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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 program for detecting installed hardware and |
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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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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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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 and FAQ before you ask any questions! It's all |
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under doc/. |
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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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This package may be distributed according to the GNU General Public |
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License (GPL), as included in the file COPYING. |
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Note that libsensors falls under the GPL, not the LGPL. In more human |
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language, that means it is FORBIDDEN to link any application to the |
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library, even to the shared version, if the application itself does not |
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fall under the GPL. |
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