Ssh – Using nvidia-settings over ssh

nvidiasshx11xorg

Now the new nvidia-driver has implemented CoolBits for the newer graphics cards I'm attempting to control fan/clock speed over ssh.

When attempting to run anything with nvidia-settings via ssh I get errors like the following:

user@system:~$ nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/GPUOverclockingState=1
ERROR: The control display is undefined; please run `nvidia-settings --help`
       for usage information.
user@system:~$ nvidia-settings -q GPU3DClockFreqs
ERROR: The control display is undefined; please run `nvidia-settings --help`
       for usage information.

Is this due to the Xorg server not starting up (No monitor plugged in) and nvidia can't hook into the Xorg's current graphics card?

Is there a way to specify the GPU nvidia-settings uses?

user@system:~$ nvidia-settings -v
nvidia-settings:  version 337.19  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-04)
Tue Apr 29 20:12:23 PDT 2014
  The NVIDIA X Server Settings tool.

  This program is used to configure the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver.
  For more detail, please see the nvidia-settings(1) man page.

  Copyright (C) 2004 - 2010 NVIDIA Corporation.

user@system:~$ uname -a
Linux system 3.2.0-64-generic-pae #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 4 22:22:15 UTC 2014 i686 i686 >i386 GNU/Linux

Best Answer

You're correct. If you're not running X on a Nvidia device, you can't manage the Nvidia driver. You can verify this by running echo $DISPLAY. It should be :0, but X forwarding will change that to something else. I believe it might run another X server just for forwarding.

Related Solutions

Make Xorg ignore both nouveau and nVIDIA

You can blacklist kernel modules. Blacklisted modules will not be loaded by the kernel. Xorg then shall not try to autodetect the hardware.

For example you can add a file called nonvidiavideo.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/ with the following content (the name of the file does not matter, it just needs to end with .conf):

blacklist nouveau

You may need to extend the file if you have modules that consider the nouveau driver as their pre-requisite, for example:

blacklist nouveau
blacklist nvidia-dkms

(I made up the name of the other module for the purpose of the example.) Basically, blacklisting a module does not work if another module has a dependency on it, you need to blacklist the entire dependency chain. Probably there is no dependency chain with nvidia/nouveau since they're quite specific modules. But, to find modules that have nouveau as a dependency you can do:

depmod -n | grep nouveau | egrep -v '^alias'

(That will print the module itself too, dependencies are show when 2 modules appear on the same line.)

Another option that I would try would be to force Xorg to use the intel card for the screen. Add the following to a file (say nonvidia.conf, again the name does not matter) to /etc/X11/xord.conf.d/:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Intel Card"
    Driver      "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Nvidia Card"
    Driver      "nouveau"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "My Screen"
    Device      "Intel Card"
EndSection

You can also add a BusID "PCI:..." parameter to a "Device" section if you know where your card resides (but it should not be needed, Xorg should be able to figure things out from the drivers).

The important part is that the Device parameter of the "Screen" points to the Identifier of the "Device".

This will probably do not work if you have two screens.

(Disclaimer: this is untested code, I do not have a machine with two video cards to test it, sorry.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Make Xorg ignore both nouveau and nVIDIA

Related Question