| 1 | OVERVIEW OF THE LM-SENSORS PACKAGE |
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| 2 | ================================== |
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| 3 | |
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| 4 | The lm-sensors package, version 3, provides user-space support for the |
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| 5 | hardware monitoring drivers in Linux 2.6.5 and later. For older kernel |
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| 6 | versions, you have to use lm-sensors version 2. |
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| 7 | |
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| 8 | The directories within this package: |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | * doc |
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| 11 | Documentation. |
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| 12 | * etc |
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| 13 | A sample configuration file for libsensors, and a script to convert |
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| 14 | lm-sensors version 2 configuration files to work with version 3. |
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| 15 | * lib |
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| 16 | The user-space sensors support library code (libsensors). |
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| 17 | * prog |
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| 18 | Several supporting programs. The most important ones are: |
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| 19 | - sensors-detect: A program for detecting installed hardware and |
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| 20 | recommending specific modules to load. |
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| 21 | - sensors: A console tool to report sensor readings and set new |
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| 22 | sensor limits. |
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| 23 | - sensord: A daemon to watch sensor values and log problems. It |
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| 24 | includes RRD support. |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | |
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| 27 | INSTALLING LM-SENSORS |
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| 28 | --------------------- |
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| 29 | |
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| 30 | See the INSTALL file. |
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| 31 | |
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| 32 | |
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| 33 | HARDWARE SUPPORT |
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| 34 | ---------------- |
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| 35 | |
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| 36 | To find out what hardware you have, just run 'sensors-detect' as root. |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | Most modern mainboards incorporate some form of hardware monitoring chips. |
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| 39 | These chips read things like chip temperatures, fan rotation speeds and |
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| 40 | voltage levels. There are quite a few different chips which can be used by |
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| 41 | mainboard builders for approximately the same results. |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | Laptops, on the other hand, rarely expose any hardware monitoring |
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| 44 | chip. They often have some BIOS and/or ACPI magic to get the CPU |
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| 45 | temperature value, but that's about it. For such laptops, the lm-sensors |
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| 46 | package is of no use (sensors-detect will not find anything), and you have |
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| 47 | to use acpi instead. |
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| 48 | |
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| 49 | This package doesn't contain chip-specific knowledge. It will support all |
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| 50 | the hardware monitoring chips your kernel has drivers for. In other words, |
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| 51 | if you find out that you have unsupported hardware (e.g. sensors-detect |
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| 52 | told you so) then it means that you need a more recent kernel, or you |
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| 53 | even need to wait for a new kernel driver to be written. Updating the |
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| 54 | lm-sensors package itself will not help. |
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| 55 | |
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| 56 | |
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| 57 | LIBSENSORS |
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| 58 | ---------- |
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| 59 | |
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| 60 | The kernel drivers communicate their information through the /sys |
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| 61 | interface. Because every motherboard is different, the drivers always |
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| 62 | advert the measurements at their pins. This means that the values they |
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| 63 | report are not always immediately relevant to you. They have to be |
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| 64 | labelled properly, and sometimes they must be scaled to correspond to |
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| 65 | real-world values. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | libsensors is a (shared or static) library of access functions. It |
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| 68 | offers a simple-to-use interface for applications to access the sensor |
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| 69 | chip readings and configure them as you like. It has a configuration |
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| 70 | file where you can put all the motherboard-specific labels and |
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| 71 | conversion rules. That way, all applications do not need to duplicate |
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| 72 | the effort and can simply link with libsensors and work out of the box. |
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| 73 | |
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| 74 | |
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| 75 | APPLICATIONS |
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| 76 | ------------ |
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| 77 | |
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| 78 | This package contains an example console program that reports all current |
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| 79 | sensors values. This program is called 'sensors'. You can use it as a |
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| 80 | reference implementation for more intricate programs. It also contains a |
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| 81 | daemon watching for sensor values, logging alarms and feeding an RRD |
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| 82 | database with the sensor measurements. |
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| 83 | |
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| 84 | This package does not contain a nice graphical monitor. See |
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| 85 | http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/UsefulLinks for pointers to such programs. |
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| 86 | |
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| 87 | |
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| 88 | OTHER INFORMATION |
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| 89 | ----------------- |
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| 90 | |
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| 91 | The developers of this package can be reached through a mailing-list |
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| 92 | (see http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/AuthorsAndContributors). Do not hesitate |
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| 93 | to mail us if you have questions, suggestions, problems, want to |
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| 94 | contribute, or just want to report it works for you. But please try to |
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| 95 | read the documentation and FAQ before you ask any questions! It's all |
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| 96 | under doc/. |
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| 97 | |
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| 98 | The latest version of this package can always be found at: |
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| 99 | http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Download. Pre-release versions can be |
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| 100 | retrieved through anonymous SVN; see doc/svn for details. |
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| 101 | |
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| 102 | This package may be distributed according to the GNU General Public |
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| 103 | License (GPL), as included in the file COPYING. |
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| 104 | |
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| 105 | Note that libsensors falls under the GPL, not the LGPL. In more human |
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| 106 | language, that means it is FORBIDDEN to link any application to the |
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| 107 | library, even to the shared version, if the application itself does not |
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| 108 | fall under the GPL. |
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