i8kmon(1)

💖 i8kmon — the temperature monitor bestie 💖

okay so this is i8kmon(1) from the Utilities corner of the manual, and she is literally out here keeping your Dell laptop from melting. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

i8kmon — temperature monitor 🌡️

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

i8kmon [<options>]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So i8kmon is a daemon, right? and what she does is monitor the cpu temperature and control the fan speed on some Dell laptops 💅 she does it by regularly reading the system temperature, and then choosing the appropriate speed of the fans. main character behavior honestly.

the way the speed changes is decided by a table of thresholds. inside i8kmon the default table of thresholds looks like this:

set config(0) {{0 0}  -1  60  -1  65}
set config(1) {{1 0}  50  70  55  75}
set config(2) {{1 1}  60  80  65  85}
set config(3) {{2 2}  70 128  75 128}

and you can customize this table at /etc/i8kmon.conf, which gets read every single time the i8kmon service starts. every time. she re-reads it. no cap.

on Debian and derivated OSes, i8kmon starts in the background by default as a service. 🎀

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

i8kmon accepts the following command-line options when initiated by the user, not as a service:

• -nc, --nouserconfig — doesn't read the ~/.i8kmon configfile, only /etc/i8kmon.conf. like, she's ignoring your personal vibes and going straight to the system ones 💀
• -v, --verbose — report hardware status and program actions on stdout. she will literally narrate her whole life to you 🗣️
• -t, --timeout <seconds> — specifies the interval at which the daemon checks the hardware status. useful values are in the range of 1-5 seconds. default is 2 seconds. ⏰

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✨ CONFIGURATION ✨

as said before (iykyk), i8kmon has builtin default values of temperature thresholds. but if users need, they can specify their own settings in the configuration files /etc/i8kmon.conf and ~/.i8kmon. it is also possible to specify values to others variables that change i8kmon behavior 👑

the variables and values are as follows:

• set config(i8kfan) /usr/bin/i8kfan — i8kfan executable path 🛠️
• set config(acpi) "acpi" — filename of the apci executable. i8kmon uses acpi to query whether the notebook is on-line or on battery 🔋
• set config(use_conf) 1 — set whether user configuration file must be read or not when user starting i8kmon. default is 1.
• set config(verbose) 0 — print verbose logs 📝
• set config(timeout) 2 — timeout. default is 2.
• set config(t_high) 80 — maximum high temperature. default is 80. 🔥

the following variables set fans speeds. if these variables are set at the config file, i8kmon will not probe for them. and heads up: the probe moment turns on fans at max speed 🌪️

• set status(leftspeed) "0 1000 2000 3000" — speed values (rpm) of left fan at velocities 0, 1, 2, 3
• set status(rightspeed) "0 1000 2000 3000" — speed values (rpm) of right fan at velocities 0, 1, 2, 3

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🦋 the states, bestie 🦋

the daemon defines 4 states (0, 1, 2, 3) with different combinations of fan speeds ({0 0}, {1 0}, {1 1}, {2 2}) and for each state is defined the temperature thresholds which cause the fans to switch to a higher or lower state. each state can have different thresholds for operation on ac power or on battery. for example, this configuration:

set config(0) {{0 0}  -1  60  -1  65}
set config(1) {{1 0}  50  70  55  75}
set config(2) {{1 1}  60  80  65  85}
set config(3) {{2 2}  70 128  75 128}

defines state 0 with both fans off, a high threshold of 60 degrees (65 on battery) and a low threshold of -1 degrees — which is actually never reached since 0 is the lowest temperature 💀. when the high temperature threshold is reached, the program switches to state 1 (left low, right off) which has a high threshold of 70 degrees and a low threshold of 50 degrees. if on ac power the temperature drops below 50, the program will switch back to state 0; if it rises above 70, it will enter state 2, and so on. slay, cascading states ✨

for better operation the temperature ranges should be overlapping with an hysteresis of at least 10 degrees, i.e. 1={50 70},2={60 80} is better than 1={50 70},2={70 80}. and it must be remembered that the low threshold of state 0 must be -1 degrees and the high threshold of state 3 must be 128 degrees. those two are non-negotiable, periodt 🙅‍♀️

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🧚 one fan girlies 🧚

if the laptop has only one fan, it is better to specify a '-' instead of the fan speed of the missing fan. for example:

set config(2) {{1 -}  60  80  65  85}

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✨ FILES ✨

• /proc/i8k
• /etc/i8kmon.conf
• /$HOME/.i8kmon

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✨ AUTHORS ✨

• Vitor Augusto <vitorafsr@gmail.com>
• Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@debian.org>

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✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

i8kmon and all the i8kutils programs, scripts and other files are distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 📜 on Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• i8kctl(1) 🌈

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this manual page was brought to you by Vitor Augusto, dated 04 Mar 2017, under the i8kmon(1) manual, Utilities section — go forth and keep those fans spinning 💖🎀🦋