SMARTD(8) 2004/07/05 SMARTD(8)
smartd - SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon
smartd [options]
/usr/sbin/smartd
smartmontools-5.32 released 2004/07/05 at 08:10:26 UTC
smartd is a daemon that monitors the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and
Reporting Technology (SMART) system built into many ATA-3 and later
ATA, IDE and SCSI-3 hard drives. The purpose of SMART is to monitor the
reliability of the hard drive and predict drive failures, and to carry
out different types of drive self-tests. This version of smartd is
compatible with ATA/ATAPI-5 and earlier standards (see REFERENCES
below).
smartd will attempt to enable SMART monitoring on ATA devices (equiva-
lent to smartctl -s on) and polls these and SCSI devices every 30 min-
utes (configurable), logging SMART errors and changes of SMART
Attributes via the SYSLOG interface. The default location for these
SYSLOG notifications and warnings is /var/log/messages. To change this
default location, please see the '-l' command-line option described
below.
If you send a USR1 signal to smartd it will immediately check the sta-
tus of the disks, and then return to polling the disks every 30 min-
utes. See the '-i' option below for additional details.
smartd can be configured at start-up using the configuration file
/etc/smartd.conf. If the configuration file is subsequently modified,
smartd can be told to re-read the configuration file by sending it a
HUP signal, for example with the command:
killall -HUP smartd.
On startup, if smartd finds a syntax error in the configuration file,
it will print an error message and then exit. However if smartd is
already running, then is told with a HUP signal to re-read the configu-
ration file, and then find a syntax error in this file, it will print
an error message and then continue, ignoring the contents of the
(faulty) configuration file, as if the HUP signal had never been
received.
When smartd is running in debug mode, the QUIT signal (normally gener-
ated from a shell with CONTROL-C) is treated in the same way as a HUP
signal: it makes smartd reload its configuration file. To exit smartd
use CONTROL-\.
On startup, in the absence of the configuration file /etc/smartd.conf,
the smartd daemon first scans for all devices that support SMART. The
scanning is done as follows:
LINUX: Examine all entries "/dev/hd[a-t]" for IDE/ATA devices,
and "/dev/sd[a-z]" for SCSI devices.
FREEBSD: Examine all entries "/dev/ad[0-9]+" for IDE/ATA devices
and "/dev/da[0-9]+" for SCSI devices.
NETBSD: Authoritative list of disk devices is obtained from
sysctl 'hw.disknames'.
SOLARIS: Examine all entries "/dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s?" for IDE/ATA
and SCSI disk devices, and entries "/dev/rmt/*" for
SCSI tape devices.
WINDOWS: Examine all entries "/dev/hd[a-j]" ("\\.\PhysicalD-
isk[0-9]") for IDE/ATA devices on WinNT4/2000/XP,
"/dev/hd[a-d]" (bitmask from "\\.\SMARTVSD") for
IDE/ATA devices on Win95/98/98SE/ME. Scanning of
SCSI/ASPI devices is not implemented yet.
smartd then monitors for all possible SMART errors (corresponding to
the '-a' Directive in the configuration file; see CONFIGURATION FILE
below). Note that when there is no configuration file, and smartd scans
for devices on startup, warning messages may appear in SYSLOG (by
default /var/log/messages) about missing block-major-xx devices. These
messages are usually harmless. Alternatively, the configuration file
can be used to exclude non-existent devices by giving a list of devices
to monitor at start-up.
Long options are not supported on all systems. Use 'smartd \-h' to see
the available options.
-d, --debug
Runs smartd in "debug" mode. In this mode, it displays status
information to STDOUT rather than logging it to SYSLOG and does
not fork(2) into the background and detach from the controlling
terminal. In this mode, smartd also prints more verbose infor-
mation about what it is doing than when operating in "daemon"
mode. In this mode, the QUIT signal (normally generated from a
terminal with CONTROL-C) makes smartd reload its configuration
file. Please use CONTROL-\ to exit.
-D, --showdirectives
Prints a list (to STDOUT) of all the possible Directives which
may appear in the configuration file /etc/smartd.conf, and then
exits. These Directives are also described later in this man
page. They may appear in the configuration file following the
device name.
-h, --help, --usage
Prints usage message to STDOUT and exits.
-i N, --interval=N
Sets the interval between disk checks to N seconds, where N is a
decimal integer. The minimum allowed value is ten and the maxi-
mum is the largest positive integer that can be represented on
your system (often 2^31-1). The default is 1800 seconds.
Note that the superuser can make smartd check the status of the
disks at any time by sending it the SIGUSR1 signal, for example
with the command:
kill -SIGUSR1 <pid>
where <pid> is the process id number of smartd. One may also
use:
killall -USR1 smartd
for the same purpose.
-l FACILITY, --logfacility=FACILITY
Uses syslog facility FACILITY to log the messages from smartd.
Here FACILITY is one of local0, local1, ..., local7, or daemon
[default]. If this command-line option is not used, then by
default messages from smartd are logged to the facility daemon.
If you would like to have smartd messages logged somewhere other
than the default /var/log/messages location, this can typically
be accomplished with (for example) the following steps:
[1] Modify the script that starts smartd to include the smartd
command-line argument '-l local3'. This tells smartd to log
its messages to facility local3.
[2] Modify the syslogd configuration file (typically /etc/sys-
log.conf) by adding a line of the form:
local3.* /var/log/smartd.log
This tells syslogd to log all the messages from facility
local3 to the designated file: /var/log/smartd.log.
[3] Tell syslogd to re-read its configuration file, typically by
sending the syslogd process a SIGHUP hang-up signal.
[4] Start (or restart) the smartd daemon.
For more detailed information, please refer to the man pages for
syslog.conf, syslogd, and syslog. You may also want to modify
the log rotation configuration files; see the man pages for
logrotate and examine your system's /etc/logrotate.conf file.
-p NAME, --pidfile=NAME
Writes pidfile NAME containing the smartd Process ID number
(PID). To avoid symlink attacks make sure the directory to
which pidfile is written is only writeable for root. Without
this option, or if the --debug option is given, no PID file is
written on startup. If smartd is killed with a maskable signal
then the pidfile is removed.
-q WHEN, --quit=WHEN
Specifies when, if ever, smartd should exit. The valid argu-
ments are to this option are:
nodev - Exit if there are no devices to monitor, or if any
errors are found at startup in the configuration file. This is
the default.
errors - Exit if there are no devices to monitor, or if any
errors are found in the configuration file /etc/smartd.conf at
startup or whenever it is reloaded.
nodevstartup - Exit if there are no devices to monitor at
startup. But continue to run if no devices are found whenever
the configuration file is reloaded.
never - Only exit if a fatal error occurs (no remaining system
memory, invalid command line arguments). In this mode, even if
there are no devices to monitor, or if the configuration file
/etc/smartd.conf has errors, smartd will continue to run, wait-
ing to load a configuration file listing valid devices.
onecheck - Start smartd in debug mode, then register devices,
then check device's SMART status once, and then exit with zero
exit status if all of these steps worked correctly.
This last option is intended for 'distribution-writers' who want
to create automated scripts to determine whether or not to auto-
matically start up smartd after installing smartmontools. After
starting smartd with this command-line option, the distribu-
tion's install scripts should wait a reasonable length of time
(say ten seconds). If smartd has not exited with zero status by
that time, the script should send smartd a SIGTERM or SIGKILL
and assume that smartd will not operate correctly on the host.
Conversely, if smartd exits with zero status, then it is safe to
run smartd in normal daemon mode. If smartd is unable to monitor
any devices or encounters other problems then it will return
with non-zero exit status.
-r TYPE, --report=TYPE
Intended primarily to help smartmontools developers understand
the behavior of smartmontools on non-conforming or poorly con-
forming hardware. This option reports details of smartd trans-
actions with the device. The option can be used multiple times.
When used just once, it shows a record of the ioctl() transac-
tions with the device. Whe used more than once, the detail of
these ioctl() transactions are reported in greater detail. The
valid arguments to this option are:
ioctl - report all ioctl() transactions.
ataioctl - report only ioctl() transactions with ATA devices.
scsiioctl - report only ioctl() transactions with SCSI devices.
Any argument may include a positive integer to specify the level
of detail that should be reported. The argument should be fol-
lowed by a comma then the integer with no spaces. For example,
ataioctl,2 The default level is 1, so '-r ataioctl,1' and '-r
ataioctl' are equivalent.
-V, --version, --license, --copyright
Prints license, copyright, and CVS version information onto STD-
OUT and then exits. Please include this information if you are
reporting bugs, or have specific questions about the behavior of
smartd.
smartd
Runs the daemon in forked mode. This is the normal way to run smartd.
Entries are logged to SYSLOG (by default /var/log/messages.)
smartd -d -i 30
Run in foreground (debug) mode, checking the disk status every 30 sec-
onds.
smartd -q onecheck
Registers devices, and checks the status of the devices exactly once.
The exit status (the bash $? variable) will be zero if all went well,
and nonzero if no devices were detected or some other problem was
encountered.
In the absence of a configuration file, smartd will try to open the 20
ATA devices /dev/hd[a-t] and the 26 SCSI devices /dev/sd[a-z] under
Linux. Under FreeBSD, smartd will try to open all existing ATA devices
(with entries in /dev) /dev/ad[0-9]+ and all existing SCSI devices
/dev/da[0-9]+. This can be annoying if you have an ATA or SCSI device
that hangs or misbehaves when receiving SMART commands. Even if this
causes no problems, you may be annoyed by the string of error log mes-
sages about block-major devices that can't be found, and SCSI devices
that can't be opened.
One can avoid this problem, and gain more control over the types of
events monitored by smartd, by using the configuration file
/etc/smartd.conf. This file contains a list of devices to monitor,
with one device per line. An example file is included with the smart-
montools distribution. You will find this sample configuration file in
/usr/share/doc/smartmontools-5.1/. For security, the configuration file
should not be writable by anyone but root. The syntax of the file is as
follows:
There should be one device listed per line, although you may
have lines that are entirely comments or white space.
Any text following a hash sign '#' and up to the end of the line
is taken to be a comment, and ignored.
Lines may be continued by using a backslash '\' as the last non-
whitespace or non-comment item on a line.
[Note: a line whose first character is a hash sign '#' is
treated as a white-space blank line, not as a non-existent line,
and will end a continuation line.]
Here is an example configuration file. It's for illustrative purposes
only; please don't copy it onto your system without reading to the end
of the DIRECTIVES Section below!
################################################
# This is an example smartd startup config
# file /etc/smartd.conf for monitoring three ATA
# disks, three SCSI disks, and three ATA disks
# behind a 3ware controller.
#
# First ATA disk on each of two interfaces. On
# the second disk, do a long self-test every
# Sunday at 3am.
#
/dev/hda -a -m admin [AT] example.com,root@localhost
/dev/hdc -a -I 194 -I 5 -i 12 -s L/../../7/03
#
# SCSI disks. Send a TEST warning email to admin on
# startup.
#
/dev/sda
/dev/sdb -m admin [AT] example.com -M test
#
# Strange device. It's SCSI. Do a scheduled
# long self test at 5am Monday/Thursday
/dev/weird -d scsi -s L/../../(1|4)/05
#
# Four ATA disks connected to a 3ware controller.
# Do short self-tests daily at midnight, 1, 2, and 3 am
/dev/sdc -d 3ware,0 -a -s S/../.././00
/dev/sdc -d 3ware,1 -a -s S/../.././01
/dev/sdd -d 3ware,2 -a -s S/../.././02
/dev/sdd -d 3ware,3 -a -s S/../.././03
#
# The following line enables monitoring of the
# ATA Error Log and the Self-Test Error Log.
# It also tracks changes in both Prefailure
# and Usage Attributes, apart from Attributes
# 9, 194, and 231, and shows continued lines:
#
/dev/hdd -l error \
-l selftest \
-t \ # Attributes not tracked:
-I 194 \ # temperature
-I 231 \ # also temperature
-I 9 # power-on hours
#
################################################
If the first non-comment entry in the configuration file is the text
string DEVICESCAN in capital letters, then smartd will ignore any
remaining lines in the configuration file, and will scan for devices.
DEVICESCAN may optionally be followed by Directives that will apply to
all devices that are found in the scan. Please see below for addi-
tional details.
The following are the Directives that may appear following the device
name or DEVICESCAN on any line of the /etc/smartd.conf configuration
file. Note that these are NOT command-line options for smartd. The
Directives below may appear in any order, following the device name.
For an ATA device, if no Directives appear, then the device will be
monitored as if the '-a' Directive (monitor all SMART properties) had
been given.
If a SCSI disk is listed, it will be monitored at the maximum imple-
mented level: roughly equivalent to using the '-H -l selftest' options
for an ATA disk. So with the exception of '-d', '-m', '-l selftest',
'-s', and '-M', the Directives below are ignored for SCSI disks. For
SCSI disks, the '-m' Directive sends a warning email if the SMART sta-
tus indicates a disk failure or problem, if the SCSI inquiry about disk
status fails, or if new errors appear in the self-test log.
If a 3ware controller is used then the corresponding SCSI device must
be listed, along with the '-d 3ware,N' Directive (see below). The
individual ATA disks hosted by the 3ware controller appear to smartd as
normal ATA devices. Hence all the ATA directives can be used for these
disks (but see note below).
-d TYPE
Specifies the type of the device. This Directive may be used
multiple times for one device, but the arguments ata, scsi, and
3ware,N are mutually-exclusive. If more than one is given then
smartd will use the last one which appears.
If none of these three arguments is given, then smartd will
first attempt to guess the device type by looking at whether the
sixth character in the device name is an 's' or an 'h'. This
will work for device names like /dev/hda or /dev/sdb, and corre-
sponds to choosing ata or scsi respectively. If smartd can't
guess from this sixth character, then it will simply try to
access the device using first ATA and then SCSI ioctl()s.
The valid arguments to this Directive are:
ata - the device type is ATA. This prevents smartd from issuing
SCSI commands to an ATA device.
scsi - the device type is SCSI. This prevents smartd from issu-
ing ATA commands to a SCSI device.
3ware,N - the device consists of one or more ATA disks connected
to a 3ware RAID controller. The non-negative integer N (in the
range from 0 to 15 inclusive) denotes which disk on the con-
troller is monitored.
This Directive may at first appear confusing, because the 3ware
controller is a SCSI device (such as /dev/sda) and should be
listed as such in the the configuration file. However when the
'-d 3ware,N' Directive is used, then the corresponding disk is
addressed using native ATA commands which are 'passed through'
the SCSI driver. All ATA Directives listed in this man page may
be used. Note that while you may use any of the 3ware SCSI log-
ical devices /dev/sd? to address any of the physical disks
(3ware ports), error and log messages will make the most sense
if you always list the 3ware SCSI logical device corresponding
to the particular physical disks. Please see the smartctl man
page for further details.
Note that older 3w-xxxx drivers do not pass the 'Enable
Autosave' (-S on) and 'Enable Automatic Offline' (-o on) com-
mands to the disk, and produce these types of harmless syslog
error messages instead: '3w-xxxx: tw_ioctl(): Passthru size
(123392) too big'. This can be fixed by upgrading to version
1.02.00.037 or later of the 3w-xxxx driver, or by applying a
patch to older versions. See http://smartmontools.source-
forge.net/ for instructions.
3ware controllers are currently ONLY supported under Linux.
removable - the device or its media is removable. This indi-
cates to smartd that it should continue (instead of exiting,
which is the default behavior) if the device does not appear to
be present when smartd is started. This Directive may be used
in conjunction with the other '-d' Directives.
-n POWERMODE
ATA disks have five different power states. In order of increas-
ing power consumption they are: 'OFF', 'SLEEP', 'STANDBY',
'IDLE', and 'ACTIVE'. Typically in the OFF, SLEEP, and STANDBY
modes the disk's platters are not spinning. But usually, in
response to SMART commands issued by smartd, the disk platters
are spun up. So if this option is not used, then a disk which
is in a low-power mode may be spun up and put into a
higher-power mode when it is periodically polled by smartd.
Note that if the disk is in SLEEP mode when smartd is started,
then it won't respond to smartd commands, and so it won't be
registered as a device for smartd to monitor. If a disk is in
any other low-power mode, then the commands issued by smartd to
register it will probably cause it to spin-up.
The '-n' (nocheck) Directive specifies if smartd's periodic
checks should still be carried out when the device is in a
low-power mode. It may be used to prevent a disk from being
spun-up by periodic smartd polling. The allowed values of POW-
ERMODE are:
never - smartd will poll (check) the device regardless of its
power mode. This may cause a disk which is spun-down to be
spun-up when smartd checks it. This is the default behavior if
the '-n' Directive is not given.
sleep - do not check the device if it is in SLEEP mode.
standby - do not check the device if it is in SLEEP or STANDBY
mode. In these modes most disks are not spinning, so if you
want to prevent a laptop disk from spinning up each time that
smartd polls, this is probably what you want.
idle - do not check the device if it is in SLEEP, STANDBY or
IDLE mode. In the IDLE state, most disks are still spinning, so
this is probably not what you want.
-T TYPE
Specifies how tolerant smartd should be of SMART command fail-
ures. The valid arguments to this Directive are:
normal - do not try to monitor the disk if a mandatory SMART
command fails, but continue if an optional SMART command fails.
This is the default.
permissive - try to monitor the disk even if it appears to lack
SMART capabilities. This may be required for some old disks
(prior to ATA-3 revision 4) that implemented SMART before the
SMART standards were incorporated into the ATA/ATAPI Specifica-
tions. This may also be needed for some Maxtor disks which fail
to comply with the ATA Specifications and don't properly indi-
cate support for error- or self-test logging.
[Please see the .B smartctl -T command-line option.]
-o VALUE
Enables or disables SMART Automatic Offline Testing when smartd
starts up and has no further effect. The valid arguments to
this Directive are on and off.
The delay between tests is vendor-specific, but is typically
four hours.
Note that SMART Automatic Offline Testing is not part of the ATA
Specification. Please see the smartctl -o command-line option
documentation for further information about this feature.
-S VALUE
Enables or disables Attribute Autosave when smartd starts up and
has no further effect. The valid arguments to this Directive
are on and off. Also affects SCSI devices. [Please see the
smartctl -S command-line option.]
-H Check the SMART health status of the disk. If any Prefailure
Attributes are less than or equal to their threshold values,
then disk failure is predicted in less than 24 hours, and a mes-
sage at loglevel 'LOG_CRITICAL' will be logged to syslog.
[Please see the smartctl -H command-line option.]
-l TYPE
Reports increases in the number of errors in one of the two
SMART logs. The valid arguments to this Directive are:
error - report if that the number of ATA errors reported in the
ATA Error Log has increased since the last check.
selftest - report if the number of failed tests reported in the
SMART Self-Test Log has increased since the last check, or if
the timestamp associated with the more recent failed test has
increased. Note that such errors will only be logged if you run
self-tests on the disk (and it fails a test!). Self-Tests can
be run automatically by smartd: please see the '-s' Directive
below. Self-Tests can also be run manually by using the
'-t short' and '-t long' options of smartctl and the results of
the testing can be observed using the smartctl '-l selftest'
command-line option.]
[Please see the smartctl -l command-line option.]
-s REGEXP
Run Self-Tests or Offline Immediate Tests, at scheduled times.
A Self- or Offline Immediate Test will be run at the end of
periodic device polling, if all 12 characters of the string
T/MM/DD/d/HH match the extended regular expression REGEXP. Here:
T is the type of the test. The values that smartd will try to
match (in turn) are: 'L' for a Long Self-Test, 'S' for a
Short Self-Test, 'C' for a Conveyance Self-Test (ATA only),
and 'O' for an Offline Immediate Test (ATA only). As soon
as a match is found, the test will be started and no addi-
tional matches will be sought for that device and that
polling cycle.
MM is the month of the year, expressed with two decimal digits.
The range is from 01 (January) to 12 (December) inclusive.
DD is the day of the month, expressed with two decimal digits.
The range is from 01 to 31 inclusive.
d is the day of the week, expressed with one decimal digit.
The range is from 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday) inclusive.
HH is the hour of the day, written with two decimal digits, and
given in hours after midnight. The range is 00 (midnight to
just before 1am) to 23 (11pm to just before midnight) inclu-
sive.
Some examples follow. In reading these, keep in mind that in
extended regular expressions a dot '.' matches any single char-
acter, and a parenthetical expression such as '(A|B|C)' denotes
any one of the three possibilities A, B, or C.
To schedule a short Self-Test between 2-3am every morning, use:
-s S/../.././02
To schedule a long Self-Test between 4-5am every Sunday morning,
use:
-s L/../../7/04
To schedule a long Self-Test between 10-11pm on the first and
fifteenth day of each month, use:
-s L/../(01|15)/./22
To schedule an Offline Immediate test after every midnight, 6am,
noon,and 6pm, plus a Short Self-Test daily at 1-2am and a Long
Self-Test every Saturday at 3-4am, use:
-s (O/../.././(00|06|12|18)|S/../.././01|L/../../6/03)
Scheduled tests are run immediately following the regularly-
scheduled device polling, if the current local date, time, and
test type, match REGEXP. By default the regularly-scheduled
device polling occurs every thirty minutes after starting
smartd. Take caution if you use the '-i' option to make this
polling interval more than sixty minutes: the poll times may
fail to coincide with any of the testing times that you have
specified with REGEXP, and so the self tests may not take place
as you wish.
Before running an offline or self-test, smartd checks to be sure
that a self-test is not already running. If a self-test is
already running, then this running self test will not be inter-
rupted to begin another test.
smartd will not attempt to run any type of test if another test
was already started or run in the same hour.
Each time a test is run, smartd will log an entry to SYSLOG.
You can use these to verify that you constructed REGEXP cor-
rectly. The matching order (L before S before C before O)
ensures that if multiple test types are all scheduled for the
same hour, the longer test type has precedence. This is usually
the desired behavior.
-m ADD Send a warning email to the email address ADD if the '-H', '-l',
or '-f' Directives detect a failure or a new error, or if a
SMART command to the disk fails. This Directive only works in
conjunction with these other Directives (or with the equivalent
default '-a' Directive).
To prevent your email in-box from getting filled up with warning
messages, by default only a single warning will be sent for each
of the enabled test types, '-H', '-l', or '-f', even if more
than one failure or error is detected or if the failure or error
persists. [This behavior can be modified; see the '-M' Direc-
tive below.]
To send email to more than one user, please use the following
"comma separated" form for the address:
user1@add1,user2@add2,...,userN@addN (with no spaces).
To test that email is being sent correctly, use the '-M test'
Directive described below to send one test email message on
smartd startup.
By default, email is sent using the system mail command. In
order that smartd find the mail command (normally /bin/mail) an
executable named 'mail' must be in the path of the shell or
environment from which smartd was started. If you wish to spec-
ify an explicit path to the mail executable (for example
/usr/local/bin/mail) or a custom script to run, please use the
'-M exec' Directive below.
Note that by default under Solaris, in the previous paragraph,
'mailx' and '/bin/mailx' are used, since Solaris '/bin/mail'
does not accept a '-s' (Subject) command-line argument.
Note also that there is a special argument <nomailer> which can
be given to the '-m' Directive in conjunction with the '-M exec'
Directive. Please see below for an explanation of its effect.
If the mailer or the shell running it produces any STDERR/STDOUT
output, then a snippet of that output will be copied to SYSLOG.
The remainder of the output is discarded. If problems are
encountered in sending mail, this should help you to understand
and fix them. If you have mail problems, we recommend running
smartd in debug mode with the '-d' flag, using the '-M test'
Directive described below.
-M TYPE
These Directives modify the behavior of the smartd email warn-
ings enabled with the '-m' email Directive described above.
These '-M' Directives only work in conjunction with the '-m'
Directive and can not be used without it.
Multiple -M Directives may be given. If conflicting -M Direc-
tives are given (example: -M once -M daily) then the final one
(in the example, -M daily) is used.
The valid arguments to the -M Directive are:
once - send only one warning email for each type of disk problem
detected. This is the default.
daily - send additional warning reminder emails, once per day,
for each type of disk problem detected.
diminishing - send additional warning reminder emails, after a
one-day interval, then a two-day interval, then a four-day
interval, and so on for each type of disk problem detected. Each
interval is twice as long as the previous interval.
test - send a single test email immediately upon smartd startup.
This allows one to verify that email is delivered correctly.
exec PATH - run the executable PATH instead of the default mail
command, when smartd needs to send email. PATH must point to an
executable binary file or script.
By setting PATH to point to a customized script, you can make
smartd perform useful tricks when a disk problem is detected
(beeping the console, shutting down the machine, broadcasting
warnings to all logged-in users, etc.) But please be careful.
smartd will block until the executable PATH returns, so if your
executable hangs, then smartd will also hang. Some sample
scripts are included in /usr/share/doc/smartmontools/example-
scripts/.
The return status of the executable is recorded by smartd in
SYSLOG. The executable is not expectected to write to STDOUT or
STDERR. If it does, then this is interpreted as indicating that
something is going wrong with your executable, and a fragment of
this output is logged to SYSLOG to help you to understand the
problem. Normally, if you wish to leave some record behind, the
executable should send mail or write to a file or device.
Before running the executable, smartd sets a number of environ-
ment variables. These environment variables may be used to con-
trol the executable's behavior. The environment variables
exported by smartd are:
SMARTD_MAILER is set to the argument of -M exec, if present or
else to 'mail' (examples: /bin/mail, mail).
SMARTD_DEVICE is set to the device path (examples: /dev/hda,
/dev/sdb).
SMARTD_DEVICETYPE is set to the device type (possible values:
ata, scsi, 3ware,N). Here N=0,...,15 denotes the ATA disk behind
a 3ware RAID controller.
SMARTD_DEVICESTRING is set to the device description. For
SMARTD_DEVICETYPE of ata or scsi, this is the same as
SMARTD_DEVICE. For 3ware RAID controllers, the form used is
'/dev/sdc [3ware_disk_01]'. In this case the device string con-
tains a space and is NOT quoted. So to use $SMARTD_DEVICESTRING
in a bash script you should probably enclose it in double
quotes.
SMARTD_FAILTYPE gives the reason for the warning or message
email. The possible values that it takes, and their signifi-
cance, are: emailtest (this is an email test message); health
(the SMART health status indicates imminent failure); usage (a
usage Attribute has failed); selftest (the number of self-test
failures has increased); errorcount (the number of errors in the
ATA error log has increased); FAILEDhealthcheck (the SMART
health status command failed); FAILEDreadsmartdata (the command
to read SMART Attribute data failed); FAILEDreadsmarterrorlog
(the command to read the SMART error log failed); FAILEDreads-
martsefltestlog (the command to read the SMART self-test log
failed); abd FAILEDopendevice (the open() command to the device
failed).
SMARTD_ADDRESS is determined by the address argument ADD of the
'-m' Directive. If ADD is <nomailer>, then SMARTD_ADDRESS is
not set. Otherwise, it is set to the comma-separated-list of
email addresses given by the argument ADD, with the commas
replaced by spaces (example:admin [AT] example.com root). If more
than one email address is given, then this string will contain
space characters and is NOT quoted, so to use it in a bash
script you may want to enclose it in double quotes.
SMARTD_MESSAGE is set to the warning email message string from
smartd. This message string contains space characters and is
NOT quoted. So to use $SMARTD_MESSAGE in a bash script you
should probably enclose it in double quotes.
SMARTD_TFIRST is a text string giving the time and date at which
the first problem of this type was reported. This text string
contains space characters and no newlines, and is NOT quoted.
For example:
Sun Feb 9 14:58:19 2003 CST
SMARTD_TFIRSTEPOCH is an integer, which is the unix epoch (num-
ber of seconds since Jan 1, 1970) for SMARTD_TFIRST.
The shell which is used to run PATH is system-dependent. For
vanilla Linux/glibc it's bash. For other systems, the man page
for popen(3) should say what shell is used.
If the '-m ADD' Directive is given with a normal address argu-
ment, then the executable pointed to by PATH will be run in a
shell with STDIN receiving the body of the email message, and
with the same command-line arguments:
-s "$SMARTD_SUBJECT" $SMARTD_ADDRESS
that would normally be provided to 'mail'. Examples include:
-m user@home -M exec /bin/mail
-m admin@work -M exec /usr/local/bin/mailto
-m root -M exec /Example_1/bash/script/below
If the '-m ADD' Directive is given with the special address
argument <nomailer> then the executable pointed to by PATH is
run in a shell with no STDIN and no command-line arguments, for
example:
-m <nomailer> -M exec /Example_2/bash/script/below
If the executable produces any STDERR/STDOUT output, then smartd
assumes that something is going wrong, and a snippet of that
output will be copied to SYSLOG. The remainder of the output is
then discarded.
Some EXAMPLES of scripts that can be used with the '-M exec'
Directive are given below. Some sample scripts are also included
in /usr/share/doc/smartmontools/examplescripts/.
-f Check for 'failure' of any Usage Attributes. If these
Attributes are less than or equal to the threshold, it does NOT
indicate imminent disk failure. It "indicates an advisory con-
dition where the usage or age of the device has exceeded its
intended design life period." [Please see the smartctl -A com-
mand-line option.]
-p Report anytime that a Prefail Attribute has changed its value
since the last check, 30 minutes ago. [Please see the smartctl
-A command-line option.]
-u Report anytime that a Usage Attribute has changed its value
since the last check, 30 minutes ago. [Please see the smartctl
-A command-line option.]
-t Equivalent to turning on the two previous flags '-p' and '-u'.
Tracks changes in all device Attributes (both Prefailure and
Usage). [Please see the smartctl -A command-line option.]
-i ID Ignore device Attribute number ID when checking for failure of
Usage Attributes. ID must be a decimal integer in the range
from 1 to 255. This Directive modifies the behavior of the '-f'
Directive and has no effect without it.
This is useful, for example, if you have a very old disk and
don't want to keep getting messages about the hours-on-lifetime
Attribute (usually Attribute 9) failing. This Directive may
appear multiple times for a single device, if you want to ignore
multiple Attributes.
-I ID Ignore device Attribute ID when tracking changes in the
Attribute values. ID must be a decimal integer in the range
from 1 to 255. This Directive modifies the behavior of the
'-p', '-u', and '-t' tracking Directives and has no effect
without one of them.
This is useful, for example, if one of the device Attributes is
the disk temperature (usually Attribute 194 or 231). It's annoy-
ing to get reports each time the temperature changes. This
Directive may appear multiple times for a single device, if you
want to ignore multiple Attributes.
-r ID When tracking, report the Raw value of Attribute ID along with
its (normally reported) Normalized value. ID must be a decimal
integer in the range from 1 to 255. This Directive modifies the
behavior of the '-p', '-u', and '-t' tracking Directives and has
no effect without one of them. This Directive may be given mul-
tiple times.
A common use of this Directive is to track the device Tempera-
ture (often ID=194 or 231).
-R ID When tracking, report whenever the Raw value of Attribute ID
changes. (Normally smartd only tracks/reports changes of the
Normalized Attribute values.) ID must be a decimal integer in
the range from 1 to 255. This Directive modifies the behavior
of the '-p', '-u', and '-t' tracking Directives and has no
effect without one of them. This Directive may be given multi-
ple times.
If this Directive is given, it automatically implies the '-r'
Directive for the same Attribute, so that the Raw value of the
Attribute is reported.
A common use of this Directive is to track the device Tempera-
ture (often ID=194 or 231). It is also useful for understanding
how different types of system behavior affects the values of
certain Attributes.
-F TYPE
Modifies the behavior of smartd to compensate for some known and
understood device firmware bug. The arguments to this Directive
are exclusive, so that only the final Directive given is used.
The valid values are:
none - Assume that the device firmware obeys the ATA specifica-
tions. This is the default, unless the device has presets for
'-F' in the device database.
samsung - In some Samsung disks (example: model SV4012H Firmware
Version: RM100-08) some of the two- and four-byte quantities in
the SMART data structures are byte-swapped (relative to the ATA
specification). Enabling this option tells smartd to evaluate
these quantities in byte-reversed order. Some signs that your
disk needs this option are (1) no self-test log printed, even
though you have run self-tests; (2) very large numbers of ATA
errors reported in the ATA error log; (3) strange and impossible
values for the ATA error log timestamps.
samsung2 - In more recent Samsung disks (firmware revisions end-
ing in "-23") the number of ATA errors reported is byte swapped.
Enabling this option tells smartd to evaluate this quantity in
byte-reversed order.
Note that an explicit '-F' Directive will over-ride any preset
values for '-F' (see the '-P' option below).
[Please see the smartctl -F command-line option.]
-v N,OPTION
Modifies the labeling for Attribute N, for disks which use non-
standard Attribute definitions. This is useful in connection
with the Attribute tracking/reporting Directives.
This Directive may appear multiple times. Valid arguments to
this Directive are:
9,minutes - Raw Attribute number 9 is power-on time in minutes.
Its raw value will be displayed in the form 'Xh+Ym'. Here X is
hours, and Y is minutes in the range 0-59 inclusive. Y is
always printed with two digits, for example '06' or '31' or
'00'.
9,seconds - Raw Attribute number 9 is power-on time in seconds.
Its raw value will be displayed in the form 'Xh+Ym+Zs'. Here X
is hours, Y is minutes in the range 0-59 inclusive, and Z is
seconds in the range 0-59 inclusive. Y and Z are always printed
with two digits, for example '06' or '31' or '00'.
9,halfminutes - Raw Attribute number 9 is power-on time, mea-
sured in units of 30 seconds. This format is used by some Sam-
sung disks. Its raw value will be displayed in the form
'Xh+Ym'. Here X is hours, and Y is minutes in the range 0-59
inclusive. Y is always printed with two digits, for example
'06' or '31' or '00'.
9,temp - Raw Attribute number 9 is the disk temperature in Cel-
sius.
192,emergencyretractcyclect - Raw Attribute number 192 is the
Emergency Retract Cycle Count.
193,loadunload - Raw Attribute number 193 contains two values.
The first is the number of load cycles. The second is the num-
ber of unload cycles. The difference between these two values
is the number of times that the drive was unexpectedly powered
off (also called an emergency unload). As a rule of thumb, the
mechanical stress created by one emergency unload is equivalent
to that created by one hundred normal unloads.
194,10xCelsius - Raw Attribute number 194 is ten times the disk
temperature in Celsius. This is used by some Samsung disks
(example: model SV1204H with RK100-13 firmware).
194,unknown - Raw Attribute number 194 is NOT the disk tempera-
ture, and its interpretation is unknown. This is primarily use-
ful for the -P (presets) Directive.
198,offlinescanuncsectorct - Raw Attribute number 198 is the
Offline Scan UNC Sector Count.
200,writeerrorcount - Raw Attribute number 200 is the Write
Error Count.
201,detectedtacount - Raw Attribute number 201 is the Detected
TA Count.
220,temp - Raw Attribute number 220 is the disk temperature in
Celsius.
Note: a table of hard drive models, listing which Attribute cor-
responds to temperature, can be found at: http://core-
dump.free.fr/linux/hddtemp.db
N,raw8 - Print the Raw value of Attribute N as six 8-bit
unsigned base-10 integers. This may be useful for decoding the
meaning of the Raw value. The form 'N,raw8' prints Raw values
for ALL Attributes in this form. The form (for example)
'123,raw8' only prints the Raw value for Attribute 123 in this
form.
N,raw16 - Print the Raw value of Attribute N as three 16-bit
unsigned base-10 integers. This may be useful for decoding the
meaning of the Raw value. The form 'N,raw16' prints Raw values
for ALL Attributes in this form. The form (for example)
'123,raw16' only prints the Raw value for Attribute 123 in this
form.
N,raw48 - Print the Raw value of Attribute N as a 48-bit
unsigned base-10 integer. This may be useful for decoding the
meaning of the Raw value. The form 'N,raw48' prints Raw values
for ALL Attributes in this form. The form (for example)
'123,raw48' only prints the Raw value for Attribute 123 in this
form.
-P TYPE
Specifies whether smartd should use any preset options that are
available for this drive. The valid arguments to this Directive
are:
use - use any presets that are available for this drive. This
is the default.
ignore - do not use any presets for this drive.
show - show the presets listed for this drive in the database.
showall - show the presets that are available for all drives and
then exit.
[Please see the smartctl -P command-line option.]
-a Equivalent to turning on all of the following Directives: '-H'
to check the SMART health status, '-f' to report failures of
Usage (rather than Prefail) Attributes, '-t' to track changes in
both Prefailure and Usage Attributes, '-l selftest' to report
increases in the number of Self-Test Log errors, and '-l error'
to report increases in the number of ATA errors.
Note that -a is the default for ATA devices. If none of these
other Directives is given, then -a is assumed.
# Comment: ignore the remainder of the line.
\ Continuation character: if this is the last non-white or non-
comment character on a line, then the following line is a con-
tinuation of the current one.
If you are not sure which Directives to use, I suggest experimenting
for a few minutes with smartctl to see what SMART functionality your
disk(s) support(s). If you do not like voluminous syslog messages, a
good choice of smartd configuration file Directives might be:
-H -l selftest -l error -f.
If you want more frequent information, use: -a.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS ABOUT DEVICESCAN
If the first non-comment entry in the configuration file is the
text string DEVICESCAN in capital letters, then smartd will
ignore any remaining lines in the configuration file, and will
scan for devices.
If DEVICESCAN is not followed by any Directives, then smartd
will scan for both ATA and SCSI devices, and will monitor all
possible SMART properties of any devices that are found.
DEVICESCAN may optionally be followed by any valid Directives,
which will be applied to all devices that are found in the scan.
For example
DEVICESCAN -m root [AT] example.com
will scan for all devices, and then monitor them. It will send
one email warning per device for any problems that are found.
DEVICESCAN -d ata -m root [AT] example.com
will do the same, but restricts the scan to ATA devices only.
DEVICESCAN -H -d ata -m root [AT] example.com
will do the same, but only monitors the SMART health status of
the devices, (rather than the default -a, which monitors all
SMART properties).
EXAMPLES OF SHELL SCRIPTS FOR '-M exec'
These are two examples of shell scripts that can be used with
the '-M exec PATH' Directive described previously. The paths to
these scripts and similar executables is the PATH argument to
the '-M exec PATH' Directive.
Example 1: This script is for use with '-m ADDRESS -M exec
PATH'. It appends the output of smartctl -a to the output of
the smartd email warning message and sends it to ADDRESS.
#! /bin/bash
# Save the email message (STDIN) to a file:
cat > /root/msg
# Append the output of smartctl -a to the message:
/usr/sbin/smartctl -a -d $SMART_DEVICETYPE $SMARTD_DEVICE >> /root/msg
# Now email the message to the user at address ADD:
/bin/mail -s "$SMARTD_SUBJECT" $SMARTD_ADDRESS < /root/msg
Example 2: This script is for use with '-m <nomailer> -M exec
PATH'. It warns all users about a disk problem, waits 30 sec-
onds, and then powers down the machine.
#! /bin/bash
# Warn all users of a problem
wall 'Problem detected with disk: ' "$SMARTD_DEVICESTRING"
wall 'Warning message from smartd is: ' "$SMARTD_MESSAGE"
wall 'Shutting down machine in 30 seconds... '
# Wait half a minute
sleep 30
# Power down the machine
/sbin/shutdown -hf now
Some example scripts are distributed with the smartmontools
package, in /usr/share/doc/smartmontools/examplescripts/.
Please note that these scripts typically run as root, so any
files that they read/write should not be writable by ordinary
users or reside in directories like /tmp that are writable by
ordinary users and may expose your system to symlink attacks.
As previously described, if the scripts write to STDOUT or
STDERR, this is interpreted as indicating that there was an
internal error within the script, and a snippet of STDOUT/STDERR
is logged to SYSLOG. The remainder is flushed.
smartd will make log entries at loglevel LOG_INFO if the Normalized
SMART Attribute values have changed, as reported using the '-t', '-p',
or '-u' Directives. For example:
'Device: /dev/hda, SMART Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 94 to 93'
Note that in this message, the value given is the 'Normalized' not the
'Raw' Attribute value (the disk temperature in this case is about 22
Celsius). The '-R' and '-r' Directives modify this behavior, so that
the information is printed with the Raw values as well, for example:
'Device: /dev/hda, SMART Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 94 [Raw 22] to 93 [Raw 23]'
Here the Raw values are the actual disk temperatures in Celsius. The
way in which the Raw values are printed, and the names under which the
Attributes are reported, is governed by the various '-v Num,Descrip-
tion' Directives described previously.
Please see the smartctl manual page for further explanation of the dif-
ferences between Normalized and Raw Attribute values.
smartd will make log entries at loglevel LOG_CRIT if a SMART Attribute
has failed, for example:
'Device: /dev/hdc, Failed SMART Attribute: 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct'
This loglevel is used for reporting enabled by the '-H', -f',
'-l selftest', and '-l error' Directives. Entries reporting failure of
SMART Prefailure Attributes should not be ignored: they mean that the
disk is failing. Use the smartctl utility to investigate.
Under Solaris with the default /etc/syslog.conf configuration, messages
below loglevel LOG_NOTICE will not be recorded. Hence all smartd mes-
sages with loglevel LOG_INFO will be lost. If you want to use the
existing daemon facility to log all messages from smartd, you should
change /etc/syslog.conf from:
...;daemon.notice;... /var/adm/messages
to read:
...;daemon.info;... /var/adm/messages
Alternatively, you can use a local facility to log messages: please see
the smartd '-l' command-line option described above.
The return value (exit status) of smartd can have the following values:
0: Daemon startup successful, or smartd was killed by a SIGTERM (or
in debug mode, a SIGQUIT).
1: Commandline did not parse.
2: There was a problem opening or parsing /etc/smartd.conf.
3: Forking the daemon failed.
4: Couldn't create PID file.
8: smartd ran out of memory during startup.
9: A compile time constant of smartd was too small. This can be
caused by an excessive number of disks, or by lines in
/etc/smartd.conf that are too long. Please report this problem
to smartmontools-support [AT] lists.net.
10 An inconsistency was found in smartd's internal data structures.
This should never happen. It must be due to either a coding or
compiler bug. Please report such failures to smartmontools-
support [AT] lists.net.
16: A device explicitly listed in /etc/smartd.conf can't be moni-
tored.
17: smartd didn't find any devices to monitor.
254: When in daemon mode, smartd received a SIGINT or SIGQUIT. (Note
that in debug mode, SIGINT has the same effect as SIGHUP, and
makes smartd reload its configuration file. SIGQUIT has the same
effect as SIGTERM and causes smartd to exit with zero exit sta-
tus.
132 and above
smartd was killed by a signal that is not explicitly listed
above. The exit status is then 128 plus the signal number. For
example if smartd is killed by SIGKILL (signal 9) then the exit
status is 137.
Bruce Allen smartmontools-support [AT] lists.net
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Physics Department
This code was derived from the smartsuite package, written by Michael
Cornwell, and from the previous ucsc smartsuite package. It extends
these to cover ATA-5 disks. This code was originally developed as a
Senior Thesis by Michael Cornwell at the Concurrent Systems Laboratory
(now part of the Storage Systems Research Center), Jack Baskin School
of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz.
http://ssrc.soe.ucsc.edu/ .
Please see the following web site for updates, further documentation,
bug reports and patches:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
smartd.conf(5), smartctl(8), syslogd(8), syslog.conf(5).
If you would like to understand better how SMART works, and what it
does, a good place to start is Section 8.41 of the 'AT Attachment with
Packet Interface-5' (ATA/ATAPI-5) specification. This documents the
SMART functionality which the smartmontools utilities provide access
to. You can find Revision 1 of this document at
http://www.t13.org/project/d1321r1c.pdf .
Future versions of the specifications (ATA/ATAPI-6 and ATA/ATAPI-7),
and later revisions (2, 3) of the ATA/ATAPI-5 specification are avail-
able from http://www.t13.org/#FTP_site .
The functioning of SMART was originally defined by the SFF-8035i revi-
sion 2 and the SFF-8055i revision 1.4 specifications. These are publi-
cations of the Small Form Factors (SFF) Committee. Links to these doc-
uments may be found in the References section of the smartmontools home
page at http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ .
$Id: smartd.8.in,v 1.46 2004/03/06 19:43:18 ballen4705 Exp $
smartmontools-5.32 2004/07/05 SMARTD(8)