1 Generic Thermal Sysfs driver How To
2 ===================================
4 Written by Sujith Thomas <sujith.thomas@intel.com>, Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com>
6 Updated: 2 January 2008
8 Copyright (c) 2008 Intel Corporation
13 The generic thermal sysfs provides a set of interfaces for thermal zone
14 devices (sensors) and thermal cooling devices (fan, processor...) to register
15 with the thermal management solution and to be a part of it.
17 This how-to focuses on enabling new thermal zone and cooling devices to
18 participate in thermal management.
19 This solution is platform independent and any type of thermal zone devices
20 and cooling devices should be able to make use of the infrastructure.
22 The main task of the thermal sysfs driver is to expose thermal zone attributes
23 as well as cooling device attributes to the user space.
24 An intelligent thermal management application can make decisions based on
25 inputs from thermal zone attributes (the current temperature and trip point
26 temperature) and throttle appropriate devices.
28 [0-*] denotes any positive number starting from 0
29 [1-*] denotes any positive number starting from 1
31 1. thermal sysfs driver interface functions
33 1.1 thermal zone device interface
34 1.1.1 struct thermal_zone_device *thermal_zone_device_register(char *name,
35 int trips, void *devdata, struct thermal_zone_device_ops *ops)
37 This interface function adds a new thermal zone device (sensor) to
38 /sys/class/thermal folder as thermal_zone[0-*]. It tries to bind all the
39 thermal cooling devices registered at the same time.
41 name: the thermal zone name.
42 trips: the total number of trip points this thermal zone supports.
43 devdata: device private data
44 ops: thermal zone device call-backs.
45 .bind: bind the thermal zone device with a thermal cooling device.
46 .unbind: unbind the thermal zone device with a thermal cooling device.
47 .get_temp: get the current temperature of the thermal zone.
48 .get_mode: get the current mode (user/kernel) of the thermal zone.
49 - "kernel" means thermal management is done in kernel.
50 - "user" will prevent kernel thermal driver actions upon trip points
51 so that user applications can take charge of thermal management.
52 .set_mode: set the mode (user/kernel) of the thermal zone.
53 .get_trip_type: get the type of certain trip point.
54 .get_trip_temp: get the temperature above which the certain trip point
57 1.1.2 void thermal_zone_device_unregister(struct thermal_zone_device *tz)
59 This interface function removes the thermal zone device.
60 It deletes the corresponding entry form /sys/class/thermal folder and
61 unbind all the thermal cooling devices it uses.
63 1.2 thermal cooling device interface
64 1.2.1 struct thermal_cooling_device *thermal_cooling_device_register(char *name,
65 void *devdata, struct thermal_cooling_device_ops *)
67 This interface function adds a new thermal cooling device (fan/processor/...)
68 to /sys/class/thermal/ folder as cooling_device[0-*]. It tries to bind itself
69 to all the thermal zone devices register at the same time.
70 name: the cooling device name.
71 devdata: device private data.
72 ops: thermal cooling devices call-backs.
73 .get_max_state: get the Maximum throttle state of the cooling device.
74 .get_cur_state: get the Current throttle state of the cooling device.
75 .set_cur_state: set the Current throttle state of the cooling device.
77 1.2.2 void thermal_cooling_device_unregister(struct thermal_cooling_device *cdev)
79 This interface function remove the thermal cooling device.
80 It deletes the corresponding entry form /sys/class/thermal folder and
81 unbind itself from all the thermal zone devices using it.
83 1.3 interface for binding a thermal zone device with a thermal cooling device
84 1.3.1 int thermal_zone_bind_cooling_device(struct thermal_zone_device *tz,
85 int trip, struct thermal_cooling_device *cdev);
87 This interface function bind a thermal cooling device to the certain trip
88 point of a thermal zone device.
89 This function is usually called in the thermal zone device .bind callback.
90 tz: the thermal zone device
91 cdev: thermal cooling device
92 trip: indicates which trip point the cooling devices is associated with
95 1.3.2 int thermal_zone_unbind_cooling_device(struct thermal_zone_device *tz,
96 int trip, struct thermal_cooling_device *cdev);
98 This interface function unbind a thermal cooling device from the certain
99 trip point of a thermal zone device. This function is usually called in
100 the thermal zone device .unbind callback.
101 tz: the thermal zone device
102 cdev: thermal cooling device
103 trip: indicates which trip point the cooling devices is associated with
104 in this thermal zone.
106 2. sysfs attributes structure
111 Thermal sysfs attributes will be represented under /sys/class/thermal.
112 Hwmon sysfs I/F extension is also available under /sys/class/hwmon
113 if hwmon is compiled in or built as a module.
115 Thermal zone device sys I/F, created once it's registered:
116 /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone[0-*]:
117 |---type: Type of the thermal zone
118 |---temp: Current temperature
119 |---mode: Working mode of the thermal zone
120 |---trip_point_[0-*]_temp: Trip point temperature
121 |---trip_point_[0-*]_type: Trip point type
123 Thermal cooling device sys I/F, created once it's registered:
124 /sys/class/thermal/cooling_device[0-*]:
125 |---type: Type of the cooling device(processor/fan/...)
126 |---max_state: Maximum cooling state of the cooling device
127 |---cur_state: Current cooling state of the cooling device
130 Then next two dynamic attributes are created/removed in pairs. They represent
131 the relationship between a thermal zone and its associated cooling device.
132 They are created/removed for each successful execution of
133 thermal_zone_bind_cooling_device/thermal_zone_unbind_cooling_device.
135 /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone[0-*]:
136 |---cdev[0-*]: [0-*]th cooling device in current thermal zone
137 |---cdev[0-*]_trip_point: Trip point that cdev[0-*] is associated with
139 Besides the thermal zone device sysfs I/F and cooling device sysfs I/F,
140 the generic thermal driver also creates a hwmon sysfs I/F for each _type_
141 of thermal zone device. E.g. the generic thermal driver registers one hwmon
142 class device and build the associated hwmon sysfs I/F for all the registered
145 /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon[0-*]:
146 |---name: The type of the thermal zone devices
147 |---temp[1-*]_input: The current temperature of thermal zone [1-*]
148 |---temp[1-*]_critical: The critical trip point of thermal zone [1-*]
150 Please read Documentation/hwmon/sysfs-interface for additional information.
152 ***************************
153 * Thermal zone attributes *
154 ***************************
157 Strings which represent the thermal zone type.
158 This is given by thermal zone driver as part of registration.
159 E.g: "acpitz" indicates it's an ACPI thermal device.
160 In order to keep it consistent with hwmon sys attribute; this should
161 be a short, lowercase string, not containing spaces nor dashes.
165 Current temperature as reported by thermal zone (sensor).
166 Unit: millidegree Celsius
170 One of the predefined values in [kernel, user].
171 This file gives information about the algorithm that is currently
172 managing the thermal zone. It can be either default kernel based
173 algorithm or user space application.
174 kernel = Thermal management in kernel thermal zone driver.
175 user = Preventing kernel thermal zone driver actions upon
176 trip points so that user application can take full
177 charge of the thermal management.
180 trip_point_[0-*]_temp
181 The temperature above which trip point will be fired.
182 Unit: millidegree Celsius
185 trip_point_[0-*]_type
186 Strings which indicate the type of the trip point.
187 E.g. it can be one of critical, hot, passive, active[0-*] for ACPI
192 Sysfs link to the thermal cooling device node where the sys I/F
193 for cooling device throttling control represents.
197 The trip point with which cdev[0-*] is associated in this thermal
198 zone; -1 means the cooling device is not associated with any trip
203 Attribute is only present for zones in which the passive cooling
204 policy is not supported by native thermal driver. Default is zero
205 and can be set to a temperature (in millidegrees) to enable a
206 passive trip point for the zone. Activation is done by polling with
207 an interval of 1 second.
208 Unit: millidegrees Celsius
209 Valid values: 0 (disabled) or greater than 1000
212 *****************************
213 * Cooling device attributes *
214 *****************************
217 String which represents the type of device, e.g:
218 - for generic ACPI: should be "Fan", "Processor" or "LCD"
219 - for memory controller device on intel_menlow platform:
220 should be "Memory controller".
224 The maximum permissible cooling state of this cooling device.
228 The current cooling state of this cooling device.
229 The value can any integer numbers between 0 and max_state:
230 - cur_state == 0 means no cooling
231 - cur_state == max_state means the maximum cooling.
234 3. A simple implementation
236 ACPI thermal zone may support multiple trip points like critical, hot,
237 passive, active. If an ACPI thermal zone supports critical, passive,
238 active[0] and active[1] at the same time, it may register itself as a
239 thermal_zone_device (thermal_zone1) with 4 trip points in all.
240 It has one processor and one fan, which are both registered as
241 thermal_cooling_device.
243 If the processor is listed in _PSL method, and the fan is listed in _AL0
244 method, the sys I/F structure will be built like this:
252 |---trip_point_0_temp: 100000
253 |---trip_point_0_type: critical
254 |---trip_point_1_temp: 80000
255 |---trip_point_1_type: passive
256 |---trip_point_2_temp: 70000
257 |---trip_point_2_type: active0
258 |---trip_point_3_temp: 60000
259 |---trip_point_3_type: active1
260 |---cdev0: --->/sys/class/thermal/cooling_device0
261 |---cdev0_trip_point: 1 /* cdev0 can be used for passive */
262 |---cdev1: --->/sys/class/thermal/cooling_device3
263 |---cdev1_trip_point: 2 /* cdev1 can be used for active[0]*/
279 |---temp1_input: 37000
280 |---temp1_crit: 100000
282 4. Event Notification
284 The framework includes a simple notification mechanism, in the form of a
285 netlink event. Netlink socket initialization is done during the _init_
286 of the framework. Drivers which intend to use the notification mechanism
287 just need to call thermal_generate_netlink_event() with two arguments viz
288 (originator, event). Typically the originator will be an integer assigned
289 to a thermal_zone_device when it registers itself with the framework. The
290 event will be one of:{THERMAL_AUX0, THERMAL_AUX1, THERMAL_CRITICAL,
291 THERMAL_DEV_FAULT}. Notification can be sent when the current temperature
292 crosses any of the configured thresholds.