1.\" Copyright (c) 2005 Nate Lawson 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 13.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 14.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 15.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 16.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 17.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 18.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 19.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 20.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 21.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 22.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 23.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 24.\" 25.Dd February 25, 2023 26.Dt POWERD 8 27.Os 28.Sh NAME 29.Nm powerd 30.Nd "system power control utility" 31.Sh SYNOPSIS 32.Nm 33.Op Fl a Ar mode 34.Op Fl b Ar mode 35.Op Fl i Ar percent 36.Op Fl M Ar freq 37.Op Fl m Ar freq 38.Op Fl N 39.Op Fl n Ar mode 40.Op Fl P Ar pidfile 41.Op Fl p Ar ival 42.Op Fl r Ar percent 43.Op Fl s Ar source 44.Op Fl v 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm 48utility monitors the system state and sets various power control options 49accordingly. 50It offers power-saving modes that can be 51individually selected for operation on AC power or batteries. 52.Bl -tag -width "hiadaptive" 53.It Cm maximum 54Choose the highest performance values. 55May be abbreviated as 56.Cm max . 57.It Cm minimum 58Choose the lowest performance values to get the most power savings. 59May be abbreviated as 60.Cm min . 61.It Cm adaptive 62Attempt to strike a balance by degrading performance when the system 63appears idle and increasing it when the system is busy. 64It offers a good balance between a small performance loss for greatly 65increased power savings. 66May be abbreviated as 67.Cm adp . 68.It Cm hiadaptive 69Like 70.Cm adaptive 71mode, but tuned for systems where performance and interactivity are 72more important than power consumption. 73It increases frequency faster, reduces frequency less aggressively, and 74will maintain full frequency for longer. 75May be abbreviated as 76.Cm hadp . 77.El 78.Pp 79The default mode is 80.Cm adaptive 81for battery power and 82.Cm hiadaptive 83for the rest. 84.Pp 85.Nm 86recognizes these runtime options: 87.Bl -tag -width "-r percent" 88.It Fl a Ar mode 89Selects the 90.Ar mode 91to use while on AC power. 92.It Fl b Ar mode 93Selects the 94.Ar mode 95to use while on battery power. 96.It Fl i Ar percent 97Specifies the CPU load percent level when adaptive 98mode should begin to degrade performance to save power. 99The default is 50% or lower. 100.It Fl M Ar freq 101Specifies the maximum frequency to throttle up to. 102.It Fl m Ar freq 103Specifies the minimum frequency to throttle down to. 104.It Fl N 105Treat "nice" time as idle for the purpose of load calculation; 106i.e., do not increase the CPU frequency if the CPU is only busy 107with "nice" processes. 108.It Fl n Ar mode 109Selects the 110.Ar mode 111to use normally when the AC line state is unknown. 112.It Fl P Ar pidfile 113Specifies an alternative file in which the process ID should be stored. 114.It Fl p Ar ival 115Specifies a different polling interval (in milliseconds) for AC line state 116and system idle levels. 117The default is 250 ms. 118.It Fl r Ar percent 119Specifies the CPU load percent level where adaptive 120mode should consider the CPU running and increase performance. 121The default is 75% or higher. 122.It Fl s Ar source 123Enforces method for AC line state refresh; by default, it is chosen 124automatically. 125The set of valid methods is 126.Cm sysctl , devd 127and 128.Cm apm 129(i386 only). 130.It Fl v 131Verbose mode. 132Messages about power changes will be printed to stdout and 133.Nm 134will operate in the foreground. 135.El 136.Sh FILES 137.Bl -tag -width "/var/run/powerd.pid" 138.It Pa /var/run/powerd.pid 139The default PID file. 140.El 141.Sh SEE ALSO 142.Xr acpi 4 , 143.Xr apm 4 , 144.Xr cpufreq 4 , 145.Xr rc.conf 5 146.Sh HISTORY 147The 148.Nm 149utility first appeared in 150.Fx 6.0 . 151.Sh AUTHORS 152.An -nosplit 153.An Colin Percival 154first wrote 155.Nm estctrl , 156the utility that 157.Nm 158is based on. 159.An Nate Lawson 160then updated it for 161.Xr cpufreq 4 , 162added features, and wrote this manual page. 163.Sh BUGS 164The 165.Nm 166utility should also power down idle disks and other components besides the CPU. 167.Pp 168If 169.Nm 170is used with 171.Pa /etc/rc.d/power_profile , 172they may override each other. 173.Pp 174The 175.Nm 176utility 177should probably use the 178.Xr devctl 4 179interface instead of polling for AC line state. 180