sensors-detect(8)
Detect hardware monitoring chips and generate a configuration file for lm-sensors.
Synopsis
sensors-detect [--help] [--version] [--input FILE] [--output FILE] [--force]Description
sensors-detect is an interactive utility that probes your system's I2C and ISA buses to identify hardware monitoring chips (temperature sensors, voltage monitors, fan controllers, etc.). It guides you through a series of safe tests to detect what sensors are present on your motherboard.
Once detection is complete, it generates a configuration snippet suitable for /etc/sensors3.conf that allows the lm-sensors daemon and tools like 'sensors' to properly read and interpret your hardware's sensor data.
This command must be run as root and should be executed once after installing lm-sensors, or whenever you add new hardware monitoring devices to your system.
Common options
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
-h, --help | Display help message and exit |
-V, --version | Show program version and exit |
-i, --input FILE | Read configuration from FILE instead of auto-detecting |
-o, --output FILE | Write output to FILE instead of stdout |
-f, --force | Skip safety checks and assume 'yes' to all prompts (dangerous) |
-q, --quiet | Run in quiet mode with minimal output |
Examples
Run interactive detection wizard; you'll be prompted to confirm tests for each chip found
sudo sensors-detectDetect sensors and save configuration directly to a modular config file
sudo sensors-detect --output /etc/sensors.d/custom-sensors.confRun detection non-interactively, accepting all prompts automatically (use with caution)
sudo sensors-detect --forceRun detection and save output to a file while displaying it on screen
sudo sensors-detect | tee sensor-config.txtDetect sensors and then restart the lm-sensors service to apply changes
sudo sensors-detect && sudo systemctl restart lm-sensors