thermald(8)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, you're reading thermald(8), straight out of the System Manager's Manual — and it's about starting the Linux thermal daemon.

thermald — start Linux thermal daemon 🌡️

---

🫶 SYNOPSIS 🫶

thermald [ OPTIONS ]

---

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

thermald is a Linux daemon whose whole entire job is preventing your platform from overheating. She monitors temperature and applies compensation using whatever cooling methods are available. main character energy, honestly.

By default, she monitors CPU temperature using the available CPU digital temperature sensors and keeps that CPU temp under control — before the hardware has to take aggressive correction action. We do not want the hardware stepping in. She handles it. periodt.

The thermal daemon goes looking for thermal sensors and thermal cooling drivers in the Linux thermal sysfs (/sys/class/thermal) and builds a list of sensors and cooling drivers. Each of those thermal sensors can optionally be binded to a cooling driver by the in-kernel drivers. When that happens, the Linux kernel thermal core can directly take actions based on the temperature trip points — for each sensor and its associated cooling device. For example, a trip temperature X in a sensor can be associated with a cooling driver Y. So the moment the sensor temperature = X, cooling driver "Y" is activated. simple as that 💅

thermald also lets you change this relationship, or add a brand new one, via a thermal configuration file (thermal-conf.xml). That file gets automatically created (thermal-conf.xml.auto) and used if the platform has an ACPI thermal relationship table. If it doesn't? Then it needs to be manually configured. no shortcuts sorry 😭

For manual configuration, refer to the manual page of the thermal-conf.xml.

There can be multiple configuration files, bestie. You can select one via the -config-file option to override the default selection. The default selection picks one of the files in the following order:

• /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml.auto
• /var/run/thermald/thermal-conf.xml.auto
• /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml

(*Assuming configure prefix=/ is used during build.)

There's also another companion tool, "ThermalMonitor", which presents a graphical front end. It lets you monitor sensors and change thermal trips so you get more control. The source code of "ThermalMonitor" is a part of the thermald github source, in the tools folder. 🎀

---

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -h, --help — Show help options. 🆘
• --version — Print thermald version and exit. 🏷️
• --no-daemon — Don't become a daemon: Default is daemon mode.
• --loglevel=info — log severity: info level and up.
• --loglevel=debug — log severity: debug level and up: Max logging. 🔍
• --poll-interval — Poll interval in seconds: Poll for zone temperature changes. To disable polling, set to zero. Polling can only be disabled, if available temperature sensors can notify temperature change asynchronously.
• --dbus-enable — Enable Dbus.
• --exclusive-control — Act as exclusive thermal controller. This will use user-space governor for thermal sysfs and take over control. 👑
• --ignore-cpuid-check — Ignore cpuid check for supported CPU models.
• --config-file — Specify thermal-conf.xml path and ignore default thermal-conf.xml.
• --ignore-default-control — Ignore default CPU temperature control. Strictly follow thermal-conf.xml or thermal-conf.xml.auto.
• --workaround-enabled — Enable special workarounds for RAPL MMIO power limit and TCC offset every 30 seconds. This helps to disable RAPL MMIO when not used and adjust TCC offset in certain Lenovo laptops. 🧚
• --disable-active-power — Disable active power management. This will not set active power limits using RAPL MMIO. This may result in constrained performance, if the system boots up with lower power limits.
• --adaptive — Use DPTF adaptive tables when present. This will ignore thermald config via xml files.
• --test-mode — Force use adaptive mode and exit if not supported, instead of restarting in non adaptive mode. This option is primarily for developers. 🔥
• --systemd — Assume that thermald is started by systemd. This will prevent running as daemon irrespective of --no-daemon option.
• --ignore-critical-trip — If the configuration defined a critical temperature point, which is too low, this option will avoid shutting down the system on reaching this temperature limit.

⚠️ okay real talk for a sec: that last one means a critical trip point that's too low won't nuke your system on the way there. Use it knowing exactly what it does, bestie. 🙈

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

thermal-conf.xml(5)

---

and that's the whole page, babes — sourced from the thermald(8) manual, dated May 8, 2013. go keep those temps chill fr fr 🌸💜