Manpages

SMARTD.CONF

NAME

FULL PATH

PACKAGE VERSION

DESCRIPTION

If the configuration file /etc/smartd.conf is present, smartd reads it at startup, before fork(2)ing into the background. If smartd subsequently receives a HUP signal, it will then re-read the configuration file. If smartd is running in debug mode, then an INT signal will also make it re-read the configuration file. This signal can be generated by typing <CONTROL-C> in the terminal window where smartd is running.

CONFIGURATION FILE /etc/smartd.conf

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 smartmontools 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 'N'92'' as the last non-whitespace or non-comment item on a 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:
#
  /dev/hda -a -m admin@example.com,root@localhost 
  /dev/hdc -a -I 194 -I 5 -i 12
#
# SCSI disks.  Send a TEST warning email to admin on
# startup.
#
  /dev/sda
  /dev/sdc -m admin@example.com -M test
#
# Strange device.  It's SCSI:
#
  /dev/weird -d scsi
#
# Three ATA disks connected to a 3ware controller
#
  /dev/sdb -d 3ware,0 -a
  /dev/sdb -d 3ware,1 -a
  /dev/sdb -d 3ware,2 -a
#
# 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 N'92'
           -l selftest N'92'
           -t N'92'      # Attributes not tracked:
           -I 194 N'92'  # temperature
           -I 231 N'92'  # also temperature
           -I 9      # power-on hours
#
################################################

CONFIGURATION FILE DIRECTIVES

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 additional 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 implemented level: roughly equivalent to using the '-H -l selftest' options for an ATA disk. So with the exception of '-d', '-m', '-l selftest', and '-M', the Directives below are ignored for SCSI disks. For SCSI disks, the '-m' Directive sends a warning email if the SMART status indicates a disk failure or problem, or if the SCSI inquiry about disk status fails.

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 corresponds 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 issuing 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 controller 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 older 3w-xxxx drivers do not pass the 'Enable Autosave' (-S on) and 'Enable Automatic Offline' (-o on) commands 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.sourceforge.net/ for instructions.

3ware controllers are NOT supported under FreeBSD yet.

removable - the device or its media is removable. This indicates 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.

-T TYPE

Specifies how tolerant smartd should be of SMART command failures. 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 Specifications.

[Please see the 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 message at priority '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 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.]

-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 condition where the usage or age of the device has exceeded its intended design life period." [Please see the smartctl -A command-line option.]

-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' Directive 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 specify 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 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.

-M TYPE

These Directives modify the behavior of the smartd email warnings 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 Directives 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/examplescripts/.

The return status of the executable is recorded by smartd in SYSLOG, but the executable's STDOUT and STDERR are directed to /dev/null, so if you wish to leave some other record behind, the executable must send mail or write to a file or device.

Before running the executable, smartd sets a number of environment variables. These environment variables may be used to control 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 contains 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 significance, 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); FAILEDreadsmartsefltestlog (the command to read the SMART self-test log failed); abd FAILEDopendevice (the open() command to the device failed).

SMARTD_ADDRESS is set to the address argument ADD of the '-m' Directive, unless ADD is <nomailer>. This is a comma-delineated list of email addresses (example: admin@example.com).

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 (number 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 system (3) should say what shell is used.

If the '-m ADD' Directive is given with a normal address argument, 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

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/.

-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 annoying 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 multiple times.

A common use of this Directive is to track the device Temperature (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 multiple 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 Temperature (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, --firmwarebug=TYPE

Modifies the behavior of smartctl to compensate for some known and understood device firmware bug. The valid arguments to this option are:

none Assume that the device firmware obeys the ATA specifications. This is the default.

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 smartctl 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 ending in "-23") the number of ATA errors reported is byte swapped. Enabling this option tells smartctl to evaluate this quantity in byte-reversed order.

[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, measured in units of 30 seconds. This format is used by some Samsung 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 Celsius.

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 number 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 temperature, and its interpretation is unknown. This is primarily useful 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 corresponds to temperature, can be found at: http://coredump.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.

N'92'

Continuation character: if this is the last non-white or non-comment character on a line, then the following line is a continuation 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.

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@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@example.com

will do the same, but restricts the scan to ATA devices only.

DEVICESCAN -H -d ata -m root@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 seconds, 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.

AUTHOR

CREDITS

HOME PAGE FOR SMARTMONTOOLS:

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

SEE ALSO:

CVS ID OF THIS PAGE:

Index

NAME

FULL PATH

PACKAGE VERSION

DESCRIPTION

CONFIGURATION FILE /etc/smartd.conf

CONFIGURATION FILE DIRECTIVES

AUTHOR

CREDITS

HOME PAGE FOR SMARTMONTOOLS:

SEE ALSO:

CVS ID OF THIS PAGE: