mbpfan

Update: As of 2019-10-14, this project is being maintained by the community linux-on-mac. Please head to https://github.com/linux-on-mac/mbpfan to download the latest release of mbpfan and to report bugs. The project has also changed since the publication of this tutorial. Thanks!

Mbpfan is a daemon that controls the fans of Macbook/Macbook Pro laptops when they run GNU/Linux. It is a lightweight replacement of macfanctld, although it does not implement all of its features. It has got a different algorithm to control the fans. In a couple of words, it keeps Macbook fans a lot more silent.

This project is an enhanced version of Allan McRae mbpfan.

The mbpfan project is a daemon that uses input from

coretemp

module and sets the fan speed using the

applesmc

module. This enhanced version assumes any number of processors and fans (max. 10).

Features

Download

You can clone/download mbpfan on GitHub: https://github.com/dgraziotin/mbpfan. You can download “stable” releases as gzipped tars on the Tag page: https://github.com/dgraziotin/mbpfan/tags.

You can report issues either on the issue tracker: https://github.com/dgraziotin/mbpfan/issues?page=1&state=open

Compatibility

There are several concerns about compatibility and dependencies in order to correctly use mbpfan

Dependencies

mbpfan has been tested on v3.x.x kernels and on v4.x.x kernels. Be sure to load the kernel modules applesmc and coretemp. Also, be sure to not use other fan control daemons such as macfanctld while mbpfan is active.

Supported GNU/Linux Distributions

We provide scripts to to load mbpfan daemon at system boot for many distros. Please note that the support is provided by volunteers. mbpfan needs test and bug reports.

The following are the supported distributions:

Tested Macbook Models

How to use mbpfan

A step-by-step, beginner’s friendly tutorial for Ubuntu is available here.

Compile Instructions

Compile with

make

Install Instructions

Install with

sudo make install

It copies mbpfan to /usr/sbin and mbpfan.conf to /etc

It is recommended to run the tests after installing the program

sudo ./bin/mbpfan -t

or

sudo make tests

Run Instructions

If installed, manually run with

sudo /usr/sbin/mbpfan

If installed and using the init file, run with (Ubuntu example)

sudo start mbpfan

Starting at boot

Ubuntu For upstart based init systems (Ubuntu), an example upstart job has been provided for use in place of the LSB-style init script. To use, execute:

sudo cp mbpfan.upstart /etc/init/mbpfan.conf sudo start mbpfan

Debian An init file suitable for /lib/lsb/init-functions (Debian) is located in the main folder of the source files, called mbpfan.init.debian Rename it to mbpfan, give it execution permissions (chmod +x mbpfan) and move it to /etc/init.d Then, add it to the default runlevels with (as root):

sudo update-rc.d mbpfan defaults

Redhat, CentOS, Fedora An init file suitable for /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions (RHEL/CentOS & Fedora) is also located at the same place, this file is called mbpfan.init.redhat. Also rename it to mbpfan, give it execution permissions and move it to /etc/init.d To add the script to the default runlevels, run the following as root:

chkconfig --level 2345 mbpfan on && chkconfig --level 016 mbpfan off

Gentoo An init file is available for gentoo users: mbpfan.init.gentoo To install, run as root:

cp mbpfan.init.gentoo /etc/init.d/mbpfan

To automatically run mbpfan at boot, run as root:

rc-update add mbpfan default

systemd As a special bonus, a service file for systemd is also included. To use it, execute the following (as root):

sudo cp mbpfan.service /usr/lib/systemd/system sudo ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/mbpfan.service /etc/systemd/system/mbpfan.service sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start mbpfan.service

To start the service automatically at boot, also execute the following:

sudo systemctl enable mbpfan.service

Usage

Usage: 
./mbpfan OPTION(S)
-h Show the help screen 
-f Run in foreground 
-t Run the tests 
-v Be (a lot) verbose

License

GNU General Public License version 3

Authors

A list of authors, maintainers, and contributors can be found in the AUTHORS file.

Future

What is going to be next is: