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| 1 | Linux ACPI Custom Control Method How To | ||
| 2 | ======================================= | ||
| 3 | |||
| 4 | Written by Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@intel.com> | ||
| 5 | |||
| 6 | |||
| 7 | Linux supports customizing ACPI control methods at runtime. | ||
| 8 | |||
| 9 | Users can use this to | ||
| 10 | 1. override an existing method which may not work correctly, | ||
| 11 | or just for debugging purposes. | ||
| 12 | 2. insert a completely new method in order to create a missing | ||
| 13 | method such as _OFF, _ON, _STA, _INI, etc. | ||
| 14 | For these cases, it is far simpler to dynamically install a single | ||
| 15 | control method rather than override the entire DSDT, because kernel | ||
| 16 | rebuild/reboot is not needed and test result can be got in minutes. | ||
| 17 | |||
| 18 | Note: Only ACPI METHOD can be overridden, any other object types like | ||
| 19 | "Device", "OperationRegion", are not recognized. | ||
| 20 | Note: The same ACPI control method can be overridden for many times, | ||
| 21 | and it's always the latest one that used by Linux/kernel. | ||
| 22 | |||
| 23 | 1. override an existing method | ||
| 24 | a) get the ACPI table via ACPI sysfs I/F. e.g. to get the DSDT, | ||
| 25 | just run "cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > /tmp/dsdt.dat" | ||
| 26 | b) disassemble the table by running "iasl -d dsdt.dat". | ||
| 27 | c) rewrite the ASL code of the method and save it in a new file, | ||
| 28 | d) package the new file (psr.asl) to an ACPI table format. | ||
| 29 | Here is an example of a customized \_SB._AC._PSR method, | ||
| 30 | |||
| 31 | DefinitionBlock ("", "SSDT", 1, "", "", 0x20080715) | ||
| 32 | { | ||
| 33 | External (ACON) | ||
| 34 | |||
| 35 | Method (\_SB_.AC._PSR, 0, NotSerialized) | ||
| 36 | { | ||
| 37 | Store ("In AC _PSR", Debug) | ||
| 38 | Return (ACON) | ||
| 39 | } | ||
| 40 | } | ||
| 41 | Note that the full pathname of the method in ACPI namespace | ||
| 42 | should be used. | ||
| 43 | And remember to use "External" to declare external objects. | ||
| 44 | e) assemble the file to generate the AML code of the method. | ||
| 45 | e.g. "iasl psr.asl" (psr.aml is generated as a result) | ||
| 46 | f) mount debugfs by "mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug" | ||
| 47 | g) override the old method via the debugfs by running | ||
| 48 | "cat /tmp/psr.aml > /sys/kernel/debug/acpi/custom_method" | ||
| 49 | |||
| 50 | 2. insert a new method | ||
| 51 | This is easier than overriding an existing method. | ||
| 52 | We just need to create the ASL code of the method we want to | ||
| 53 | insert and then follow the step c) ~ g) in section 1. | ||
| 54 | |||
| 55 | 3. undo your changes | ||
| 56 | The "undo" operation is not supported for a new inserted method | ||
| 57 | right now, i.e. we can not remove a method currently. | ||
| 58 | For an overrided method, in order to undo your changes, please | ||
| 59 | save a copy of the method original ASL code in step c) section 1, | ||
| 60 | and redo step c) ~ g) to override the method with the original one. | ||
| 61 | |||
| 62 | |||
| 63 | Note: We can use a kernel with multiple custom ACPI method running, | ||
| 64 | But each individual write to debugfs can implement a SINGLE | ||
| 65 | method override. i.e. if we want to insert/override multiple | ||
| 66 | ACPI methods, we need to redo step c) ~ g) for multiple times. | ||
