
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The kernel drivers communicate their information through the /sys
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interface. Because every motherboard is different, the drivers always
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advert the measurements at their pins. This means that the values they
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report are not always immediately relevant to you. They have to be
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labelled properly, and sometimes they must be scaled to correspond to
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real-world values.
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libsensors is a (shared or static) library of access functions. It
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offers a simple-to-use interface for applications to access the sensor
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chip readings and configure them as you like. It has a configuration
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file where you can put all the motherboard-specific labels and
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conversion rules. That way, all applications do not need to duplicate
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the effort and can simply link with libsensors and work out of the box.
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APPLICATIONS
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------------
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This package contains an example console program that reports all current
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sensors values. This program is called 'sensors'. You can use it as a
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reference implementation for more intricate programs. It also contains a
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daemon watching for sensor values, logging alarms and feeding an RRD
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database with the sensor measurements.
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This package does not contain a nice graphical monitor. See
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http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/UsefulLinks for pointers to such programs.
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OTHER INFORMATION
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-----------------
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The developers of this package can be reached through a mailing-list
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(see http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/AuthorsAndContributors). Do not hesitate
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to mail us if you have questions, suggestions, problems, want to
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contribute, or just want to report it works for you. But please try to
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read the documentation before you ask any questions! It's all under doc/.
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Also make sure you read the FAQ at http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/FAQ.
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The latest version of this package can always be found at:
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http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Download. Pre-release versions can be
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retrieved through anonymous SVN; see doc/svn for details.
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LICENSE
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-------
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The library (libsensors) is released under the GNU Lesser General Public
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License (LGPL), as included in the file COPYING.LGPL. The rest of this
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package may be distributed according to the GNU General Public License
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(GPL), as included in the file COPYING.
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