path: root/Documentation/hwmon/hwmon-kernel-api.txt

The Linux Hardware Monitoring kernel API.
=========================================

Guenter Roeck

Introduction
------------

This document describes the API that can be used by hardware monitoring
drivers that want to use the hardware monitoring framework.

This document does not describe what a hardware monitoring (hwmon) Driver or
Device is. It also does not describe the API which can be used by user space
to communicate with a hardware monitoring device. If you want to know this
then please read the following file: Documentation/hwmon/sysfs-interface.

For additional guidelines on how to write and improve hwmon drivers, please
also read Documentation/hwmon/submitting-patches.

The API
-------
Each hardware monitoring driver must #include <linux/hwmon.h> and, in most
cases, <linux/hwmon-sysfs.h>. linux/hwmon.h declares the following
register/unregister functions:

struct device *hwmon_device_register(struct device *dev);
struct device *
hwmon_device_register_with_groups(struct device *dev, const char *name,
				  void *drvdata,
				  const struct attribute_group **groups);

struct device *
devm_hwmon_device_register_with_groups(struct device *dev,
				       const char *name, void *drvdata,
				       const struct attribute_group **groups);

struct device *
hwmon_device_register_with_info(struct device *dev,
				const char *name, void *drvdata,
				const struct hwmon_chip_info *info,
				const struct attribute_group **groups);

struct device *
devm_hwmon_device_register_with_info(struct device *dev,
				     const char *name,
				     void *drvdata,
				     const struct hwmon_chip_info *info,
				     const struct attribute_group **groups);

void hwmon_device_unregister(struct device *dev);
void devm_hwmon_device_unregister(struct device *dev);

hwmon_device_register registers a hardware monitoring device. The parameter
of this function is a pointer to the parent device.
This function returns a pointer to the newly created hardware monitoring device
or PTR_ERR for failure. If this registration function is used, hardware
monitoring sysfs attributes are expected to have been created and attached to
the parent device prior to calling hwmon_device_register. A name attribute must
have been created by the caller.

hwmon_device_register_with_groups is similar to hwmon_device_register. However,
it has additional parameters. The name parameter is a pointer to the hwmon
device name. The registration function wil create a name sysfs attribute
pointing to this name. The drvdata parameter is the pointer to the local
driver data.  hwmon_device_register_with_groups will attach this pointer
to the newly allocated hwmon device. The pointer can be retrieved by the driver
using dev_get_drvdata() on the hwmon device pointer. The groups parameter is
a pointer to a list of sysfs attribute groups. The list must be NULL terminated.
hwmon_device_register_with_groups creates the hwmon device with name attribute
as well as all sysfs attributes attached to the hwmon device.

devm_hwmon_device_register_with_groups is similar to
hwmon_device_register_with_groups. However, it is device managed, meaning the
hwmon device does not have to be removed explicitly by the removal function.

hwmon_device_register_with_info is the most comprehensive and preferred means
to register a hardware monitoring device. It creates the standard sysfs
attributes in the hardware monitoring core, letting the driver focus on reading
from and writing to the chip instead of having to bother with sysfs attributes.
Its parameters are described in more detail below.

devm_hwmon_device_register_with_info is similar to
hwmon_device_register_with_info. However, it is device managed, meaning the
hwmon device does not have to be removed explicitly by the removal function.

hwmon_device_unregister deregisters a registered hardware monitoring device.
The parameter of this function is the pointer to the registered hardware
monitoring device structure. This function must be called from the driver
remove function if the hardware monitoring device was registered with
hwmon_device_register, hwmon_device_register_with_groups, or
hwmon_device_register_with_info.

devm_hwmon_device_unregister does not normally have to be called. It is only
needed for error handling, and only needed if the driver probe fails after
the call to devm_hwmon_device_register_with_groups and if the automatic
(device managed) removal would be too late.

Using devm_hwmon_device_register_with_info()
--------------------------------------------

hwmon_device_register_with_info() registers a hardware monitoring device.
The parameters to this function are

struct device *dev	Pointer to parent device
const char *name	Device name
void *drvdata		Driver private data
const struct hwmon_chip_info *info
			Pointer to chip description.
const struct attribute_group **groups
			Null-terminated list of additional sysfs attribute
			groups.

This function returns a pointer to the created hardware monitoring device
on success and a negative error code for failure.

The hwmon_chip_info structure looks as follows.

struct hwmon_chip_info {
	const struct hwmon_ops *ops;
	const struct hwmon_channel_info **info;
};

It contains the following fields:

* ops:	Pointer to device operations.
* info: NULL-terminated list of device channel descriptors.

The list of hwmon operations is defined as:

struct hwmon_ops {
	umode_t (*is_visible)(const void *, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
			      u32 attr, int);
	int (*read)(struct device *, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
		    u32 attr, int, long *);
	int (*write)(struct device *, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
		     u32 attr, int, long);
};

It defines the following operations.

* is_visible: Pointer to a function to return the file mode for each supported
  attribute. This function is mandatory.

* read: Pointer to a function for reading a value from the chip. This function
  is optional, but must be provided if any readable attributes exist.

* write: Pointer to a function for writing a value to the chip. This function is
  optional, but must be provided if any writeable attributes exist.

Each sensor channel is described with struct hwmon_channel_info, which is
defined as follows.

struct hwmon_channel_info {
	enum hwmon_sensor_types type;
	u32 *config;
};

It contains following fields:

* type: The hardware monitoring sensor type.
  Supported sensor types are
  * hwmon_chip		A virtual sensor type, used to describe attributes
			which apply to the entire chip.
  * hwmon_temp		Temperature sensor
  * hwmon_in		Voltage sensor
  * hwmon_curr		Current sensor
  * hwmon_power		Power sensor
  * hwmon_energy	Energy sensor
  * hwmon_humidity	Humidity sensor
  * hwmon_fan		Fan speed sensor

* config: Pointer to a 0-terminated list of configuration values for each
  sensor of the given type. Each value is a combination of bit values
  describing the attributes supposed by a single sensor.

As an example, here is the complete description file for a LM75 compatible
sensor chip. The chip has a single temperature sensor. The driver wants to
register with the thermal subsystem (HWMON_C_REGISTER_TZ), and it supports
the update_interval attribute (HWMON_C_UPDATE_INTERVAL). The chip supports
reading the temperature (HWMON_T_INPUT), it has a maximum temperature
register (HWMON_T_MAX) as well as a maximum temperature hysteresis register
(HWMON_T_MAX_HYST).

static const u32 lm75_chip_config[] = {
	HWMON_C_REGISTER_TZ | HWMON_C_UPDATE_INTERVAL,
	0
};

static const struct hwmon_channel_info lm75_chip = {
	.type = hwmon_chip,
	.config = lm75_chip_config,
};

static const u32 lm75_temp_config[] = {
	HWMON_T_INPUT | HWMON_T_MAX | HWMON_T_MAX_HYST,
	0
};

static const struct hwmon_channel_info lm75_temp = {
	.type = hwmon_temp,
	.config = lm75_temp_config,
};

static const struct hwmon_channel_info *lm75_info[] = {
	&lm75_chip,
	&lm75_temp,
	NULL
};

static const struct hwmon_ops lm75_hwmon_ops = {
	.is_visible = lm75_is_visible,
	.read = lm75_read,
	.write = lm75_write,
};

static const struct hwmon_chip_info lm75_chip_info = {
	.ops = &lm75_hwmon_ops,
	.info = lm75_info,
};

A complete list of bit values indicating individual attribute support
is defined in include/linux/hwmon.h. Definition prefixes are as follows.

HWMON_C_xxxx	Chip attributes, for use with hwmon_chip.
HWMON_T_xxxx	Temperature attributes, for use with hwmon_temp.
HWMON_I_xxxx	Voltage attributes, for use with hwmon_in.
HWMON_C_xxxx	Current attributes, for use with hwmon_curr.
		Notice the prefix overlap with chip attributes.
HWMON_P_xxxx	Power attributes, for use with hwmon_power.
HWMON_E_xxxx	Energy attributes, for use with hwmon_energy.
HWMON_H_xxxx	Humidity attributes, for use with hwmon_humidity.
HWMON_F_xxxx	Fan speed attributes, for use with hwmon_fan.

Driver callback functions
-------------------------

Each driver provides is_visible, read, and write functions. Parameters
and return values for those functions are as follows.

umode_t is_visible_func(const void *data, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
			u32 attr, int channel)

Parameters:
	data:	Pointer to device private data structure.
	type:	The sensor type.
	attr:	Attribute identifier associated with a specific attribute.
		For example, the attribute value for HWMON_T_INPUT would be
		hwmon_temp_input. For complete mappings of bit fields to
		attribute values please see include/linux/hwmon.h.
	channel:The sensor channel number.

Return value:
	The file mode for this attribute. Typically, this will be 0 (the
	attribute will not be created), S_IRUGO, or 'S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR'.

int read_func(struct device *dev, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
	      u32 attr, int channel, long *val)

Parameters:
	dev:	Pointer to the hardware monitoring device.
	type:	The sensor type.
	attr:	Attribute identifier associated with a specific attribute.
		For example, the attribute value for HWMON_T_INPUT would be
		hwmon_temp_input. For complete mappings please see
		include/linux/hwmon.h.
	channel:The sensor channel number.
	val:	Pointer to attribute value.

Return value:
	0 on success, a negative error number otherwise.

int write_func(struct device *dev, enum hwmon_sensor_types type,
	       u32 attr, int channel, long val)

Parameters:
	dev:	Pointer to the hardware monitoring device.
	type:	The sensor type.
	attr:	Attribute identifier associated with a specific attribute.
		For example, the attribute value for HWMON_T_INPUT would be
		hwmon_temp_input. For complete mappings please see
		include/linux/hwmon.h.
	channel:The sensor channel number.
	val:	The value to write to the chip.

Return value:
	0 on success, a negative error number otherwise.


Driver-provided sysfs attributes
--------------------------------

If the hardware monitoring device is registered with
hwmon_device_register_with_info or devm_hwmon_device_register_with_info,
it is most likely not necessary to provide sysfs attributes. Only non-standard
sysfs attributes need to be provided when one of those registration functions
is used.

The header file linux/hwmon-sysfs.h provides a number of useful macros to
declare and use hardware monitoring sysfs attributes.

In many cases, you can use the exsting define DEVICE_ATTR to declare such
attributes. This is feasible if an attribute has no additional context. However,
in many cases there will be additional information such as a sensor index which
will need to be passed to the sysfs attribute handling function.

SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR and SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR_2 can be used to define attributes
which need such additional context information. SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR requires
one additional argument, SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR_2 requires two.

SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR defines a struct sensor_device_attribute variable.
This structure has the following fields.

struct sensor_device_attribute {
	struct device_attribute dev_attr;
	int index;
};

You can use to_sensor_dev_attr to get the pointer to this structure from the
attribute read or write function. Its parameter is the device to which the
attribute is attached.

SENSOR_DEVICE_ATTR_2 defines a struct sensor_device_attribute_2 variable,
which is defined as follows.

struct sensor_device_attribute_2 {
	struct device_attribute dev_attr;
	u8 index;
	u8 nr;
};

Use to_sensor_dev_attr_2 to get the pointer to this structure. Its parameter
is the device to which the attribute is attached.