1 Linux Power Management Support
3 This document briefly describes how to use power management with your
4 Linux system and how to add power management support to Linux drivers.
8 If you have a relatively recent x86 mobile, desktop, or server system,
9 odds are it supports either Advanced Power Management (APM) or
10 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). ACPI is the newer
11 of the two technologies and puts power management in the hands of the
12 operating system, allowing for more intelligent power management than
13 is possible with BIOS controlled APM.
15 The best way to determine which, if either, your system supports is to
16 build a kernel with both ACPI and APM enabled (as of 2.3.x ACPI is
17 enabled by default). If a working ACPI implementation is found, the
18 ACPI driver will override and disable APM, otherwise the APM driver
21 No sorry, you can not have both ACPI and APM enabled and running at
22 once. Some people with broken ACPI or broken APM implementations
23 would like to use both to get a full set of working features, but you
24 simply can not mix and match the two. Only one power management
25 interface can be in control of the machine at once. Think about it..
29 Both APM and ACPI rely on user-space daemons, apmd and acpid
30 respectively, to be completely functional. Obtain both of these
31 daemons from your Linux distribution or from the Internet (see below)
32 and be sure that they are started sometime in the system boot process.
33 Go ahead and start both. If ACPI or APM is not available on your
34 system the associated daemon will exit gracefully.
36 apmd: http://linuxcare.com.au/apm/
37 acpid: http://phobos.fs.tum.de/acpi/
41 If you are writing a new driver or maintaining an old driver, it
42 should include power management support. Without power management
43 support, a single driver may prevent a system with power management
44 capabilities from ever being able to suspend (safely).
47 1) Register each instance of a device with "pm_register"
48 2) Call "pm_access" before accessing the hardware.
49 (this will ensure that the hardware is awake and ready)
50 3) Your "pm_callback" is called before going into a
51 suspend state (ACPI D1-D3) or after resuming (ACPI D0)
53 4) Call "pm_dev_idle" when the device is not being used
54 (optional but will improve device idle detection)
55 5) When unloaded, unregister the device with "pm_unregister"
58 * Description: Register a device with the power-management subsystem
61 * type - device type (PCI device, system device, ...)
62 * id - instance number or unique identifier
63 * cback - request handler callback (suspend, resume, ...)
65 * Returns: Registered PM device or NULL on error
68 * dev = pm_register(PM_SYS_DEV, PM_SYS_VGA, vga_callback);
70 * struct pci_dev *pci_dev = pci_find_dev(...);
71 * dev = pm_register(PM_PCI_DEV, PM_PCI_ID(pci_dev), callback);
73 struct pm_dev *pm_register(pm_dev_t type, unsigned long id, pm_callback cback);
76 * Description: Unregister a device with the power management subsystem
79 * dev - PM device previously returned from pm_register
81 void pm_unregister(struct pm_dev *dev);
84 * Description: Unregister all devices with a matching callback function
87 * cback - previously registered request callback
89 * Notes: Provided for easier porting from old APM interface
91 void pm_unregister_all(pm_callback cback);
94 * Device idle/use detection
96 * In general, drivers for all devices should call "pm_access"
97 * before accessing the hardware (ie. before reading or modifying
98 * a hardware register). Request or packet-driven drivers should
99 * additionally call "pm_dev_idle" when a device is not being used.
102 * 1) A keyboard driver would call pm_access whenever a key is pressed
103 * 2) A network driver would call pm_access before submitting
104 * a packet for transmit or receive and pm_dev_idle when its
105 * transfer and receive queues are empty.
106 * 3) A VGA driver would call pm_access before it accesses any
107 * of the video controller registers
109 * Ultimately, the PM policy manager uses the access and idle
110 * information to decide when to suspend individual devices
111 * or when to suspend the entire system
115 * Description: Update device access time and wake up device, if necessary
118 * dev - PM device previously returned from pm_register
120 * Details: If called from an interrupt handler pm_access updates
121 * access time but should never need to wake up the device
122 * (if device is generating interrupts, it should be awake
123 * already) This is important as we can not wake up
124 * devices from an interrupt handler.
126 void pm_access(struct pm_dev *dev);
129 * Description: Identify device as currently being idle
132 * dev - PM device previously returned from pm_register
134 * Details: A call to pm_dev_idle might signal to the policy manager
135 * to put a device to sleep. If a new device request arrives
136 * between the call to pm_dev_idle and the pm_callback
137 * callback, the driver should fail the pm_callback request.
139 void pm_dev_idle(struct pm_dev *dev);
142 * Power management request callback
145 * dev - PM device previously returned from pm_register
146 * rqst - request type
147 * data - data, if any, associated with the request
149 * Returns: 0 if the request is successful
150 * EINVAL if the request is not supported
151 * EBUSY if the device is now busy and can not handle the request
152 * ENOMEM if the device was unable to handle the request due to memory
154 * Details: The device request callback will be called before the
155 * device/system enters a suspend state (ACPI D1-D3) or
156 * or after the device/system resumes from suspend (ACPI D0).
157 * For PM_SUSPEND, the ACPI D-state being entered is passed
158 * as the "data" argument to the callback. The device
159 * driver should save (PM_SUSPEND) or restore (PM_RESUME)
160 * device context when the request callback is called.
162 * Once a driver returns 0 (success) from a suspend
163 * request, it should not process any further requests or
164 * access the device hardware until a call to "pm_access" is made.
166 typedef int (*pm_callback)(struct pm_dev *dev, pm_request_t rqst, void *data);
170 This is just a quick Q&A as a stopgap until a real driver writers'
171 power management guide is available.
173 Q: When is a device suspended?
175 Devices can be suspended based on direct user request (eg. laptop lid
176 closes), system power policy (eg. sleep after 30 minutes of console
177 inactivity), or device power policy (eg. power down device after 5
178 minutes of inactivity)
180 Q: Must a driver honor a suspend request?
182 No, a driver can return -EBUSY from a suspend request and this
183 will stop the system from suspending. When a suspend request
184 fails, all suspended devices are resumed and the system continues
185 to run. Suspend can be retried at a later time.
187 Q: Can the driver block suspend/resume requests?
189 Yes, a driver can delay its return from a suspend or resume
190 request until the device is ready to handle requests. It
191 is advantageous to return as quickly as possible from a
192 request as suspend/resume are done serially.
194 Q: What context is a suspend/resume initiated from?
196 A suspend or resume is initiated from a kernel thread context.
197 It is safe to block, allocate memory, initiate requests
198 or anything else you can do within the kernel.
200 Q: Will requests continue to arrive after a suspend?
202 Possibly. It is the driver's responsibility to queue(*),
203 fail, or drop any requests that arrive after returning
204 success to a suspend request. It is important that the
205 driver not access its device until after it receives
206 a resume request as the device's bus may no longer
209 (*) If a driver queues requests for processing after
210 resume be aware that the device, network, etc.
211 might be in a different state than at suspend time.
212 It's probably better to drop requests unless
213 the driver is a storage device.
215 Q: Do I have to manage bus-specific power management registers
217 No. It is the responsibility of the bus driver to manage
218 PCI, USB, etc. power management registers. The bus driver
219 or the power management subsystem will also enable any
220 wake-on functionality that the device has.
222 Q: So, really, what do I need to do to support suspend/resume?
224 You need to save any device context that would
225 be lost if the device was powered off and then restore
226 it at resume time. When ACPI is active, there are
227 three levels of device suspend states; D1, D2, and D3.
228 (The suspend state is passed as the "data" argument
229 to the device callback.) With D3, the device is powered
230 off and loses all context, D1 and D2 are shallower power
231 states and require less device context to be saved. To
232 play it safe, just save everything at suspend and restore
233 everything at resume.
235 Q: Where do I store device context for suspend?
237 Anywhere in memory, kmalloc a buffer or store it
238 in the device descriptor. You are guaranteed that the
239 contents of memory will be restored and accessible
240 before resume, even when the system suspends to disk.
242 Q: What do I need to do for ACPI vs. APM vs. etc?
244 Drivers need not be aware of the specific power management
245 technology that is active. They just need to be aware
246 of when the overlying power management system requests
247 that they suspend or resume.
249 Q: What about device dependencies?
251 When a driver registers a device, the power management
252 subsystem uses the information provided to build a
253 tree of device dependencies (eg. USB device X is on
254 USB controller Y which is on PCI bus Z) When power
255 management wants to suspend a device, it first sends
256 a suspend request to its driver, then the bus driver,
257 and so on up to the system bus. Device resumes
258 proceed in the opposite direction.
260 Q: Who do I contact for additional information about
261 enabling power management for my specific driver/device?
263 ACPI4Linux mailing list: acpi@phobos.fs.tum.de
267 If you are providing new power management support to Linux (ie.
268 adding support for something like APM or ACPI), you should
269 communicate with drivers through the existing generic power
270 management interface.
273 * Send a request to a single device
276 * dev - PM device previously returned from pm_register or pm_find
277 * rqst - request type
278 * data - data, if any, associated with the request
280 * Returns: 0 if the request is successful
281 * See "pm_callback" return for errors
283 * Details: Forward request to device callback and, if a suspend
284 * or resume request, update the pm_dev "state" field
287 int pm_send(struct pm_dev *dev, pm_request_t rqst, void *data);
290 * Send a request to all devices
293 * rqst - request type
294 * data - data, if any, associated with the request
296 * Returns: 0 if the request is successful
297 * See "pm_callback" return for errors
299 * Details: Walk list of registered devices and call pm_send
300 * for each until complete or an error is encountered.
301 * If an error is encountered for a suspend request,
302 * return all devices to the state they were in before
303 * the suspend request.
305 int pm_send_all(pm_request_t rqst, void *data);
308 * Find a matching device
311 * type - device type (PCI device, system device, or 0 to match all devices)
312 * from - previous match or NULL to start from the beginning
314 * Returns: Matching device or NULL if none found
316 struct pm_dev *pm_find(pm_dev_t type, struct pm_dev *from);