NoteBook FanControl

This is a C port of Stefan Hirschmann's NoteBook FanControl.

It provides the same utilities with the same interfaces as the original NBFC, although the implementation differs.

If you find my work helpful, you can show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.

Comparison of NBFC C# and NBFC Linux

What	NBFC Mono	NBFC Linux
Portability	Crossplatform	Linux
Configuration files	XML (956KB)	JSON (840KB)
Runtime	Mono	Native
Memory consumption (ps_mem)	~50MB	~350KB
Package size (pkg.tar.gz)	448K	100K
Fan control rights	Any user	Any user
Service control rights	Any user	Only root
IPC Concept	TCP/IP	Unix sockets
IPC Protocol	Binary	JSON
Graphical User Interface	Windows only	Linux only

The service, the client and the probing tool are written in C.

The GUI is written in Python and Qt5 (a GUI for GTK-3 will follow).

Installation

• Arch Linux:

  • Either via AUR (yay -S nbfc-linux)
  • Or by using the PKGBUILD nbfc-linux-git

• Debian / Ubuntu (untested):

  • Latest Version 0.2.7
  • See GitHub.com/nbfc-linux/packages/deb for all versions.

• Fedora (untestet)

  • Latest Version 0.2.7
  • See GitHub.com/nbfc-linux/packages/rpm for all versions.

• NixOS:

  • Declaratively(with nix flakes)
  • Imperatively (with nix profile install or nix-env -if .)

• Fedora - this will not build the current working directory, but downloads a source archive from chosen release on github and builds an installable rpm:

  • ensure, that podman is installed
    • docker should work also, but is currently not tested
  • edit pkgbuilds/rpm/nbfc-linux.spec and
    • set wanted Version (e.g. 0.1.15)
    • set wanted Releasenumber (e.g. 1%{?dist} or 2%{?dist})
  • ./pkgbuilds/rpm/buildNBFC-LINUX
  • the resulting rpm can be found in pkgbuilds directory

• In general:

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc && make && sudo make install

• For systems with OpenRC (gentoo):

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-init-system=openrc && make && sudo make install

• For systems with System-V-Init:

  • ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --with-init-system=systemv && make && sudo make install

Getting started with the GUI

After installing NBFC-Linux you can configure it by running sudo nbfc-qt.

Getting started without the GUI

When running NBFC for the first time, you need to give it a configuration file for your laptop model.

If you are lucky, sudo nbfc config --set auto will find a matching one and set it.

sudo nbfc config --recommend will compare your DMI system-product-name to the available configuration file names and print a list of descending similarity.

With sudo nbfc config --set <MODEL> a configuration is selected.

sudo nbfc start will start the service.

It can be queried by nbfc status -a.

If you wish nbfc_service to get started on boot, use sudo systemctl enable nbfc_service.

Advanced configuration

NBFC-Linux allows you to specify which temperature sources to use for controlling fans and the algorithm to compute the temperature.

Default Configuration

If no configuration is specified, NBFC uses the "Average" algorithm and utilizes all sensor files named "coretemp," "k10temp," or "zenpower."

Available Algorithms

You can choose from three different algorithms to compute the temperature:

• "Average": Computes the average temperature from all specified sources.
• "Min": Selects the lowest temperature among all specified sources.
• "Max": Selects the highest temperature among all specified sources.

Specifying Temperature Sources

You can specify temperature sources either by sensor name (which may result in multiple temperature sources) or by providing a file path pointing to a temp*_input file.

Example Configuration

Here is a fictional example demonstrating how to configure NBFC-Linux:

{
    "SelectedConfigId": "Asus G53SX",
    "TargetFanSpeeds": [ -1.000000 ],
    "FanTemperatureSources": [
        {
            "FanIndex": 0,
            "TemperatureAlgorithmType": "Min",
            "Sensors": [ "coretemp" ]
        },
        {
            "FanIndex": 1,
            "TemperatureAlgorithmType": "Average",
            "Sensors": [ "nouveau" ]
        },
        {
            "FanIndex": 2,
            "TemperatureAlgorithmType": "Average",
            "Sensors": [ "/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon4/temp2_input", "/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon4/temp3_input" ]
        }
    ]
}

In this example:

• Fan 0 uses the "Min" algorithm with sensors named "coretemp."
• Fan 1 uses the "Average" algorithm with sensors named "nouveau."
• Fan 2 uses the "Average" algorithm with specific sensor file paths.

Differences in detail

Files	NBFC Mono	NBFC Linux
Systemd service file	nbfc.service	nbfc_service.service
EC Probing tool	ec-probe	ec_probe
Notebook configuration files	/opt/nbfc/Configs/*.xml	/usr/share/nbfc/configs/*.json
Service binary	/opt/nbfc/nbfcservice.sh	/bin/nbfc_service
PID File	/run/nbfc.pid	/run/nbfc_service.pid
Config file	?	/etc/nbfc/nbfc.json

• The original NBFC service adjusts the fan speeds in intervals of EcPollIntervall according to TemperatureThresholds. - NBFC Linux directly sets the fan speed (also according to TemperatureThresholds).

• The original NBFC service selects a TemperatureThreshold and applies its FanSpeed when the temperature exceeds its UpThreshold. In contrast, NBFC Linux will select the next TemperatureThreshold and apply its FanSpeed when the temperature exceeds the current UpThreshold. The provided config files have been reconfigured to account for this change, so that they provide the same behaviour as the original NBFC service. If you have a custom config file that works well with the original service, you can port it to NBFC Linux using the provided tool (requires python3-lxml).

• NBFC Linux dropped the Autostart option, since it relies on the systemd service file only.

Troubleshooting

The preferred way of running nbfc is using the ECSysLinux implementation, which depends on the ec_sys kernel module. There is also an alternative implementation which uses /dev/port, called dev_port. It can be specified on the commandline using --embedded-controller=dev_port and permanently set in /etc/nbfc/nbfc.json with "EmbeddedControllerType": "dev_port".

Many Linux distributions do not provide the ec_sys module, and the module should be compiled manually. Alternatively, the acpi_ec module can be used. The acpi_ec module comes with a DKMS config script, which automatically rebuilds the acpi_ec module when a new kernel is installed and supports running NBFC with Secure Boot and Lockdown Kernel. NBFC-Linux will try to use the acpi_ec module if available. It can be set with "EmbeddedControllerType": "acpi_ec".

Shell autocompletion

NBFC-Linux comes with shell completion scripts for bash, fish and zsh.

~ $ nbfc_service <TAB>
--config-file          -c  -- Use alternative config file (default /etc/nbfc/nbfc.json)
--debug                -d  -- Enable tracing of reads and writes of the embedded controller
--embedded-controller  -e  -- Specify embedded controller to use
--fork                 -f  -- Switch process to background after sucessfully started
--help                 -h  -- show this help message and exit
--read-only            -r  -- Start in read-only mode
--state-file           -s  -- Write state to an alternative file (default /var/run/nbfc_service.state.json)

~ $ nbfc <TAB>
config   -- List or apply configs
help     -- Show help
restart  -- Restart the service
set      -- Control fan speed
start    -- Start the service
status   -- Show the service status
stop     -- Stop the service

If you want to write a program that controls the NBFC service, see protocol.

See also the documentation about the nbfc configuration.