Kernel-2.6.32-573.12.1.el6_laptop-mode

How to conserve battery power using laptop-mode

Document Author: Bart Samwel (bart@samwel.tk)
Date created: January 2, 2004
Last modified: December 06, 2004

Introduction

Laptop mode is used to minimize the time that the hard disk needs to be spun up,
to conserve battery power on laptops. It has been reported to cause significant
power savings.

Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Caveats
• The Details
• Tips & Tricks
• Control script
• ACPI integration
• Monitoring tool

Installation

To use laptop mode, you don’t need to set any kernel configuration options
or anything. Simply install all the files included in this document, and
laptop mode will automatically be started when you’re on battery. For
your convenience, a tarball containing an installer can be downloaded at:

http://www.samwel.tk/laptop_mode/laptop_mode/

To configure laptop mode, you need to edit the configuration file, which is
located in /etc/default/laptop-mode on Debian-based systems, or in
/etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode on other systems.

Unfortunately, automatic enabling of laptop mode does not work for
laptops that don’t have ACPI. On those laptops, you need to start laptop
mode manually. To start laptop mode, run “laptop_mode start”, and to
stop it, run “laptop_mode stop”. (Note: The laptop mode tools package now
has experimental support for APM, you might want to try that first.)

Caveats

• The downside of laptop mode is that you have a chance of losing up to 10
  minutes of work. If you cannot afford this, don’t use it! The supplied ACPI
  scripts automatically turn off laptop mode when the battery almost runs out,
  so that you won’t lose any data at the end of your battery life.

• Most desktop hard drives have a very limited lifetime measured in spindown
  cycles, typically about 50.000 times (it’s usually listed on the spec sheet).
  Check your drive’s rating, and don’t wear down your drive’s lifetime if you
  don’t need to.

• If you mount some of your ext3/reiserfs filesystems with the -n option, then
  the control script will not be able to remount them correctly. You must set
  DO_REMOUNTS=0 in the control script, otherwise it will remount them with the
  wrong options – or it will fail because it cannot write to /etc/mtab.

• If you have your filesystems listed as type “auto” in fstab, like I did, then
  the control script will not recognize them as filesystems that need remounting.
  You must list the filesystems with their true type instead.

• It has been reported that some versions of the mutt mail client use file access
  times to determine whether a folder contains new mail. If you use mutt and
  experience this, you must disable the noatime remounting by setting the option
  DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME to 0 in the configuration file.

The Details

Laptop mode is controlled by the knob /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode. This knob is
present for all kernels that have the laptop mode patch, regardless of any
configuration options. When the knob is set, any physical disk I/O (that might
have caused the hard disk to spin up) causes Linux to flush all dirty blocks. The
result of this is that after a disk has spun down, it will not be spun up
anymore to write dirty blocks, because those blocks had already been written
immediately after the most recent read operation. The value of the laptop_mode
knob determines the time between the occurrence of disk I/O and when the flush
is triggered. A sensible value for the knob is 5 seconds. Setting the knob to
0 disables laptop mode.

To increase the effectiveness of the laptop_mode strategy, the laptop_mode
control script increases dirty_expire_centisecs and dirty_writeback_centisecs in
/proc/sys/vm to about 10 minutes (by default), which means that pages that are
dirtied are not forced to be written to disk as often. The control script also
changes the dirty background ratio, so that background writeback of dirty pages
is not done anymore. Combined with a higher commit value (also 10 minutes) for
ext3 or ReiserFS filesystems (also done automatically by the control script),
this results in concentration of disk activity in a small time interval which
occurs only once every 10 minutes, or whenever the disk is forced to spin up by
a cache miss. The disk can then be spun down in the periods of inactivity.

If you want to find out which process caused the disk to spin up, you can
gather information by setting the flag /proc/sys/vm/block_dump. When this flag
is set, Linux reports all disk read and write operations that take place, and
all block dirtyings done to files. This makes it possible to debug why a disk
needs to spin up, and to increase battery life even more. The output of
block_dump is written to the kernel output, and it can be retrieved using
“dmesg”. When you use block_dump and your kernel logging level also includes
kernel debugging messages, you probably want to turn off klogd, otherwise
the output of block_dump will be logged, causing disk activity that is not
normally there.

Configuration

The laptop mode configuration file is located in /etc/default/laptop-mode on
Debian-based systems, or in /etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode on other systems. It
contains the following options:

MAX_AGE:

Maximum time, in seconds, of hard drive spindown time that you are
comfortable with. Worst case, it’s possible that you could lose this
amount of work if your battery fails while you’re in laptop mode.

MINIMUM_BATTERY_MINUTES:

Automatically disable laptop mode if the remaining number of minutes of
battery power is less than this value. Default is 10 minutes.

AC_HD/BATT_HD:

The idle timeout that should be set on your hard drive when laptop mode
is active (BATT_HD) and when it is not active (AC_HD). The defaults are
20 seconds (value 4) for BATT_HD and 2 hours (value 244) for AC_HD. The
possible values are those listed in the manual page for “hdparm” for the
“-S” option.

HD:

The devices for which the spindown timeout should be adjusted by laptop mode.
Default is /dev/hda. If you specify multiple devices, separate them by a space.

READAHEAD:

Disk readahead, in 512-byte sectors, while laptop mode is active. A large
readahead can prevent disk accesses for things like executable pages (which are
loaded on demand while the application executes) and sequentially accessed data
(MP3s).

DO_REMOUNTS:

The control script automatically remounts any mounted journaled filesystems
with appropriate commit interval options. When this option is set to 0, this
feature is disabled.

DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME:

When remounting, should the filesystems be remounted with the noatime option?
Normally, this is set to “1” (enabled), but there may be programs that require
access time recording.

DIRTY_RATIO:

The percentage of memory that is allowed to contain “dirty” or unsaved data
before a writeback is forced, while laptop mode is active. Corresponds to
the /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio sysctl.

DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO:

The percentage of memory that is allowed to contain “dirty” or unsaved data
after a forced writeback is done due to an exceeding of DIRTY_RATIO. Set
this nice and low. This corresponds to the /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
sysctl.

Note that the behaviour of dirty_background_ratio is quite different
when laptop mode is active and when it isn’t. When laptop mode is inactive,
dirty_background_ratio is the threshold percentage at which background writeouts
start taking place. When laptop mode is active, however, background writeouts
are disabled, and the dirty_background_ratio only determines how much writeback
is done when dirty_ratio is reached.

DO_CPU:

Enable CPU frequency scaling when in laptop mode. (Requires CPUFreq to be setup.
See Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt for more info. Disabled by default.)

CPU_MAXFREQ:

When on battery, what is the maximum CPU speed that the system should use? Legal
values are “slowest” for the slowest speed that your CPU is able to operate at,
or a value listed in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies.

Tips & Tricks

• Bartek Kania reports getting up to 50 minutes of extra battery life (on top
  of his regular 3 to 3.5 hours) using a spindown time of 5 seconds (BATT_HD=1).

• You can spin down the disk while playing MP3, by setting disk readahead
  to 8MB (READAHEAD=16384). Effectively, the disk will read a complete MP3 at
  once, and will then spin down while the MP3 is playing. (Thanks to Bartek
  Kania.)

• Drew Scott Daniels observed: “I don’t know why, but when I decrease the number
  of colours that my display uses it consumes less battery power. I’ve seen
  this on powerbooks too. I hope that this is a piece of information that
  might be useful to the Laptop Mode patch or it’s users.”

• In syslog.conf, you can prefix entries with a dash ``-‘’ to omit syncing the
  file after every logging. When you’re using laptop-mode and your disk doesn’t
  spin down, this is a likely culprit.

• Richard Atterer observed that laptop mode does not work well with noflushd
  (http://noflushd.sourceforge.net/), it seems that noflushd prevents laptop-mode
  from doing its thing.

• If you’re worried about your data, you might want to consider using a USB
  memory stick or something like that as a “working area”. (Be aware though
  that flash memory can only handle a limited number of writes, and overuse
  may wear out your memory stick pretty quickly. Do not use journalling
  filesystems on flash memory sticks.)

Configuration file for control and ACPI battery scripts

This allows the tunables to be changed for the scripts via an external
configuration file

It should be installed as /etc/default/laptop-mode on Debian, and as
/etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode on Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, and other work-alikes.

——————–CONFIG FILE BEGIN——————————————-

Maximum time, in seconds, of hard drive spindown time that you are

comfortable with. Worst case, it’s possible that you could lose this

amount of work if your battery fails you while in laptop mode.

#MAX_AGE=600

Automatically disable laptop mode when the number of minutes of battery

that you have left goes below this threshold.

MINIMUM_BATTERY_MINUTES=10

Read-ahead, in 512-byte sectors. You can spin down the disk while playing MP3/OGG

by setting the disk readahead to 8MB (READAHEAD=16384). Effectively, the disk

will read a complete MP3 at once, and will then spin down while the MP3/OGG is

playing.

#READAHEAD=4096

Shall we remount journaled fs. with appropriate commit interval? (1=yes)

#DO_REMOUNTS=1

And shall we add the “noatime” option to that as well? (1=yes)

#DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME=1

Dirty synchronous ratio. At this percentage of dirty pages the process

which

calls write() does its own writeback

#DIRTY_RATIO=40

Allowed dirty background ratio, in percent. Once DIRTY_RATIO has been

exceeded, the kernel will wake flusher threads which will then reduce the

amount of dirty memory to dirty_background_ratio. Set this nice and low,

so once some writeout has commenced, we do a lot of it.

#DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=5

kernel default dirty buffer age

#DEF_AGE=30
#DEF_UPDATE=5
#DEF_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=10
#DEF_DIRTY_RATIO=40
#DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER=15
#DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL=30
#DEF_XFS_BUFD_INTERVAL=1

This must be adjusted manually to the value of HZ in the running kernel

on 2.4, until the XFS people change their 2.4 external interfaces to work in

centisecs. This can be automated, but it’s a work in progress that still

needs# some fixes. On 2.6 kernels, XFS uses USER_HZ instead of HZ for

external interfaces, and that is currently always set to 100. So you don’t

need to change this on 2.6.

#XFS_HZ=100

Should the maximum CPU frequency be adjusted down while on battery?

Requires CPUFreq to be setup.

See Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt for more info

#DO_CPU=0

When on battery what is the maximum CPU speed that the system should

use? Legal values are “slowest” for the slowest speed that your

CPU is able to operate at, or a value listed in:

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

Only applicable if DO_CPU=1.

#CPU_MAXFREQ=slowest

Idle timeout for your hard drive (man hdparm for valid values, -S option)

Default is 2 hours on AC (AC_HD=244) and 20 seconds for battery (BATT_HD=4).

#AC_HD=244
#BATT_HD=4

The drives for which to adjust the idle timeout. Separate them by a space,

e.g. HD=”/dev/hda /dev/hdb”.

#HD=”/dev/hda”

Set the spindown timeout on a hard drive?

#DO_HD=1

——————–CONFIG FILE END———————————————

Control script

Please note that this control script works for the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 series (thanks
to Kiko Piris).

——————–CONTROL SCRIPT BEGIN—————————————-
#!/bin/bash

start or stop laptop_mode, best run by a power management daemon when

ac gets connected/disconnected from a laptop

install as /sbin/laptop_mode

Contributors to this script: Kiko Piris

Bart Samwel

Micha Feigin

Andrew Morton

Herve Eychenne

Dax Kelson

Original Linux 2.4 version by: Jens Axboe

#############################################################################

Source config

if [ -f /etc/default/laptop-mode ] ; then
# Debian
. /etc/default/laptop-mode
elif [ -f /etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode ] ; then
# Others
. /etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode
fi

Don’t raise an error if the config file is incomplete

set defaults instead:

Maximum time, in seconds, of hard drive spindown time that you are

comfortable with. Worst case, it’s possible that you could lose this

amount of work if your battery fails you while in laptop mode.

MAX_AGE=${MAX_AGE:-‘600’}

Read-ahead, in kilobytes

READAHEAD=${READAHEAD:-‘4096’}

Shall we remount journaled fs. with appropriate commit interval? (1=yes)

DO_REMOUNTS=${DO_REMOUNTS:-‘1’}

And shall we add the “noatime” option to that as well? (1=yes)

DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME=${DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME:-‘1’}

Shall we adjust the idle timeout on a hard drive?

DO_HD=${DO_HD:-‘1’}

Adjust idle timeout on which hard drive?

HD=”${HD:-‘/dev/hda’}”

spindown time for HD (hdparm -S values)

AC_HD=${AC_HD:-‘244’}
BATT_HD=${BATT_HD:-‘4’}

Dirty synchronous ratio. At this percentage of dirty pages the process which

calls write() does its own writeback

DIRTY_RATIO=${DIRTY_RATIO:-‘40’}

cpu frequency scaling

See Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt for more info

DO_CPU=${CPU_MANAGE:-‘0’}
CPU_MAXFREQ=${CPU_MAXFREQ:-‘slowest’}

Allowed dirty background ratio, in percent. Once DIRTY_RATIO has been

exceeded, the kernel will wake flusher threads which will then reduce the

amount of dirty memory to dirty_background_ratio. Set this nice and low,

so once some writeout has commenced, we do a lot of it.

DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=${DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO:-‘5’}

kernel default dirty buffer age

DEF_AGE=${DEF_AGE:-‘30’}
DEF_UPDATE=${DEF_UPDATE:-‘5’}
DEF_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=${DEF_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO:-‘10’}
DEF_DIRTY_RATIO=${DEF_DIRTY_RATIO:-‘40’}
DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER=${DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER:-‘15’}
DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL=${DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL:-‘30’}
DEF_XFS_BUFD_INTERVAL=${DEF_XFS_BUFD_INTERVAL:-‘1’}

This must be adjusted manually to the value of HZ in the running kernel

on 2.4, until the XFS people change their 2.4 external interfaces to work in

centisecs. This can be automated, but it’s a work in progress that still needs

some fixes. On 2.6 kernels, XFS uses USER_HZ instead of HZ for external

interfaces, and that is currently always set to 100. So you don’t need to

change this on 2.6.

XFS_HZ=${XFS_HZ:-‘100’}

#############################################################################

KLEVEL=”$(uname -r |
{
IFS=’.’ read a b c
echo $a.$b
}
)”
case “$KLEVEL” in
“2.4”|”2.6”)
;;
*)
echo “Unhandled kernel version: $KLEVEL (‘uname -r’ = ‘$(uname -r)’)” >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

if [ ! -e /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode ] ; then
echo “Kernel is not patched with laptop_mode patch.” >&2
exit 1
fi

if [ ! -w /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode ] ; then
echo “You do not have enough privileges to enable laptop_mode.” >&2
exit 1
fi

Remove an option (the first parameter) of the form option= from

a mount options string (the rest of the parameters).

parse_mount_opts () {
OPT=”$1”
shift
echo “,$,” | sed
-e ‘s/,’”$OPT”‘=[0-9],/,/g’
-e ‘s/,,*/,/g’
-e ‘s/^,//‘
-e ‘s/,$//‘
}

Remove an option (the first parameter) without any arguments from

a mount option string (the rest of the parameters).

parse_nonumber_mount_opts () {
OPT=”$1”
shift
echo “,$,” | sed
-e ‘s/,’”$OPT”‘,/,/g’
-e ‘s/,,/,/g’
-e ‘s/^,//‘
-e ‘s/,$//‘
}

Find out the state of a yes/no option (e.g. “atime”/“noatime”) in

fstab for a given filesystem, and use this state to replace the

value of the option in another mount options string. The device

is the first argument, the option name the second, and the default

value the third. The remainder is the mount options string.

Example:

parse_yesno_opts_wfstab /dev/hda1 atime atime defaults,noatime

If fstab contains, say, “rw” for this filesystem, then the result

will be “defaults,atime”.

parse_yesno_opts_wfstab () {
L_DEV=”$1”
OPT=”$2”
DEF_OPT=”$3”
shift 3
L_OPTS=”$*”
PARSEDOPTS1=”$(parse_nonumber_mount_opts $OPT $L_OPTS)”
PARSEDOPTS1=”$(parse_nonumber_mount_opts no$OPT $PARSEDOPTS1)”
# Watch for a default atime in fstab
FSTAB_OPTS=”$(awk ‘$1 == “‘$L_DEV’” { print $4 }’ /etc/fstab)”
if echo “$FSTAB_OPTS” | grep “$OPT” > /dev/null ; then
# option specified in fstab: extract the value and use it
if echo “$FSTAB_OPTS” | grep “no$OPT” > /dev/null ; then
echo “$PARSEDOPTS1,no$OPT”
else
# no$OPT not found – so we must have $OPT.
echo “$PARSEDOPTS1,$OPT”
fi
else
# option not specified in fstab – choose the default.
echo “$PARSEDOPTS1,$DEF_OPT”
fi
}

Find out the state of a numbered option (e.g. “commit=NNN”) in

fstab for a given filesystem, and use this state to replace the

value of the option in another mount options string. The device

is the first argument, and the option name the second. The

remainder is the mount options string in which the replacement

must be done.

Example:

parse_mount_opts_wfstab /dev/hda1 commit defaults,commit=7

If fstab contains, say, “commit=3,rw” for this filesystem, then the

result will be “rw,commit=3”.

parse_mount_opts_wfstab () {
L_DEV=”$1”
OPT=”$2”
shift 2
L_OPTS=”$“
PARSEDOPTS1=”$(parse_mount_opts $OPT $L_OPTS)”
# Watch for a default commit in fstab
FSTAB_OPTS=”$(awk ‘$1 == “‘$L_DEV’” { print $4 }’ /etc/fstab)”
if echo “$FSTAB_OPTS” | grep “$OPT=” > /dev/null ; then
# option specified in fstab: extract the value, and use it
echo -n “$PARSEDOPTS1,$OPT=”
echo “,$FSTAB_OPTS,” | sed
-e ‘s/.,’”$OPT”‘=//‘
-e ‘s/,.*//‘
else
# option not specified in fstab: set it to 0
echo “$PARSEDOPTS1,$OPT=0”
fi
}

deduce_fstype () {
MP=”$1”
# My root filesystem unfortunately has
# type “unknown” in /etc/mtab. If we encounter
# “unknown”, we try to get the type from fstab.
cat /etc/fstab |
grep -v ‘^#’ |
while read FSTAB_DEV FSTAB_MP FSTAB_FST FSTAB_OPTS FSTAB_DUMP FSTAB_DUMP ; do
if [ “$FSTAB_MP” = “$MP” ]; then
echo $FSTAB_FST
exit 0
fi
done
}

if [ $DO_REMOUNT_NOATIME -eq 1 ] ; then
NOATIME_OPT=”,noatime”
fi

case “$1” in
start)
AGE=$((100*$MAX_AGE))
XFS_AGE=$(($XFS_HZ*$MAX_AGE))
echo -n “Starting laptop_mode”

    if [ -d /proc/sys/vm/pagebuf ] ; then
        # (For 2.4 and early 2.6.)
        # This only needs to be set, not reset -- it is only used when
        # laptop mode is enabled.
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/vm/pagebuf/lm_flush_age
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/lm_sync_interval
    elif [ -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/lm_age_buffer ] ; then
        # (A couple of early 2.6 laptop mode patches had these.)
        # The same goes for these.
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/lm_age_buffer
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/lm_sync_interval
    elif [ -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer ] ; then
        # (2.6.6)
        # But not for these -- they are also used in normal
        # operation.
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer
        echo $XFS_AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/sync_interval
    elif [ -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer_centisecs ] ; then
        # (2.6.7 upwards)
        # And not for these either. These are in centisecs,
        # not USER_HZ, so we have to use $AGE, not $XFS_AGE.
        echo $AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer_centisecs
        echo $AGE > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/xfssyncd_centisecs
        echo 3000 > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/xfsbufd_centisecs
    fi

    case "$KLEVEL" in
        "2.4")
            echo 1                    > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
            echo "30 500 0 0 $AGE $AGE 60 20 0"    > /proc/sys/vm/bdflush
            ;;
        "2.6")
            echo 5                    > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
            echo "$AGE"                > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
            echo "$AGE"                > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs
            echo "$DIRTY_RATIO"            > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio
            echo "$DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO"        > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
            ;;
    esac
    if [ $DO_REMOUNTS -eq 1 ]; then
        cat /etc/mtab | while read DEV MP FST OPTS DUMP PASS ; do
            PARSEDOPTS="$(parse_mount_opts "$OPTS")"
            if [ "$FST" = 'unknown' ]; then
                FST=$(deduce_fstype $MP)
            fi
            case "$FST" in
                "ext3"|"reiserfs")
                    PARSEDOPTS="$(parse_mount_opts commit "$OPTS")"
                    mount $DEV -t $FST $MP -o remount,$PARSEDOPTS,commit=$MAX_AGE$NOATIME_OPT
                    ;;
                "xfs")
                    mount $DEV -t $FST $MP -o remount,$OPTS$NOATIME_OPT
                    ;;
            esac
            if [ -b $DEV ] ; then
                blockdev --setra $(($READAHEAD * 2)) $DEV
            fi
        done
    fi
    if [ $DO_HD -eq 1 ] ; then
        for THISHD in $HD ; do
            /sbin/hdparm -S $BATT_HD $THISHD > /dev/null 2>&1
            /sbin/hdparm -B 1 $THISHD > /dev/null 2>&1
        done
    fi
    if [ $DO_CPU -eq 1 -a -e /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq ]; then
        if [ $CPU_MAXFREQ = 'slowest' ]; then
            CPU_MAXFREQ=`cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq`
        fi
        echo $CPU_MAXFREQ > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
    fi
    echo "."
    ;;
stop)
    U_AGE=$((100*$DEF_UPDATE))
    B_AGE=$((100*$DEF_AGE))
    echo -n "Stopping laptop_mode"
    echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
    if [ -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer -a ! -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/lm_age_buffer ] ; then
        # These need to be restored, if there are no lm_*.
        echo $(($XFS_HZ*$DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER))         > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer
        echo $(($XFS_HZ*$DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL))     > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/sync_interval
    elif [ -f /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer_centisecs ] ; then
        # These need to be restored as well.
        echo $((100*$DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER))    > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/age_buffer_centisecs
        echo $((100*$DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL))    > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/xfssyncd_centisecs
        echo $((100*$DEF_XFS_BUFD_INTERVAL))    > /proc/sys/fs/xfs/xfsbufd_centisecs
    fi
    case "$KLEVEL" in
        "2.4")
            echo "30 500 0 0 $U_AGE $B_AGE 60 20 0"    > /proc/sys/vm/bdflush
            ;;
        "2.6")
            echo "$U_AGE"                > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
            echo "$B_AGE"                > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs
            echo "$DEF_DIRTY_RATIO"            > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio
            echo "$DEF_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO"    > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
            ;;
    esac
    if [ $DO_REMOUNTS -eq 1 ] ; then
        cat /etc/mtab | while read DEV MP FST OPTS DUMP PASS ; do
            # Reset commit and atime options to defaults.
            if [ "$FST" = 'unknown' ]; then
                FST=$(deduce_fstype $MP)
            fi
            case "$FST" in
                "ext3"|"reiserfs")
                    PARSEDOPTS="$(parse_mount_opts_wfstab $DEV commit $OPTS)"
                    PARSEDOPTS="$(parse_yesno_opts_wfstab $DEV atime atime $PARSEDOPTS)"
                    mount $DEV -t $FST $MP -o remount,$PARSEDOPTS
                    ;;
                "xfs")
                    PARSEDOPTS="$(parse_yesno_opts_wfstab $DEV atime atime $OPTS)"
                    mount $DEV -t $FST $MP -o remount,$PARSEDOPTS
                    ;;
            esac
            if [ -b $DEV ] ; then
                blockdev --setra 256 $DEV
            fi
        done
    fi
    if [ $DO_HD -eq 1 ] ; then
        for THISHD in $HD ; do
            /sbin/hdparm -S $AC_HD $THISHD > /dev/null 2>&1
            /sbin/hdparm -B 255 $THISHD > /dev/null 2>&1
        done
    fi
    if [ $DO_CPU -eq 1 -a -e /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq ]; then
        echo `cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq` > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
    fi
    echo "."
    ;;
*)
    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}" 2>&1
    exit 1
    ;;

esac

exit 0
——————–CONTROL SCRIPT END——————————————

ACPI integration

Dax Kelson submitted this so that the ACPI acpid daemon will
kick off the laptop_mode script and run hdparm. The part that
automatically disables laptop mode when the battery is low was
written by Jan Topinski.

—————–/etc/acpi/events/ac_adapter BEGIN——————————
event=ac_adapter
action=/etc/acpi/actions/ac.sh %e
—————-/etc/acpi/events/ac_adapter END———————————

—————–/etc/acpi/events/battery BEGIN———————————
event=battery.*
action=/etc/acpi/actions/battery.sh %e
—————-/etc/acpi/events/battery END————————————

—————-/etc/acpi/actions/ac.sh BEGIN———————————–
#!/bin/bash

ac on/offline event handler

status=awk '/^state: / { print $2 }' /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/$2/state

case $status in
“on-line”)
/sbin/laptop_mode stop
exit 0
;;
“off-line”)
/sbin/laptop_mode start
exit 0
;;
esac
—————————/etc/acpi/actions/ac.sh END————————–

—————————/etc/acpi/actions/battery.sh BEGIN——————-
#! /bin/bash

Automatically disable laptop mode when the battery almost runs out.

BATT_INFO=/proc/acpi/battery/$2/state

if [[ -f /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode ]]
then
LM=cat /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
if [[ $LM -gt 0 ]]
then
if [[ -f $BATT_INFO ]]
then
# Source the config file only now that we know we need
if [ -f /etc/default/laptop-mode ] ; then
# Debian
. /etc/default/laptop-mode
elif [ -f /etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode ] ; then
# Others
. /etc/sysconfig/laptop-mode
fi
MINIMUM_BATTERY_MINUTES=${MINIMUM_BATTERY_MINUTES:-‘10’}

    ACTION="`cat $BATT_INFO | grep charging | cut -c 26-`"
    if [[ ACTION -eq "discharging" ]]
    then
       PRESENT_RATE=`cat $BATT_INFO | grep "present rate:" | sed  "s/.* \([0-9][0-9]* \).*/\1/" `
       REMAINING=`cat $BATT_INFO | grep "remaining capacity:" | sed  "s/.* \([0-9][0-9]* \).*/\1/" `
    fi
    if (($REMAINING * 60 / $PRESENT_RATE < $MINIMUM_BATTERY_MINUTES))
    then
       /sbin/laptop_mode stop
    fi
 else
   logger -p daemon.warning "You are using laptop mode and your battery interface $BATT_INFO is missing. This may lead to loss of data when the battery runs out. Check kernel ACPI support and /proc/acpi/battery folder, and edit /etc/acpi/battery.sh to set BATT_INFO to the correct path."
 fi

fi
fi
—————————/etc/acpi/actions/battery.sh END——————–

Monitoring tool

Bartek Kania submitted this, it can be used to measure how much time your disk
spends spun up/down.

—————————dslm.c BEGIN—————————————–
/*

• Simple Disk Sleep Monitor
• by Bartek Kania
• Licenced under the GPL
• /
  #include <unistd.h>
  #include <stdlib.h>
  #include <stdio.h>
  #include <fcntl.h>
  #include <errno.h>
  #include <time.h>
  #include <string.h>
  #include <signal.h>
  #include <sys/ioctl.h>
  #include <linux/hdreg.h>

#ifdef DEBUG
#define D(x) x
#else
#define D(x)
#endif

int endit = 0;

/* Check if the disk is in powersave-mode

• Most of the code is stolen from hdparm.

• 1 = active, 0 = standby/sleep, -1 = unknown */
  int check_powermode(int fd)
  {
  unsigned char args[4] = {WIN_CHECKPOWERMODE1,0,0,0};
  int state;

  if (ioctl(fd, HDIO_DRIVE_CMD, &args)
  && (args[0] = WIN_CHECKPOWERMODE2) /* try again with 0x98 */
  && ioctl(fd, HDIO_DRIVE_CMD, &args)) {
  if (errno != EIO || args[0] != 0 || args[1] != 0) {

   state = -1; /* "unknown"; */
  

  } else

   state = 0; /* "sleeping"; */
  

  } else {
  state = (args[2] == 255) ? 1 : 0;
  }
  D(printf(“ drive state is: %d\n”, state));

  return state;
  }

char *state_name(int i)
{
if (i == -1) return “unknown”;
if (i == 0) return “sleeping”;
if (i == 1) return “active”;

return "internal error";

}

char *myctime(time_t time)
{
char *ts = ctime(&time);
ts[strlen(ts) - 1] = 0;

return ts;

}

void measure(int fd)
{
time_t start_time;
int last_state;
time_t last_time;
int curr_state;
time_t curr_time = 0;
time_t time_diff;
time_t active_time = 0;
time_t sleep_time = 0;
time_t unknown_time = 0;
time_t total_time = 0;
int changes = 0;
float tmp;

printf("Starting measurements\n");

last_state = check_powermode(fd);
start_time = last_time = time(0);
printf("  System is in state %s\n\n", state_name(last_state));

while(!endit) {
sleep(1);
curr_state = check_powermode(fd);

if (curr_state != last_state || endit) {
    changes++;
    curr_time = time(0);
    time_diff = curr_time - last_time;

    if (last_state == 1) active_time += time_diff;
    else if (last_state == 0) sleep_time += time_diff;
    else unknown_time += time_diff;

    last_state = curr_state;
    last_time = curr_time;

    printf("%s: State-change to %s\n", myctime(curr_time),
       state_name(curr_state));
}
}
changes--; /* Compensate for SIGINT */

total_time = time(0) - start_time;
printf("\nTotal running time:  %lus\n", curr_time - start_time);
printf(" State changed %d times\n", changes);

tmp = (float)sleep_time / (float)total_time * 100;
printf(" Time in sleep state:   %lus (%.2f%%)\n", sleep_time, tmp);
tmp = (float)active_time / (float)total_time * 100;
printf(" Time in active state:  %lus (%.2f%%)\n", active_time, tmp);
tmp = (float)unknown_time / (float)total_time * 100;
printf(" Time in unknown state: %lus (%.2f%%)\n", unknown_time, tmp);

}

void ender(int s)
{
endit = 1;
}

void usage()
{
puts(“usage: dslm [-w ] “);
exit(0);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int fd;
char *disk = 0;
int settle_time = 60;

/* Parse the simple command-line */
if (argc == 2)
disk = argv[1];
else if (argc == 4) {
settle_time = atoi(argv[2]);
disk = argv[3];
} else
usage();

if (!(fd = open(disk, O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK))) {
printf("Can't open %s, because: %s\n", disk, strerror(errno));
exit(-1);
}

if (settle_time) {
printf("Waiting %d seconds for the system to settle down to "
       "'normal'\n", settle_time);
sleep(settle_time);
} else
puts("Not waiting for system to settle down");

signal(SIGINT, ender);

measure(fd);

close(fd);

return 0;

}
—————————dslm.c END——————————————-