Power Management Dependencies

Some devices should be powered down only when other devices are also powered down. For example, if a CD-ROM drive is allowed to power down, necessary functions, such as the ability to eject a CD, might be lost.

To prevent a device from powering down independently, you can make that device dependent on another device that is likely to remain powered on. Typically, a device is made dependent upon a frame buffer, because a monitor is generally on whenever a user is utilizing a system.

The power.conf(4)file specifies the dependencies among devices. (A parent node in the device tree implicitly depends upon its children. This dependency is handled automatically by the power management framework.) You can specify a particular dependency with a power.conf(4) entry of this form:

device-dependency dependent-phys-path phys-path

Where dependent-phys-path is the device that is kept powered up, such as the CD-ROM drive. phys-path represents the device whose power state is to be depended on, such as the frame buffer.

Adding an entry to power.conf for every new device that is plugged into the system would be burdensome. The following syntax enables you to indicate dependency in a more general fashion:

device-dependency-property property phys-path

Such an entry mandates that any device that exports the property property must be dependent upon the device named by phys-path. Because this dependency applies especially to removable-media devices, /etc/power.conf includes the following line by default:

device_dependent-property  removable-media  /dev/fb

With this syntax, no device that exports the removable-media property can be powered down unless the console frame buffer is also powered down.

For more information, see the power.conf(4) and removable-media(9P) man pages.