power-management.txt 22 KB

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  1. Power Management for USB
  2. Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>
  3. October 28, 2010
  4. What is Power Management?
  5. -------------------------
  6. Power Management (PM) is the practice of saving energy by suspending
  7. parts of a computer system when they aren't being used. While a
  8. component is "suspended" it is in a nonfunctional low-power state; it
  9. might even be turned off completely. A suspended component can be
  10. "resumed" (returned to a functional full-power state) when the kernel
  11. needs to use it. (There also are forms of PM in which components are
  12. placed in a less functional but still usable state instead of being
  13. suspended; an example would be reducing the CPU's clock rate. This
  14. document will not discuss those other forms.)
  15. When the parts being suspended include the CPU and most of the rest of
  16. the system, we speak of it as a "system suspend". When a particular
  17. device is turned off while the system as a whole remains running, we
  18. call it a "dynamic suspend" (also known as a "runtime suspend" or
  19. "selective suspend"). This document concentrates mostly on how
  20. dynamic PM is implemented in the USB subsystem, although system PM is
  21. covered to some extent (see Documentation/power/*.txt for more
  22. information about system PM).
  23. Note: Dynamic PM support for USB is present only if the kernel was
  24. built with CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND enabled (which depends on
  25. CONFIG_PM_RUNTIME). System PM support is present only if the kernel
  26. was built with CONFIG_SUSPEND or CONFIG_HIBERNATION enabled.
  27. What is Remote Wakeup?
  28. ----------------------
  29. When a device has been suspended, it generally doesn't resume until
  30. the computer tells it to. Likewise, if the entire computer has been
  31. suspended, it generally doesn't resume until the user tells it to, say
  32. by pressing a power button or opening the cover.
  33. However some devices have the capability of resuming by themselves, or
  34. asking the kernel to resume them, or even telling the entire computer
  35. to resume. This capability goes by several names such as "Wake On
  36. LAN"; we will refer to it generically as "remote wakeup". When a
  37. device is enabled for remote wakeup and it is suspended, it may resume
  38. itself (or send a request to be resumed) in response to some external
  39. event. Examples include a suspended keyboard resuming when a key is
  40. pressed, or a suspended USB hub resuming when a device is plugged in.
  41. When is a USB device idle?
  42. --------------------------
  43. A device is idle whenever the kernel thinks it's not busy doing
  44. anything important and thus is a candidate for being suspended. The
  45. exact definition depends on the device's driver; drivers are allowed
  46. to declare that a device isn't idle even when there's no actual
  47. communication taking place. (For example, a hub isn't considered idle
  48. unless all the devices plugged into that hub are already suspended.)
  49. In addition, a device isn't considered idle so long as a program keeps
  50. its usbfs file open, whether or not any I/O is going on.
  51. If a USB device has no driver, its usbfs file isn't open, and it isn't
  52. being accessed through sysfs, then it definitely is idle.
  53. Forms of dynamic PM
  54. -------------------
  55. Dynamic suspends occur when the kernel decides to suspend an idle
  56. device. This is called "autosuspend" for short. In general, a device
  57. won't be autosuspended unless it has been idle for some minimum period
  58. of time, the so-called idle-delay time.
  59. Of course, nothing the kernel does on its own initiative should
  60. prevent the computer or its devices from working properly. If a
  61. device has been autosuspended and a program tries to use it, the
  62. kernel will automatically resume the device (autoresume). For the
  63. same reason, an autosuspended device will usually have remote wakeup
  64. enabled, if the device supports remote wakeup.
  65. It is worth mentioning that many USB drivers don't support
  66. autosuspend. In fact, at the time of this writing (Linux 2.6.23) the
  67. only drivers which do support it are the hub driver, kaweth, asix,
  68. usblp, usblcd, and usb-skeleton (which doesn't count). If a
  69. non-supporting driver is bound to a device, the device won't be
  70. autosuspended. In effect, the kernel pretends the device is never
  71. idle.
  72. We can categorize power management events in two broad classes:
  73. external and internal. External events are those triggered by some
  74. agent outside the USB stack: system suspend/resume (triggered by
  75. userspace), manual dynamic resume (also triggered by userspace), and
  76. remote wakeup (triggered by the device). Internal events are those
  77. triggered within the USB stack: autosuspend and autoresume. Note that
  78. all dynamic suspend events are internal; external agents are not
  79. allowed to issue dynamic suspends.
  80. The user interface for dynamic PM
  81. ---------------------------------
  82. The user interface for controlling dynamic PM is located in the power/
  83. subdirectory of each USB device's sysfs directory, that is, in
  84. /sys/bus/usb/devices/.../power/ where "..." is the device's ID. The
  85. relevant attribute files are: wakeup, control, and
  86. autosuspend_delay_ms. (There may also be a file named "level"; this
  87. file was deprecated as of the 2.6.35 kernel and replaced by the
  88. "control" file. In 2.6.38 the "autosuspend" file will be deprecated
  89. and replaced by the "autosuspend_delay_ms" file. The only difference
  90. is that the newer file expresses the delay in milliseconds whereas the
  91. older file uses seconds. Confusingly, both files are present in 2.6.37
  92. but only "autosuspend" works.)
  93. power/wakeup
  94. This file is empty if the device does not support
  95. remote wakeup. Otherwise the file contains either the
  96. word "enabled" or the word "disabled", and you can
  97. write those words to the file. The setting determines
  98. whether or not remote wakeup will be enabled when the
  99. device is next suspended. (If the setting is changed
  100. while the device is suspended, the change won't take
  101. effect until the following suspend.)
  102. power/control
  103. This file contains one of two words: "on" or "auto".
  104. You can write those words to the file to change the
  105. device's setting.
  106. "on" means that the device should be resumed and
  107. autosuspend is not allowed. (Of course, system
  108. suspends are still allowed.)
  109. "auto" is the normal state in which the kernel is
  110. allowed to autosuspend and autoresume the device.
  111. (In kernels up to 2.6.32, you could also specify
  112. "suspend", meaning that the device should remain
  113. suspended and autoresume was not allowed. This
  114. setting is no longer supported.)
  115. power/autosuspend_delay_ms
  116. This file contains an integer value, which is the
  117. number of milliseconds the device should remain idle
  118. before the kernel will autosuspend it (the idle-delay
  119. time). The default is 2000. 0 means to autosuspend
  120. as soon as the device becomes idle, and negative
  121. values mean never to autosuspend. You can write a
  122. number to the file to change the autosuspend
  123. idle-delay time.
  124. Writing "-1" to power/autosuspend_delay_ms and writing "on" to
  125. power/control do essentially the same thing -- they both prevent the
  126. device from being autosuspended. Yes, this is a redundancy in the
  127. API.
  128. (In 2.6.21 writing "0" to power/autosuspend would prevent the device
  129. from being autosuspended; the behavior was changed in 2.6.22. The
  130. power/autosuspend attribute did not exist prior to 2.6.21, and the
  131. power/level attribute did not exist prior to 2.6.22. power/control
  132. was added in 2.6.34, and power/autosuspend_delay_ms was added in
  133. 2.6.37 but did not become functional until 2.6.38.)
  134. Changing the default idle-delay time
  135. ------------------------------------
  136. The default autosuspend idle-delay time (in seconds) is controlled by
  137. a module parameter in usbcore. You can specify the value when usbcore
  138. is loaded. For example, to set it to 5 seconds instead of 2 you would
  139. do:
  140. modprobe usbcore autosuspend=5
  141. Equivalently, you could add to a configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d
  142. a line saying:
  143. options usbcore autosuspend=5
  144. Some distributions load the usbcore module very early during the boot
  145. process, by means of a program or script running from an initramfs
  146. image. To alter the parameter value you would have to rebuild that
  147. image.
  148. If usbcore is compiled into the kernel rather than built as a loadable
  149. module, you can add
  150. usbcore.autosuspend=5
  151. to the kernel's boot command line.
  152. Finally, the parameter value can be changed while the system is
  153. running. If you do:
  154. echo 5 >/sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend
  155. then each new USB device will have its autosuspend idle-delay
  156. initialized to 5. (The idle-delay values for already existing devices
  157. will not be affected.)
  158. Setting the initial default idle-delay to -1 will prevent any
  159. autosuspend of any USB device. This is a simple alternative to
  160. disabling CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND and rebuilding the kernel, and it has the
  161. added benefit of allowing you to enable autosuspend for selected
  162. devices.
  163. Warnings
  164. --------
  165. The USB specification states that all USB devices must support power
  166. management. Nevertheless, the sad fact is that many devices do not
  167. support it very well. You can suspend them all right, but when you
  168. try to resume them they disconnect themselves from the USB bus or
  169. they stop working entirely. This seems to be especially prevalent
  170. among printers and scanners, but plenty of other types of device have
  171. the same deficiency.
  172. For this reason, by default the kernel disables autosuspend (the
  173. power/control attribute is initialized to "on") for all devices other
  174. than hubs. Hubs, at least, appear to be reasonably well-behaved in
  175. this regard.
  176. (In 2.6.21 and 2.6.22 this wasn't the case. Autosuspend was enabled
  177. by default for almost all USB devices. A number of people experienced
  178. problems as a result.)
  179. This means that non-hub devices won't be autosuspended unless the user
  180. or a program explicitly enables it. As of this writing there aren't
  181. any widespread programs which will do this; we hope that in the near
  182. future device managers such as HAL will take on this added
  183. responsibility. In the meantime you can always carry out the
  184. necessary operations by hand or add them to a udev script. You can
  185. also change the idle-delay time; 2 seconds is not the best choice for
  186. every device.
  187. If a driver knows that its device has proper suspend/resume support,
  188. it can enable autosuspend all by itself. For example, the video
  189. driver for a laptop's webcam might do this (in recent kernels they
  190. do), since these devices are rarely used and so should normally be
  191. autosuspended.
  192. Sometimes it turns out that even when a device does work okay with
  193. autosuspend there are still problems. For example, the usbhid driver,
  194. which manages keyboards and mice, has autosuspend support. Tests with
  195. a number of keyboards show that typing on a suspended keyboard, while
  196. causing the keyboard to do a remote wakeup all right, will nonetheless
  197. frequently result in lost keystrokes. Tests with mice show that some
  198. of them will issue a remote-wakeup request in response to button
  199. presses but not to motion, and some in response to neither.
  200. The kernel will not prevent you from enabling autosuspend on devices
  201. that can't handle it. It is even possible in theory to damage a
  202. device by suspending it at the wrong time. (Highly unlikely, but
  203. possible.) Take care.
  204. The driver interface for Power Management
  205. -----------------------------------------
  206. The requirements for a USB driver to support external power management
  207. are pretty modest; the driver need only define
  208. .suspend
  209. .resume
  210. .reset_resume
  211. methods in its usb_driver structure, and the reset_resume method is
  212. optional. The methods' jobs are quite simple:
  213. The suspend method is called to warn the driver that the
  214. device is going to be suspended. If the driver returns a
  215. negative error code, the suspend will be aborted. Normally
  216. the driver will return 0, in which case it must cancel all
  217. outstanding URBs (usb_kill_urb()) and not submit any more.
  218. The resume method is called to tell the driver that the
  219. device has been resumed and the driver can return to normal
  220. operation. URBs may once more be submitted.
  221. The reset_resume method is called to tell the driver that
  222. the device has been resumed and it also has been reset.
  223. The driver should redo any necessary device initialization,
  224. since the device has probably lost most or all of its state
  225. (although the interfaces will be in the same altsettings as
  226. before the suspend).
  227. If the device is disconnected or powered down while it is suspended,
  228. the disconnect method will be called instead of the resume or
  229. reset_resume method. This is also quite likely to happen when
  230. waking up from hibernation, as many systems do not maintain suspend
  231. current to the USB host controllers during hibernation. (It's
  232. possible to work around the hibernation-forces-disconnect problem by
  233. using the USB Persist facility.)
  234. The reset_resume method is used by the USB Persist facility (see
  235. Documentation/usb/persist.txt) and it can also be used under certain
  236. circumstances when CONFIG_USB_PERSIST is not enabled. Currently, if a
  237. device is reset during a resume and the driver does not have a
  238. reset_resume method, the driver won't receive any notification about
  239. the resume. Later kernels will call the driver's disconnect method;
  240. 2.6.23 doesn't do this.
  241. USB drivers are bound to interfaces, so their suspend and resume
  242. methods get called when the interfaces are suspended or resumed. In
  243. principle one might want to suspend some interfaces on a device (i.e.,
  244. force the drivers for those interface to stop all activity) without
  245. suspending the other interfaces. The USB core doesn't allow this; all
  246. interfaces are suspended when the device itself is suspended and all
  247. interfaces are resumed when the device is resumed. It isn't possible
  248. to suspend or resume some but not all of a device's interfaces. The
  249. closest you can come is to unbind the interfaces' drivers.
  250. The driver interface for autosuspend and autoresume
  251. ---------------------------------------------------
  252. To support autosuspend and autoresume, a driver should implement all
  253. three of the methods listed above. In addition, a driver indicates
  254. that it supports autosuspend by setting the .supports_autosuspend flag
  255. in its usb_driver structure. It is then responsible for informing the
  256. USB core whenever one of its interfaces becomes busy or idle. The
  257. driver does so by calling these six functions:
  258. int usb_autopm_get_interface(struct usb_interface *intf);
  259. void usb_autopm_put_interface(struct usb_interface *intf);
  260. int usb_autopm_get_interface_async(struct usb_interface *intf);
  261. void usb_autopm_put_interface_async(struct usb_interface *intf);
  262. void usb_autopm_get_interface_no_resume(struct usb_interface *intf);
  263. void usb_autopm_put_interface_no_suspend(struct usb_interface *intf);
  264. The functions work by maintaining a usage counter in the
  265. usb_interface's embedded device structure. When the counter is > 0
  266. then the interface is deemed to be busy, and the kernel will not
  267. autosuspend the interface's device. When the usage counter is = 0
  268. then the interface is considered to be idle, and the kernel may
  269. autosuspend the device.
  270. Drivers need not be concerned about balancing changes to the usage
  271. counter; the USB core will undo any remaining "get"s when a driver
  272. is unbound from its interface. As a corollary, drivers must not call
  273. any of the usb_autopm_* functions after their disconnect() routine has
  274. returned.
  275. Drivers using the async routines are responsible for their own
  276. synchronization and mutual exclusion.
  277. usb_autopm_get_interface() increments the usage counter and
  278. does an autoresume if the device is suspended. If the
  279. autoresume fails, the counter is decremented back.
  280. usb_autopm_put_interface() decrements the usage counter and
  281. attempts an autosuspend if the new value is = 0.
  282. usb_autopm_get_interface_async() and
  283. usb_autopm_put_interface_async() do almost the same things as
  284. their non-async counterparts. The big difference is that they
  285. use a workqueue to do the resume or suspend part of their
  286. jobs. As a result they can be called in an atomic context,
  287. such as an URB's completion handler, but when they return the
  288. device will generally not yet be in the desired state.
  289. usb_autopm_get_interface_no_resume() and
  290. usb_autopm_put_interface_no_suspend() merely increment or
  291. decrement the usage counter; they do not attempt to carry out
  292. an autoresume or an autosuspend. Hence they can be called in
  293. an atomic context.
  294. The simplest usage pattern is that a driver calls
  295. usb_autopm_get_interface() in its open routine and
  296. usb_autopm_put_interface() in its close or release routine. But other
  297. patterns are possible.
  298. The autosuspend attempts mentioned above will often fail for one
  299. reason or another. For example, the power/control attribute might be
  300. set to "on", or another interface in the same device might not be
  301. idle. This is perfectly normal. If the reason for failure was that
  302. the device hasn't been idle for long enough, a timer is scheduled to
  303. carry out the operation automatically when the autosuspend idle-delay
  304. has expired.
  305. Autoresume attempts also can fail, although failure would mean that
  306. the device is no longer present or operating properly. Unlike
  307. autosuspend, there's no idle-delay for an autoresume.
  308. Other parts of the driver interface
  309. -----------------------------------
  310. Drivers can enable autosuspend for their devices by calling
  311. usb_enable_autosuspend(struct usb_device *udev);
  312. in their probe() routine, if they know that the device is capable of
  313. suspending and resuming correctly. This is exactly equivalent to
  314. writing "auto" to the device's power/control attribute. Likewise,
  315. drivers can disable autosuspend by calling
  316. usb_disable_autosuspend(struct usb_device *udev);
  317. This is exactly the same as writing "on" to the power/control attribute.
  318. Sometimes a driver needs to make sure that remote wakeup is enabled
  319. during autosuspend. For example, there's not much point
  320. autosuspending a keyboard if the user can't cause the keyboard to do a
  321. remote wakeup by typing on it. If the driver sets
  322. intf->needs_remote_wakeup to 1, the kernel won't autosuspend the
  323. device if remote wakeup isn't available. (If the device is already
  324. autosuspended, though, setting this flag won't cause the kernel to
  325. autoresume it. Normally a driver would set this flag in its probe
  326. method, at which time the device is guaranteed not to be
  327. autosuspended.)
  328. If a driver does its I/O asynchronously in interrupt context, it
  329. should call usb_autopm_get_interface_async() before starting output and
  330. usb_autopm_put_interface_async() when the output queue drains. When
  331. it receives an input event, it should call
  332. usb_mark_last_busy(struct usb_device *udev);
  333. in the event handler. This tells the PM core that the device was just
  334. busy and therefore the next autosuspend idle-delay expiration should
  335. be pushed back. Many of the usb_autopm_* routines also make this call,
  336. so drivers need to worry only when interrupt-driven input arrives.
  337. Asynchronous operation is always subject to races. For example, a
  338. driver may call the usb_autopm_get_interface_async() routine at a time
  339. when the core has just finished deciding the device has been idle for
  340. long enough but not yet gotten around to calling the driver's suspend
  341. method. The suspend method must be responsible for synchronizing with
  342. the I/O request routine and the URB completion handler; it should
  343. cause autosuspends to fail with -EBUSY if the driver needs to use the
  344. device.
  345. External suspend calls should never be allowed to fail in this way,
  346. only autosuspend calls. The driver can tell them apart by applying
  347. the PMSG_IS_AUTO() macro to the message argument to the suspend
  348. method; it will return True for internal PM events (autosuspend) and
  349. False for external PM events.
  350. Mutual exclusion
  351. ----------------
  352. For external events -- but not necessarily for autosuspend or
  353. autoresume -- the device semaphore (udev->dev.sem) will be held when a
  354. suspend or resume method is called. This implies that external
  355. suspend/resume events are mutually exclusive with calls to probe,
  356. disconnect, pre_reset, and post_reset; the USB core guarantees that
  357. this is true of autosuspend/autoresume events as well.
  358. If a driver wants to block all suspend/resume calls during some
  359. critical section, the best way is to lock the device and call
  360. usb_autopm_get_interface() (and do the reverse at the end of the
  361. critical section). Holding the device semaphore will block all
  362. external PM calls, and the usb_autopm_get_interface() will prevent any
  363. internal PM calls, even if it fails. (Exercise: Why?)
  364. Interaction between dynamic PM and system PM
  365. --------------------------------------------
  366. Dynamic power management and system power management can interact in
  367. a couple of ways.
  368. Firstly, a device may already be autosuspended when a system suspend
  369. occurs. Since system suspends are supposed to be as transparent as
  370. possible, the device should remain suspended following the system
  371. resume. But this theory may not work out well in practice; over time
  372. the kernel's behavior in this regard has changed. As of 2.6.37 the
  373. policy is to resume all devices during a system resume and let them
  374. handle their own runtime suspends afterward.
  375. Secondly, a dynamic power-management event may occur as a system
  376. suspend is underway. The window for this is short, since system
  377. suspends don't take long (a few seconds usually), but it can happen.
  378. For example, a suspended device may send a remote-wakeup signal while
  379. the system is suspending. The remote wakeup may succeed, which would
  380. cause the system suspend to abort. If the remote wakeup doesn't
  381. succeed, it may still remain active and thus cause the system to
  382. resume as soon as the system suspend is complete. Or the remote
  383. wakeup may fail and get lost. Which outcome occurs depends on timing
  384. and on the hardware and firmware design.
  385. xHCI hardware link PM
  386. ---------------------
  387. xHCI host controller provides hardware link power management to usb2.0
  388. (xHCI 1.0 feature) and usb3.0 devices which support link PM. By
  389. enabling hardware LPM, the host can automatically put the device into
  390. lower power state(L1 for usb2.0 devices, or U1/U2 for usb3.0 devices),
  391. which state device can enter and resume very quickly.
  392. The user interface for controlling USB2 hardware LPM is located in the
  393. power/ subdirectory of each USB device's sysfs directory, that is, in
  394. /sys/bus/usb/devices/.../power/ where "..." is the device's ID. The
  395. relevant attribute files is usb2_hardware_lpm.
  396. power/usb2_hardware_lpm
  397. When a USB2 device which support LPM is plugged to a
  398. xHCI host root hub which support software LPM, the
  399. host will run a software LPM test for it; if the device
  400. enters L1 state and resume successfully and the host
  401. supports USB2 hardware LPM, this file will show up and
  402. driver will enable hardware LPM for the device. You
  403. can write y/Y/1 or n/N/0 to the file to enable/disable
  404. USB2 hardware LPM manually. This is for test purpose mainly.