MoonPoint Support Weblog

Checking fan speeds and temperatures in a Linux system

A user reported the sound from a Linux CentOS server was loud. I thought the noise was likely from a fan in the system. The lm_sensors package provides the capability to check central processing unit (CPU) temperatures and fan speeds for systems running a Linux operating system. I first checked to see if the package was installed and found it was installed.

$ rpm -qi lm_sensors
Name        : lm_sensors
Version     : 3.3.4
Release     : 11.el7
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Sat 15 Oct 2016 12:14:14 PM EDT
Group       : Applications/System
Size        : 418761
License     : LGPLv2+ and GPLv3+ and GPLv2+ and Verbatim and Public domain
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Sat 14 Mar 2015 04:15:54 AM EDT, Key ID 24c6a8a7f4a80eb5
Source RPM  : lm_sensors-3.3.4-11.el7.src.rpm
Build Date  : Thu 05 Mar 2015 10:48:12 PM EST
Build Host  : worker1.bsys.centos.org
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager    : CentOS BuildSystem <http://bugs.centos.org>
Vendor      : CentOS
URL         : http://www.lm-sensors.org/
Summary     : Hardware monitoring tools
Description :
The lm_sensors package includes a collection of modules for general SMBus
access and hardware monitoring.
$

I then ran the sensors command to view the CPU temperature and fan speeds. The CPU and motherboard (MB) temperatures were high and the output showed 0 RPM for the chassis fan speed, indicating either there was no sensor monitoring its speed or it had stopped rotating.

$ sensors
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage:      +1.28 V  (min =  +0.85 V, max =  +1.60 V)
 +3.3 Voltage:      +3.36 V  (min =  +2.97 V, max =  +3.63 V)
 +5 Voltage:        +5.17 V  (min =  +4.50 V, max =  +5.50 V)
 +12 Voltage:      +12.41 V  (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed:     2518 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CHASSIS FAN Speed:    0 RPM  (min =  800 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CPU Temperature:    +79.5°C  (high = +60.0°C, crit = +95.0°C)
MB Temperature:     +61.0°C  (high = +45.0°C, crit = +95.0°C)

$

References:

How to find fan speed in Linux for CPU and GPU
By: Vivek Gite
Last updated: February 11, 2021
nixCraft

[/os/unix/linux/utilities] permanent link

Sat, Jul 15, 2017 10:51 pm

Burning a CD/DVD on a Linux system with the cdrecord command

If you need to burn a CD or DVD from an ISO file from the command line on a Linux system, you can use the cdrecord command. If you include the -v argument to the program, you will see verbose information on the actions performed by the utility and the progress as it writes to the optical disc. When the program is finished you can use the eject command to eject the disc.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/cd-dvd] permanent link

Tue, Jul 04, 2017 10:47 pm

Determining the model and serial number of a HDD in a Linux system

If you need to know the model number and/or serial number of a hard disk drive (HDD) in a Linux system, one tool that you can use to obtain that information as well as other information on the drive is the lsblk utility, which is included in the util-linux package. E.g.:

# lsblk -o MODEL,SERIAL,SIZE,STATE --nodeps
MODEL            SERIAL            SIZE STATE
WDC WD10EZEX-00W WD-WCC6Y4ZYE4Y3 931.5G running
DVD A  DH16ACSHR 238229911623     1024M running
vmDisk-CD        13043003455      1024M running

You can see the list of arguments you can provide to the program with lsblk -h.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/sysmgmt] permanent link

Fri, Jun 23, 2017 10:22 pm

lscpu

On a Linux system, you can use the lscpu command to obtain information on the system's Central Processing Unit (CPU). On a CentOS Linux system, the utility is included in the util-linux package. On a CentOS system, you can install that package using the yum package management utility, if it isn't already installed, using yum install util-linux. You can check on whether the lscpu program is already present using which lscpu and, on a CentOS system or another system that uses RPM, you can use rpm -qi util-linux to determine if the util-linux package is already installed.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/sysmgmt] permanent link

Tue, May 23, 2017 10:36 pm

Checking speed and duplex settings on a Linux system

Sometimes network performance problems on a system can be due to a mismatch in the speed and/or duplex settings on a system and the switch or router to which it connects. Autonegotiation normally works to ensure that two connected devices have compatible settings, but occasionally it may not work as intended. On a Linux system, one way to check the spped and duplex values is by using the ethtool command. If the utility, which provides capabilities for querying and changing settings such as speed, port, auto-negotiation, PCI locations and checksum offload on many network devices, especially of Ethernet devices, isn't installed already you can install it on a Ubuntu Linux system with the command sudo apt-get install ethtool. On a CentOS Linux system, you can use yum install ethtool. You can run the software to show the settings for a network interface controller (NIC) by issuing the command ethtool devname where devname is the name associated with the network interface, e.g., you might issue the command ethtool eth0 on a Ubuntu system. You can see the available network interfaces using the command ifconfig -a. Below is the output of the command run on a CentOS system:

$ ethtool enp1s4
Settings for enp1s4:
	Supported ports: [ TP ]
	Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full 
	Supported pause frame use: No
	Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
	Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
	                        100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
	                        1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full 
	Advertised pause frame use: No
	Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
	Speed: 100Mb/s
	Duplex: Full
	Port: Twisted Pair
	PHYAD: 0
	Transceiver: internal
	Auto-negotiation: on
	MDI-X: Unknown
Cannot get wake-on-lan settings: Operation not permitted
	Current message level: 0x00000037 (55)
			       drv probe link ifdown ifup
	Link detected: yes
$

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/network] permanent link

Sat, Oct 15, 2016 8:58 pm

Core temperature above threshold

On a CentOS 7 system I saw "Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled" messages like those below appear on the console today.

[68546.319229] CPU1:  Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 189995)
[68546.319240] CPU0:  Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 189989)
[68546.519121] CPU0:  Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 192228)
[68546.519131] CPU1:  Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 192234)

I checked to see if the lm_sensors package was installed on the system, so I could check fan speeds and the central processing unit (CPU) temperature. It wasn't installed, so I installed it from the root account with yum install lm_sensors.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/sysmgmt] permanent link

Fri, Jul 29, 2016 4:51 pm

Another app is currently holding the yum lock

After resolving a problem with network connectivity on a CentOS 7 Linux server, I attempted to install a package using yum, but received the message "Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit..."

# yum install rdesktop
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 16020.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:14 ago
    State  : Running, pid: 16020
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:16 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 16020
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:18 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 16020
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:20 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 16020
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:22 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 16020
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  46 M RSS (1.4 GB VSZ)
    Started: Fri Jul 29 12:08:28 2016 - 01:24 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 16020
^C

Exiting on user cancel.
#

I checked the process and saw the following information:

# ps aux | grep yum
root     16020 28.4  2.3 1455028 79512 ?       SN   12:08   1:16 /usr/bin/python /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/yum/yumBackend.py refresh-cache yes
root     16354  0.0  0.0 112652   952 pts/0    S+   12:12   0:00 grep --color=auto yum
#

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/package] permanent link

Tue, May 17, 2016 8:27 am

gnome-screenshot

If you wish to take a screen shot on a Linux system, whether it is a CentOS, Ubuntu, or other Linux distribution, one tool that may already be on the system that will allow you to perform a screen capture from a command line interface, i.e., a shell prompt, is gnome-screenshot. You can determine if the utility is present on a system using the which command.

$ which gnome-screenshot
/usr/bin/gnome-screenshot

You can obtain help on using the tool to take a screenshot by typing gnome-screenshot at a shell prompt.

$ gnome-screenshot --help
Usage:
  gnome-screenshot [OPTION...] Take a picture of the screen

Help Options:
  -h, --help                     Show help options
  --help-all                     Show all help options
  --help-gtk                     Show GTK+ Options

Application Options:
  -c, --clipboard                Send the grab directly to the clipboard
  -w, --window                   Grab a window instead of the entire screen
  -a, --area                     Grab an area of the screen instead of the entire screen
  -b, --include-border           Include the window border with the screenshot
  -B, --remove-border            Remove the window border from the screenshot
  -d, --delay=seconds            Take screenshot after specified delay [in seconds]
  -e, --border-effect=effect     Effect to add to the border (shadow, border or none)
  -i, --interactive              Interactively set options
  --display=DISPLAY              X display to use

[ More Info]

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/graphics] permanent link

Sat, Jul 19, 2014 5:17 pm

Taking a screenshot with scrot

Scrot is a command line screen capturing application for Linux systems developed by Tom Gilbert. If the package is installed, you can type

scrot
imagefile

to take a snapshot of the screen and store it in the file named imagefile, e.g., scrot test.png. If you don't want the terminal window from which you ran the command captured in the screenshot, you can issue the sleep command followed by some delay in seconds followed by a semicolon and then the scrot command to give you time to minimize the terminal window from which you ran the command. E.g.:

$ sleep 10; scrot test.png

The above command would give you 10 seconds to minimize the terminal window and any other open windows you didn't want to see in the screenshot. The results of the screenshot would be stored in the directory from which the command was run in the file test.png. Or you can use the scrot command's own delay parameter, -d or --delay followed by the number of seconds of delay you wish to give yourself before scrot captures the screen, e.g., scrot -d 10.

For help on the utility issue the command scrot --help.

scrot --help
Usage : scrot [OPTIONS]... [FILE]
  Where FILE is the target file for the screenshot.
  If FILE is not specified, a date-stamped file will be dropped in the
  current directory.
  See man scrot for more details
  -h, --help                display this help and exit
  -v, --version             output version information and exit
  -b, --border              When selecting a window, grab wm border too
  -c, --count               show a countdown before taking the shot
  -d, --delay NUM           wait NUM seconds before taking a shot
  -e, --exec APP            run APP on the resulting screenshot
  -q, --quality NUM         Image quality (1-100) high value means
                            high size, low compression. Default: 75.
                            For lossless compression formats, like png,
                            low quality means high compression.
  -m, --multidisp           For multiple heads, grab shot from each
                            and join them together.
  -s, --select              interactively choose a window or rectangle
                            with the mouse
  -u, --focused             use the currently focused window
  -t, --thumb NUM           generate thumbnail too. NUM is the percentage
                            of the original size for the thumbnail to be,
                            or the geometry in percent, e.g. 50x60 or 80x20.
  -z, --silent              Prevent beeping

  SPECIAL STRINGS
  Both the --exec and filename parameters can take format specifiers
  that are expanded by scrot when encountered.
  There are two types of format specifier. Characters preceded by a '%'
  are interpreted by strftime(2). See man strftime for examples.
  These options may be used to refer to the current date and time.
  The second kind are internal to scrot  and are prefixed by '$'
  The following specifiers are recognised:
                  $f image path/filename (ignored when used in the filename)
                  $m thumbnail path/filename
                  $n image name (ignored when used in the filename)
                  $s image size (bytes) (ignored when used in the filename)
                  $p image pixel size
                  $w image width
                  $h image height
                  $t image format
                  $$  prints a literal '$'
                  \n prints a newline (ignored when used in the filename)
  Example:
          scrot '%Y-%m-%d_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/shots/'
          Creates a file called something like 2000-10-30_2560x1024_scrot.png
          and moves it to your images directory.

This program is free software see the file COPYING for licensing info.
Copyright Tom Gilbert 2000
Email bugs to <scrot_sucks@linuxbrit.co.uk>

You can also type man scrot to see information on use of the utility.

References:

Scrot
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tom Gilbert Blog

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/graphics] permanent link

Fri, May 07, 2010 8:13 pm

Burning an ISO File to Disc Under Linux

To burn a .iso file to a disc, you can use the cdrecord command under Linux, if you have the cdrecord package installed. E.g., cdrecord -v slax-6.1.2.iso. The -v option, increments the general verbosity level by one. This can be used to display the progress of the writing process.

CDRecord is a command line CD/DVD recording program. Cdrecord is an application for creating audio and data CDs. Cdrecord works with many different brands of CD recorders, fully supports multi-sessions and provides human-readable error messages.

[/os/unix/linux/utilities/cd-dvd] permanent link

Thu, Mar 14, 2024 9:29 pm

Sat, Jul 15, 2017 10:51 pm

Tue, Jul 04, 2017 10:47 pm

Fri, Jun 23, 2017 10:22 pm

Tue, May 23, 2017 10:36 pm

Sat, Oct 15, 2016 8:58 pm

Fri, Jul 29, 2016 4:51 pm

Tue, May 17, 2016 8:27 am

Sat, Jul 19, 2014 5:17 pm

Fri, May 07, 2010 8:13 pm