2 CPU frequency and voltage scaling statictics in the Linux(TM) kernel
5 L i n u x c p u f r e q - s t a t s d r i v e r
7 - information for users -
10 Venkatesh Pallipadi <venkatesh.pallipadi@intel.com>
14 2. Statistics Provided (with example)
15 3. Configuring cpufreq-stats
20 cpufreq-stats is a driver that provices CPU frequency statistics for each CPU.
21 This statistics is provided in /sysfs as a bunch of read_only interfaces. This
22 interface (when configured) will appear in a seperate directory under cpufreq
23 in /sysfs (<sysfs root>/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/stats/) for each CPU.
24 Various statistics will form read_only files under this directory.
26 This driver is designed to be independent of any particular cpufreq_driver
27 that may be running on your CPU. So, it will work with any cpufreq_driver.
30 2. Statistics Provided (with example)
32 cpufreq stats provides following statistics (explained in detail below).
37 All the statistics will be from the time the stats driver has been inserted
38 to the time when a read of a particular statistic is done. Obviously, stats
39 driver will not have any information about the frequency transitions before
40 the stats driver insertion.
42 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
43 <mysystem>:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats # ls -l
45 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 May 14 16:06 .
46 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 May 14 15:58 ..
47 -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 May 14 16:06 time_in_state
48 -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 May 14 16:06 total_trans
49 -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 May 14 16:06 trans_table
50 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
53 This gives the amount of time spent in each of the frequencies supported by
54 this CPU. The cat output will have "<frequency> <time>" pair in each line, which
55 will mean this CPU spent <time> usertime units of time at <frequency>. Output
56 will have one line for each of the supported freuencies. usertime units here
57 is 10mS (similar to other time exported in /proc).
59 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 <mysystem>:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats # cat time_in_state
66 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
70 This gives the total number of frequency transitions on this CPU. The cat
71 output will have a single count which is the total number of frequency
74 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
75 <mysystem>:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats # cat total_trans
77 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80 This will give a fine grained information about all the CPU frequency
81 transitions. The cat output here is a two dimensional matrix, where an entry
82 <i,j> (row i, column j) represents the count of number of transitions from
83 Freq_i to Freq_j. Freq_i is in descending order with increasing rows and
84 Freq_j is in descending order with increasing columns. The output here also
85 contains the actual freq values for each row and column for better readability.
87 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
88 <mysystem>:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats # cat trans_table
90 : 3600000 3400000 3200000 3000000 2800000
96 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
99 3. Configuring cpufreq-stats
101 To configure cpufreq-stats in your kernel
103 Power management options (ACPI, APM) --->
104 CPU Frequency scaling --->
105 [*] CPU Frequency scaling
106 <*> CPU frequency translation statistics
107 [*] CPU frequency translation statistics details
110 "CPU Frequency scaling" (CONFIG_CPU_FREQ) should be enabled to configure
113 "CPU frequency translation statistics" (CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT) provides the
114 basic statistics which includes time_in_state and total_trans.
116 "CPU frequency translation statistics details" (CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_STAT_DETAILS)
117 provides fine grained cpufreq stats by trans_table. The reason for having a
118 seperate config option for trans_table is:
119 - trans_table goes against the traditional /sysfs rule of one value per
120 interface. It provides a whole bunch of value in a 2 dimensional matrix
123 Once these two options are enabled and your CPU supports cpufrequency, you
124 will be able to see the CPU frequency statistics in /sysfs.