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SMARTD(8) 2010-10-16 SMARTD(8)
NAME
smartd - SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon
SYNOPSIS
smartd [options]
FULL PATH
/usr/sbin/smartd
PACKAGE VERSION
smartmontools-5.40 2010-10-16 r3189
DESCRIPTION
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-7 and earlier standards (see REFERENCES below).
smartd will attempt to enable SMART monitoring on ATA devices (equivalent to smartctl -s on) and polls these and SCSI
devices every 30 minutes (configurable), logging SMART errors and changes of SMART Attributes via the SYSLOG interface.
The default location for these SYSLOG notifications and warnings is system-dependent (typically /var/log/messages or
/var/log/syslog). To change this default location, please see the '-l' command-line option described below.
In addition to logging to a file, smartd can also be configured to send email warnings if problems are detected. Depend-
ing upon the type of problem, you may want to run self-tests on the disk, back up the disk, replace the disk, or use a
manufacturer's utility to force reallocation of bad or unreadable disk sectors. If disk problems are detected, please
see the smartctl manual page and the smartmontools web page/FAQ for further guidance.
If you send a USR1 signal to smartd it will immediately check the status of the disks, and then return to polling the
disks every 30 minutes. See the '-i' option below for additional details.
smartd can be configured at start-up using the configuration file /etc/smartd.conf (Windows: EXEDIR/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.
(Windows: See NOTES below.)
On startup, if smartd finds a syntax error in the configuration file, it will print an error message and then exit. How-
ever if smartd is already running, then is told with a HUP signal to re-read the configuration file, and then find a syn-
tax error in this file, it will print an error message and then continue, ignoring the contents of the (faulty) configu-
ration file, as if the HUP signal had never been received.
When smartd is running in debug mode, the INT signal (normally generated 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-\ (Cygwin: 2x CON-
TROL-C, Windows: CONTROL-Break).
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]", "/dev/sd[a-c][a-z]" for SCSI or SATA
devices.
FREEBSD: Authoritative list of disk devices is obtained from SCSI (CAM) and ATA subsystems.
NETBSD/OPENBSD:
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.
DARWIN: The IOService plane is scanned for ATA block storage devices.
WINDOWS 9x/ME:
Examine all entries "/dev/hd[a-d]" (bitmask from "\\.\SMARTVSD") for IDE/ATA devices. Examine all entries
"/dev/scsi[0-9][0-f]" for SCSI devices on ASPI adapter 0-9, ID 0-15.
WINDOWS NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista:
Examine all entries "/dev/sd[a-j]" ("\\.\PhysicalDrive[0-9]") for IDE/(S)ATA and SCSI disk devices
If a 3ware 9000 controller is installed, examine all entries "/dev/sdX,N" for the first logical drive ('unit'
"/dev/sdX") and all physical disks ('ports' ",N") detected behind this controller. Same for a second controller
if present.
CYGWIN: See "WINDOWS NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista" above.
OS/2,eComStation:
Use the form "/dev/hd[a-z]" for IDE/ATA devices.
smartd then monitors for all possible SMART errors (corresponding to the '-a' Directive in the configuration file; see
CONFIGURATION FILE below).
OPTIONS
-A PREFIX, --attributelog=PREFIX
[NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] [ATA ONLY] Writes smartd attribute information (normalized and raw attribute
values) to files 'PREFIX''MODEL-SERIAL.ata.csv'. At each check cycle attributes are logged as a line of semicolon
separated triplets of the form "attribute-ID;attribute-norm-value;attribute-raw-value;". Each line is led by a
date string of the form "yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS" (in UTC).
MODEL and SERIAL are build from drive identify information, invalid characters are replaced by underline.
If the PREFIX has the form '/path/dir/' (e.g. '/var/lib/smartd/'), then files 'MODEL-SERIAL.ata.csv' are created
in directory '/path/dir'. If the PREFIX has the form '/path/name' (e.g. '/var/lib/misc/attrlog-'), then files
'nameMODEL-SERIAL.ata.csv' are created in directory '/path/'. The path must be absolute, except if debug mode is
enabled.
-B [+]FILE, --drivedb=[+]FILE
[NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] Read the drive database from FILE. The new database replaces the built in data-
base by default. If '+' is specified, then the new entries prepend the built in entries. Please see the
smartctl(8) man page for further details.
-c FILE, --configfile=FILE
Read smartd configuration Directives from FILE, instead of from the default location /etc/smartd.conf (Windows:
EXEDIR/smartd.conf). If FILE does not exist, then smartd will print an error message and exit with nonzero sta-
tus. Thus, '-c /etc/smartd.conf' can be used to verify the existence of the default configuration file.
By using '-' for FILE, the configuration is read from standard input. This is useful for commands like:
echo /dev/hdb -m user@home -M test | smartd -c - -q onecheck
to perform quick and simple checks without a configuration file.
-C, --capabilities
Use capabilities(7) (EXPERIMENTAL).
Warning: Mail notification does not work when used.
-d, --debug
Runs smartd in "debug" mode. In this mode, it displays status information to STDOUT rather than logging it to SYS-
LOG and does not fork(2) into the background and detach from the controlling terminal. In this mode, smartd also
prints more verbose information 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 (Cygwin: 2x CONTROL-C, Windows: CONTROL-Break).
Windows only: The "debug" mode can be toggled by the command smartd sigusr2. A new console for debug output is
opened when debug mode is enabled.
-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 maximum 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 sig-
nal, 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.
(Windows: See NOTES below.)
-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 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/syslog.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 sig-
nal.
[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.
Cygwin: Support for syslogd as described above is available starting with Cygwin 1.5.15. On older releases or if
no local syslogd is running, the '-l' option has no effect. In this case, all syslog messages are written to Win-
dows event log or to file C:/CYGWIN_SYSLOG.TXT if the event log is not available.
Windows: Some syslog functionality is implemented internally in smartd as follows: If no '-l' option (or '-l dae-
mon') is specified, messages are written to Windows event log or to file ./smartd.log if event log is not avail-
able (Win9x/ME or access denied). By specifying other values of FACILITY, log output is redirected as follows: '-l
local0' to file ./smartd.log, '-l local1' to standard output (redirect with '>' to any file), '-l local2' to stan-
dard error, '-l local[3-7]': to file ./smartd[1-5].log.
When using the event log, the enclosed utility syslogevt.exe should be registered as an event message file to
avoid error messages from the event viewer. Use 'syslogevt -r smartd' to register, 'syslogevt -u smartd' to unreg-
ister and 'syslogevt' for more help.
-n, --no-fork
Do not fork into background; this is useful when executed from modern init methods like initng, minit or super-
vise.
On Cygwin, this allows running smartd as service via cygrunsrv, see NOTES below.
On Windows, this option is not available, use '--service' instead.
-p NAME, --pidfile=NAME
Writes pidfile NAME containing the smartd Process ID number (PID). To avoid symlink attacks make sure the direc-
tory to which pidfile is written is only writable 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 arguments 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, waiting 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 automatically start up smartd after installing smartmontools. After starting smartd with this command-
line option, the distribution'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.
showtests - Start smartd in debug mode, then register devices, then write a list of future scheduled self tests to
stdout, and then exit with zero exit status if all of these steps worked correctly. Device's SMART status is not
checked.
This option is intended to test whether the '-s REGEX' directives in smartd.conf will have the desired effect. The
output lists the next test schedules, limited to 5 tests per type and device. This is followed by a summary of all
tests of each device within the next 90 days.
-r TYPE, --report=TYPE
Intended primarily to help smartmontools developers understand the behavior of smartmontools on non-conforming or
poorly-conforming hardware. This option reports details of smartd transactions with the device. The option can
be used multiple times. When used just once, it shows a record of the ioctl() transactions with the device. When
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 followed 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.
-s PREFIX, --savestates=PREFIX
[NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] [ATA ONLY] Reads/writes smartd state information from/to files 'PRE-
FIX''MODEL-SERIAL.ata.state'. This preserves SMART attributes, drive min and max temperatures (-W directive), info
about last sent warning email (-m directive), and the time of next check of the self-test REGEXP (-s directive)
across boot cycles.
MODEL and SERIAL are build from drive identify information, invalid characters are replaced by underline.
If the PREFIX has the form '/path/dir/' (e.g. '/var/lib/smartd/'), then files 'MODEL-SERIAL.ata.state' are created
in directory '/path/dir'. If the PREFIX has the form '/path/name' (e.g. '/var/lib/misc/smartd-'), then files
'nameMODEL-SERIAL.ata.state' are created in directory '/path/'. The path must be absolute, except if debug mode
is enabled.
The state information files are read on smartd startup. The files are always (re)written after reading the config-
uration file, before rereading the configuration file (SIGHUP), before smartd shutdown, and after a check forced
by SIGUSR1. After a normal check cycle, a file is only rewritten if an important change (which usually results in
a SYSLOG output) occurred.
--service
Cygwin and Windows only: Enables smartd to run as a Windows service.
On Cygwin, this option is kept for backward compatibility only. It has the same effect as '-n, --no-fork', see
above.
On Windows, this option enables the buildin service support. The option must be specified in the service command
line as the first argument. It should not be used from console. See NOTES below for details.
-V, --version, --license, --copyright
Prints version, copyright, license, home page and SVN revision information for your copy of smartd to STDOUT and
then exits. Please include this information if you are reporting bugs or problems.
EXAMPLES
smartd
Runs the daemon in forked mode. This is the normal way to run smartd. Entries are logged to SYSLOG.
smartd -d -i 30
Run in foreground (debug) mode, checking the disk status every 30 seconds.
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.
Note that smartmontools provides a start-up script in /etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd which is responsible for starting and stop-
ping the daemon via the normal init interface. Using this script, you can start smartd by giving the command:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd start
and stop it by using the command:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd stop
CONFIGURATION FILE /etc/smartd.conf
In the absence of a configuration file, under Linux smartd will try to open the 20 ATA devices /dev/hd[a-t] and the 26
SCSI devices /dev/sd[a-z]. Under FreeBSD, smartd will try to open all existing ATA devices (with entries in /dev)
/dev/ad[0-9]+ and all existing SCSI devices (using CAM subsystem). Under NetBSD/OpenBSD, smartd will try to open all
existing ATA devices (with entries in /dev) /dev/wd[0-9]+c and all existing SCSI devices /dev/sd[0-9]+c. Under Solaris
smartd will try to open all entries "/dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s?" for IDE/ATA and SCSI disk devices, and entries "/dev/rmt/*" for
SCSI tape devices. Under Windows smartd will try to open all entries "/dev/hd[a-j]" ("\\.\PhysicalDrive[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,
and "/dev/scsi[0-9][0-7]" (ASPI adapter 0-9, ID 0-7) for SCSI devices on all versions of Windows. Under Darwin, smartd
will open any ATA block storage device.
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 messages 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 configura-
tion 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/smartmon-
tools/. For security, the configuration file should not be writable by anyone but root. The syntax of the file is as fol-
lows:
o There should be one device listed per line, although you may have lines that are entirely comments or white space.
o Any text following a hash sign '#' and up to the end of the line is taken to be a comment, and ignored.
o Lines may be continued by using a backslash '\' as the last non-whitespace or non-comment item on a line.
o 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 with-
out 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, six ATA disks
# behind two 3ware controllers, three SATA disks
# directly connected to the HighPoint Rocket-
# RAID controller, two SATA disks connected to
# the HighPoint RocketRAID controller via a pmport
# device, four SATA disks connected to an Areca
# RAID controller, and one SATA disk.
#
# First ATA disk on two different interfaces. On
# the second disk, start a long self-test every
# Sunday between 3 and 4 am.
#
/dev/hda -a -m adminATexample.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 adminATexample.com -M test
#
# Strange device. It's SCSI. Start a scheduled
# long self test between 5 and 6 am Monday/Thursday
/dev/weird -d scsi -s L/../../(1|4)/05
#
# An ATA disk may appear as a SCSI device to the
# OS. If a SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT) layer
# is between the OS and the device then this can be
# flagged with the '-d sat' option. This situation
# may become common with SATA disks in SAS and FC
# environments.
/dev/sda -a -d sat
#
# Three disks connected to a MegaRAID controller
# Start short self-tests daily between 1-2, 2-3, and
# 3-4 am.
/dev/sda -d megaraid,0 -a -s S/../.././01
/dev/sda -d megaraid,1 -a -s S/../.././02
/dev/sda -d megaraid,2 -a -s S/../.././03
#
# Four ATA disks on a 3ware 6/7/8000 controller.
# Start short self-tests daily between midnight and 1am,
# 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4 am. Starting with the Linux 2.6
# kernel series, /dev/sdX is deprecated in favor of
# /dev/tweN. For example replace /dev/sdc by /dev/twe0
# and /dev/sdd by /dev/twe1.
/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
#
# Two ATA disks on a 3ware 9000 controller.
# Start long self-tests Sundays between midnight and
# 1am and 2-3 am
/dev/twa0 -d 3ware,0 -a -s L/../../7/00
/dev/twa0 -d 3ware,1 -a -s L/../../7/02
#
# Two SATA (not SAS) disks on a 3ware 9750 controller.
# Start long self-tests Sundays between midnight and
# 1am and 2-3 am
/dev/twl0 -d 3ware,0 -a -s L/../../7/00
/dev/twl0 -d 3ware,1 -a -s L/../../7/02
#
# Three SATA disks on a HighPoint RocketRAID controller.
# Start short self-tests daily between 1-2, 2-3, and
# 3-4 am.
# under Linux
/dev/sde -d hpt,1/1 -a -s S/../.././01
/dev/sde -d hpt,1/2 -a -s S/../.././02
/dev/sde -d hpt,1/3 -a -s S/../.././03
# or under FreeBSD
# /dev/hptrr -d hpt,1/1 -a -s S/../.././01
# /dev/hptrr -d hpt,1/2 -a -s S/../.././02
# /dev/hptrr -d hpt,1/3 -a -s S/../.././03
#
# Two SATA disks connected to a HighPoint RocketRAID
# via a pmport device. Start long self-tests Sundays
# between midnight and 1am and 2-3 am.
# under Linux
/dev/sde -d hpt,1/4/1 -a -s L/../../7/00
/dev/sde -d hpt,1/4/2 -a -s L/../../7/02
# or under FreeBSD
# /dev/hptrr -d hpt,1/4/1 -a -s L/../../7/00
# /dev/hptrr -d hpt,1/4/2 -a -s L/../../7/02
#
# Three SATA disks connected to an Areca
# RAID controller. Start long self-tests Sundays
# between midnight and 3 am.
/dev/sg2 -d areca,1 -a -s L/../../7/00
/dev/sg2 -d areca,2 -a -s L/../../7/01
/dev/sg2 -d areca,3 -a -s L/../../7/02
#
# 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
#
################################################
CONFIGURATION FILE DIRECTIVES
If a 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', '-s', 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, 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 (/dev/sd?) or character device (/dev/twe?, /dev/twa? or
/dev/twl?) 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).
If an Areca controller is used then the corresponding SCSI generic device (/dev/sg?) must be listed, along with the '-d
areca,N' Directive (see below). The individual SATA disks hosted by the Areca controller appear to smartd as normal ATA
devices. Hence all the ATA directives can be used for these disks. Areca firmware version 1.46 or later which supports
smartmontools must be used; Please see the smartctl(8) man page for further details.
-d TYPE
Specifies the type of the device. This Directive may be used multiple times for one device, but the arguments
ata, scsi, sat, marvell, cciss,N, areca,N, megaraid,N 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 charac-
ter, 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.
sat - the device type is SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT). smartd will generate ATA (smart) commands and then pack-
age them in the SAT defined ATA PASS THROUGH SCSI commands. The commands are then routed through the SCSI pass
through interface to the operating system. There are two types of ATA PASS THROUGH SCSI commands: a 12 byte and 16
byte variant. smartd can use either and defaults to the 16 byte variant. This can be overridden with this syntax:
'-d sat,12' or '-d sat,16'.
marvell - Under Linux, interact with SATA disks behind Marvell chip-set controllers (using the Marvell rather than
libata driver).
megaraid,N - the device consists of one or more SCSI/SAS/SATA disks connected to a MegaRAID controller. The non-
negative integer N (in the range of 0 to 127 inclusive) denotes which disk on the controller is monitored. In log
files and email messages this disk will be identified as megaraid_disk_XXX with XXX in the range from 000 to 127
inclusive.
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 127 inclusive) denotes which disk on the controller is monitored. In log files
and email messages this disk will be identified as 3ware_disk_XXX with XXX in the range from 000 to 127 inclusive.
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 logical 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(8) man page for further details.
ATA disks behind 3ware controllers may alternatively be accessed via a character device interface /dev/twe0-15
(3ware 6000/7000/8000 controllers), /dev/twa0-15 (3ware 9000 series controllers) and /dev/twl0-15 (3ware 9750
series controllers). Note that the 9000 series controllers may only be accessed using the character device inter-
face /dev/twa0-15 and not the SCSI device interface /dev/sd?. Please see the smartctl(8) 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)
commands to the disk, if the SCSI interface is used, 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://smartmon-
tools.sourceforge.net/ for instructions. Alternatively use the character device interfaces /dev/twe0-15 (3ware
6/7/8000 series controllers), /dev/twa0-15 (3ware 9000 series controllers) or /dev/twl0-15 (3ware 9750 series con-
trollers).
areca,N - the device consists of one or more SATA disks connected to an Areca SATA RAID controller. The positive
integer N (in the range from 1 to 24 inclusive) denotes which disk on the controller is monitored. In log files
and email messages this disk will be identifed as areca_disk_XX with XX in the range from 01 to 24 inclusive.
cciss,N - the device consists of one or more SCSI disks connected to a cciss RAID controller. The non-negative
integer N (in the range from 0 to 15 inclusive) denotes which disk on the controller is monitored. In log files
and email messages this disk will be identified as cciss_disk_XX with XX in the range from 00 to 15 inclusive.
3ware, MegaRAID, Areca and cciss controllers are currently ONLY supported under Linux.
hpt,L/M/N - the device consists of one or more ATA disks connected to a HighPoint RocketRAID controller. The
integer L is the controller id, the integer M is the channel number, and the integer N is the PMPort number if it
is available. The allowed values of L are from 1 to 4 inclusive, M are from 1 to 8 inclusive and N from 1 to 4 if
PMPort available. And also these values are limited by the model of the HighPoint RocketRAID controller. In log
files and email messages this disk will be identified as hpt_X/X/X and X/X/X is the same as L/M/N, note if no N
indicated, N set to the default value 1.
HighPoint RocketRAID controllers are currently ONLY supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
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.
-n POWERMODE[,N][,q]
This 'nocheck' Directive is used to prevent a disk from being spun-up when it is periodically polled by smartd.
ATA disks have five different power states. In order of increasing power consumption they are: 'OFF', 'SLEEP',
'STANDBY', 'IDLE', and 'ACTIVE'. Typically in the OFF, SLEEP, and STANDBY modes the disk's platters are not spin-
ning. 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
the disk 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 the disk 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 POWERMODE 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 - check the device unless it is in SLEEP mode.
standby - check the device unless 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 - check the device unless 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.
Maximum number of skipped checks (in a row) can be specified by appending positive number ',N' to POWERMODE (like
'-n standby,15'). After N checks are skipped in a row, powermode is ignored and the check is performed anyway.
When a periodic test is skipped, smartd normally writes an informal log message. The message can be suppressed by
appending the option ',q' to POWERMODE (like '-n standby,q'). This prevents a laptop disk from spinning up due to
this message.
Both ',N' and ',q' can be specified together.
-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 com-
mand 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. This may also be needed for some Maxtor disks which fail to comply with the ATA Speci-
fications and don't properly indicate support for error- or self-test logging.
[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 com-
mand-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 loglevel 'LOG_CRIT' 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 three SMART logs. The valid arguments to this Directive are:
error - report if the number of ATA errors reported in the Summary SMART error log has increased since the last
check.
xerror - [NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] report if the number of ATA errors reported in the Extended Comprehen-
sive SMART error log has increased since the last check.
If both '-l error' and '-l xerror' are specified, smartd checks the maximum of both values.
[Please see the smartctl -l xerror command-line option.]
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 most 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' com-
mand-line option.]
[Please see the smartctl -l and -t command-line options.]
-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 additional matches will be sought
for that device and that polling cycle.
[NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] To run scheduled Selective Self-Tests, use 'n' for next span, 'r' to redo
last span, or 'c' to continue with next span or redo last span based on status of last test. The LBA range is
based on the first span from the last test. See the smartctl -t select,[next|redo|cont] options for further
info.
MM is the month of the year, expressed with two decimal digits. The range is from 01 (January) to 12 (December)
inclusive. Do not use a single decimal digit or the match will always fail!
DD is the day of the month, expressed with two decimal digits. The range is from 01 to 31 inclusive. Do not use
a single decimal digit or the match will always fail!
d is the day of the week, expressed with one decimal digit. The range is from 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday) inclu-
sive.
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) inclusive. Do not use a single decimal
digit or the match will always fail!
Some examples follow. In reading these, keep in mind that in extended regular expressions a dot '.' matches any
single character, 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)
If Long Self-Tests of a large disks take longer than the system uptime, a full disk test can be performed by sev-
eral Selective Self-Tests. To setup a full test of a 1TB disk within 20 days (one 50GB span each day), run this
command once:
smartctl -t select,0-99999999 /dev/sda
To run the next test spans on Monday-Friday between 12-13am, run smartd with this directive:
-s n/../../[1-5]/12
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 min-
utes: the poll times may fail to coincide with any of the testing times that you have specified with REGEXP. In
this case the test will be run following the next device polling.
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 interrupted 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.
To avoid performance problems during system boot, smartd will not attempt to run any scheduled tests following the
very first device polling (unless '-q onecheck' is specified).
Each time a test is run, smartd will log an entry to SYSLOG. You can use these or the '-q showtests' command-line
option to verify that you constructed REGEXP correctly. 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.
If the scheduled tests are used in conjunction with state persistence ('-s' option), smartd will also try to match
the hours since last shutdown (or 90 days at most). If any test would have been started during downtime, the long-
est (see above) of these tests is run after second device polling.
If the '-n' directive is used and any test would have been started during disk standby time, the longest of these
tests is run when the disk is active again.
Unix users: please beware that the rules for extended regular expressions [regex(7)] are not the same as the rules
for file-name pattern matching by the shell [glob(7)]. smartd will issue harmless informational warning messages
if it detects characters in REGEXP that appear to indicate that you have made this mistake.
-m ADD Send a warning email to the email address ADD if the '-H', '-l', '-f', '-C', or '-O' 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 alert types, '-H', '-l', '-f', '-C', or '-O' 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 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.
On Windows, the 'Blat' mailer (http://blat.sourceforge.net/) is used by default. This mailer uses a different
command line syntax, see '-M exec' below.
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.
The following extension is available on Windows: By specifying 'msgbox' as a mail address, a warning "email" is
displayed as a message box on the screen. Using both 'msgbox' and regular mail addresses is possible, if 'msgbox'
is the first word in the comma separated list. With 'sysmsgbox', a system modal (always on top) message box is
used. If running as a service, a service notification message box (always shown on current visible desktop) is
used.
-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 more than one of the following three -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 (one of the following three):
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 previ-
ous interval.
In addition, one may add zero or more of the following Directives:
test - send a single test email immediately upon smartd startup. This allows one to verify that email is deliv-
ered correctly. Note that if this Directive is used, smartd will also send the normal email warnings that were
enabled with the '-m' Directive, in addition to the single test email!
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. The executable is not expected to write to
STDOUT or STDERR. If it does, then this is interpreted as indicating that something is going wrong with your exe-
cutable, 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 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 specified by '-d' directive or 'auto' if none.
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]'. For HighPoint RocketRAID controller,
the form is '/dev/sdd [hpt_1/1/1]' under Linux or '/dev/hptrr [hpt_1/1/1]' under FreeBSD. For Areca con-
trollers, the form is '/dev/sg2 [areca_disk_09]'. In these cases 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 meanings 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.
CurrentPendingSector: one of more disk sectors could not be read and are marked to be reallocated (replaced
with spare sectors).
OfflineUncorrectableSector: during off-line testing, or self-testing, one or more disk sectors could not be
read.
Temperature: Temperature reached critical limit (see -W directive).
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.
FailedReadSmartSelfTestLog: the command to read the SMART self-test log failed.
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:adminATexample.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 one sentence summary 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_FULLMESSAGE
is set to the contents of the entire email warning message string from smartd. This message string contains
space and return characters and is NOT quoted. So to use $SMARTD_FULLMESSAGE in a bash script you should prob-
ably enclose it in double quotes.
SMARTD_TFIRST
is a text string giving the time and date at which the first problem of this type was reported. This text
string contains space characters and no newlines, and is NOT quoted. For example:
Sun Feb 9 14:58:19 2003 CST
SMARTD_TFIRSTEPOCH
is an integer, which is the unix epoch (number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970) for SMARTD_TFIRST.
The shell which is used to run PATH is system-dependent. For vanilla Linux/glibc it's bash. For other systems, the
man page for popen(3) should say what shell is used.
If the '-m ADD' Directive is given with a normal address argument, then the executable pointed to by PATH will be
run in a shell with STDIN receiving the body of the email message, and with the same command-line arguments:
-s "$SMARTD_SUBJECT" $SMARTD_ADDRESS
that would normally be provided to 'mail'. Examples include:
-m user@home -M exec /bin/mail
-m admin@work -M exec /usr/local/bin/mailto
-m root -M exec /Example_1/bash/script/below
Note that on Windows, the syntax of the 'Blat' mailer is used:
- -q -subject "$SMARTD_SUBJECT" -to "$SMARTD_ADDRESS"
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 condition where the usage or age of the device has
exceeded its intended design life period." [Please see the smartctl -A command-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 Pre-
failure 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).
If the optional flag '!' is appended, a change of the Normalized value is considered critical. The report will be
logged as LOG_CRIT and a warning email will be sent if '-m' is specified.
-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.
If the optional flag '!' is appended, a change of the Raw value is considered critical. The report will be logged
as LOG_CRIT and a warning email will be sent if '-m' is specified. An example is '-R 5!' to warn when new sectors
are reallocated.
-C ID[+]
[ATA only] Report if the current number of pending sectors is non-zero. Here ID is the id number of the Attribute
whose raw value is the Current Pending Sector count. The allowed range of ID is 0 to 255 inclusive. To turn off
this reporting, use ID = 0. If the -C ID option is not given, then it defaults to -C 197 (since Attribute 197 is
generally used to monitor pending sectors). If the name of this Attribute is changed by a '-v 197,FORMAT,NAME'
directive, the default is changed to -C 0.
If '+' is specified, a report is only printed if the number of sectors has increased between two check cycles.
Some disks do not reset this attribute when a bad sector is reallocated. See also '-v 197,increasing' below.
A pending sector is a disk sector (containing 512 bytes of your data) which the device would like to mark as
``bad" and reallocate. Typically this is because your computer tried to read that sector, and the read failed
because the data on it has been corrupted and has inconsistent Error Checking and Correction (ECC) codes. This is
important to know, because it means that there is some unreadable data on the disk. The problem of figuring out
what file this data belongs to is operating system and file system specific. You can typically force the sector
to reallocate by writing to it (translation: make the device substitute a spare good sector for the bad one) but
at the price of losing the 512 bytes of data stored there.
-U ID[+]
[ATA only] Report if the number of offline uncorrectable sectors is non-zero. Here ID is the id number of the
Attribute whose raw value is the Offline Uncorrectable Sector count. The allowed range of ID is 0 to 255 inclu-
sive. To turn off this reporting, use ID = 0. If the -U ID option is not given, then it defaults to -U 198
(since Attribute 198 is generally used to monitor offline uncorrectable sectors). If the name of this Attribute
is changed by a '-v 198,FORMAT,NAME' (except '-v 198,FORMAT,Offline_Scan_UNC_SectCt'), directive, the default is
changed to -U 0.
If '+' is specified, a report is only printed if the number of sectors has increased since the last check cycle.
Some disks do not reset this attribute when a bad sector is reallocated. See also '-v 198,increasing' below.
An offline uncorrectable sector is a disk sector which was not readable during an off-line scan or a self-test.
This is important to know, because if you have data stored in this disk sector, and you need to read it, the read
will fail. Please see the previous '-C' option for more details.
-W DIFF[,INFO[,CRIT]]
Report if the current temperature had changed by at least DIFF degrees since last report, or if new min or max
temperature is detected. Report or Warn if the temperature is greater or equal than one of INFO or CRIT degrees
Celsius. If the limit CRIT is reached, a message with loglevel 'LOG_CRIT' will be logged to syslog and a warning
email will be send if '-m' is specified. If only the limit INFO is reached, a message with loglevel 'LOG_INFO'
will be logged.
If this directive is used in conjunction with state persistence ('-s' option), the min and max temperature values
are preserved across boot cycles. The minimum temperature value is not updated during the first 30 minutes after
startup.
To disable any of the 3 reports, set the corresponding limit to 0. Trailing zero arguments may be omitted. By
default, all temperature reports are disabled ('-W 0').
To track temperature changes of at least 2 degrees, use:
-W 2
To log informal messages on temperatures of at least 40 degrees, use:
-W 0,40
For warning messages/mails on temperatures of at least 45 degrees, use:
-W 0,0,45
To combine all of the above reports, use:
-W 2,40,45
For ATA devices, smartd interprets Attribute 194 as Temperature Celsius by default. This can be changed to
Attribute 9 or 220 by the drive database or by the '-v' directive, see below.
-F TYPE
[ATA only] 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 specifications. 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 some Samsung disks the number of ATA errors reported is byte swapped. Enabling this option tells
smartd to evaluate this quantity in byte-reversed order.
samsung3 - Some Samsung disks (at least SP2514N with Firmware VF100-37) report a self-test still in progress with
0% remaining when the test was already completed. If this directive is specified, smartd will not skip the next
scheduled self-test (see Directive '-s' above) in this case.
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 ID,FORMAT[:BYTEORDER][,NAME]
[ATA only] Sets a vendor-specific raw value print FORMAT, an optional BYTEORDER and an optional NAME for Attribute
ID. This directive may be used multiple times. Please see smartctl -v command-line option for further details.
The following arguments affect smartd warning output:
197,increasing - Raw Attribute number 197 (Current Pending Sector Count) is not reset if uncorrectable sectors are
reallocated. This sets '-C 197+' if no other '-C' directive is specified.
198,increasing - Raw Attribute number 198 (Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count) is not reset if uncorrectable sec-
tor are reallocated. This sets '-U 198+' if no other '-U' directive is specified.
-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, '-l error' to report increases in the
number of ATA errors, '-C 197' to report nonzero values of the current pending sector count, and '-U 198' to
report nonzero values of the offline pending sector count.
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 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 configura-
tion file Directives might be:
-H -l selftest -l error -f.
If you want more frequent information, use: -a.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS ABOUT DEVICESCAN
If a 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.
[NEW EXPERIMENTAL SMARTD FEATURE] Configuration entries for devices not found by the platform-specific device
scanning may precede the DEVICESCAN entry.
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 rootATexample.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 rootATexample.com
will do the same, but restricts the scan to ATA devices only.
DEVICESCAN -H -d ata -m rootATexample.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/example-
scripts/.
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.
NOTES
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,Description' Directives described pre-
viously.
Please see the smartctl manual page for further explanation of the differences between Normalized and Raw Attribute val-
ues.
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 report-
ing 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 messages 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.
On Cygwin and Windows, the log messages are written to the event log or to a file. See documentation of the '-l FACILITY'
option above for details.
On Windows, the following built-in commands can be used to control smartd, if running as a daemon:
'smartd status' - check status
'smartd stop' - stop smartd
'smartd reload' - reread config file
'smartd restart' - restart smartd
'smartd sigusr1' - check disks now
'smartd sigusr2' - toggle debug mode
On WinNT4/2000/XP, smartd can also be run as a Windows service:
The Cygwin Version of smartd can be run as a service via the cygrunsrv tool. The start-up script provides Cygwin-specific
commands to install and remove the service:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd install [options]
/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd remove
The service can be started and stopped by the start-up script as usual (see EXAMPLES above).
The Windows Version of smartd has buildin support for services:
'smartd install [options]' installs a service named "smartd" (display name "SmartD Service") using the command line
'/installpath/smartd.exe --service [options]'.
'smartd remove' can later be used to remove the service entry from registry.
Upon startup, the smartd service changes the working directory to its own installation path. If smartd.conf and blat.exe
are stored in this directory, no '-c' option and '-M exec' directive is needed.
The debug mode ('-d', '-q onecheck') does not work if smartd is running as service.
The service can be controlled as usual with Windows commands 'net' or 'sc' ('net start smartd', 'net stop smartd').
Pausing the service ('net pause smartd') sets the interval between disk checks ('-i N') to infinite.
Continuing the paused service ('net continue smartd') resets the interval and rereads the configuration file immediately
(like SIGHUP):
Continuing a still running service ('net continue smartd' without preceding 'net pause smartd') does not reread configu-
ration but checks disks immediately (like SIGUSR1).
LOG TIMESTAMP TIMEZONE
When smartd makes log entries, these are time-stamped. The time stamps are in the computer's local time zone, which is
generally set using either the environment variable 'TZ' or using a time-zone file such as /etc/localtime. You may wish
to change the timezone while smartd is running (for example, if you carry a laptop to a new time-zone and don't reboot
it). Due to a bug in the tzset(3) function of many unix standard C libraries, the time-zone stamps of smartd might not
change. For some systems, smartd will work around this problem if the time-zone is set using /etc/localtime. The work-
around fails if the time-zone is set using the 'TZ' variable (or a file that it points to).
RETURN VALUES
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 syntax error in the config file.
3: Forking the daemon failed.
4: Couldn't create PID file.
5: Config file does not exist (only returned in conjunction with the '-c' option).
6: Config file exists, but cannot be read.
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-supportATlists.source-
forge.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-supportATlists.net.
16: A device explicitly listed in /etc/smartd.conf can't be monitored.
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 status.
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.
AUTHOR
Bruce Allen smartmontools-supportATlists.net
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Physics Department
CONTRIBUTORS
The following have made large contributions to smartmontools:
Casper Dik (Solaris SCSI interface)
Christian Franke (Windows interface, C++ redesign, USB support, ...)
Douglas Gilbert (SCSI subsystem)
Guido Guenther (Autoconf/Automake packaging)
Geoffrey Keating (Darwin ATA interface)
Eduard Martinescu (FreeBSD interface)
Frederic L. W. Meunier (Web site and Mailing list)
Gabriele Pohl (Web site and Wiki, conversion from CVS to SVN)
Keiji Sawada (Solaris ATA interface)
Manfred Schwarb (Drive database)
Sergey Svishchev (NetBSD interface)
David Snyder and Sergey Svishchev (OpenBSD interface)
Phil Williams (User interface and drive database)
Shengfeng Zhou (Linux/FreeBSD HighPoint RocketRAID interface)
Many other individuals have made smaller contributions and corrections.
CREDITS
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 Corn-
well at the Concurrent Systems Laboratory (now part of the Storage Systems Research Center), Jack Baskin School of Engi-
neering, University of California, Santa Cruz. http://ssrc.soe.ucsc.edu/ .
HOME PAGE FOR SMARTMONTOOLS:
Please see the following web site for updates, further documentation, bug reports and patches: http://smartmon-
tools.sourceforge.net/
SEE ALSO:
smartd.conf(5), smartctl(8), syslogd(8), syslog.conf(5), badblocks(8), ide-smart(8), regex(7).
REFERENCES FOR SMART
An introductory article about smartmontools is Monitoring Hard Disks with SMART, by Bruce Allen, Linux Journal, January
2004, pages 74-77. This is http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983 online.
If you would like to understand better how SMART works, and what it does, a good place to start is with Sections 4.8 and
6.54 of the first volume of the 'AT Attachment with Packet Interface-7' (ATA/ATAPI-7) specification Revision 4b. This
documents the SMART functionality which the smartmontools utilities provide access to. This and other versions of this
Specification are available from the T13 web site http://www.t13.org/ .
The functioning of SMART was originally defined by the SFF-8035i revision 2 and the SFF-8055i revision 1.4 specifica-
tions. These are publications of the Small Form Factors (SFF) Committee.
Links to these and other documents may be found on the Links page of the smartmontools Wiki at http://source-
forge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/Links .
SVN ID OF THIS PAGE:
$Id: smartd.8.in 3186 2010-10-16 13:09:11Z chrfranke $
smartmontools-5.40 2010-10-16 SMARTD(8)
