smartmontools: uses StartupItems which is deprecated

[cilly@…]

smart should be started this way:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>net.sourceforge.smartmontools</string>
	<key>OnDemand</key>
	<false/>
	<key>Program</key>
	<string>@PREFIX@/sbin/smartd</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>@PREFIX@/sbin/smartd</string>
		<string>-n</string>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

[fracai]

The use of Program and ProgramArguments is redundant. "Program [should be used] if and only if you aren't passing any arguments." from ​http://launchd.macosforge.org/trac/wiki

[mklein-de (Michael Klein)]

Cc Me!

[fluffyarmada@…]

Cc Me!

[fluffyarmada@…]

I'd also like to mention, that besides the issue of using a deprecated method to start the daemon, I'm also having issues caused by the daemon once it actually starts.

Not sure if I should open a separate bug or not. But it looks like smartd is trying to run *often* and failing... here's the output from smartctl -a /dev/disk0 and the output from Console.app...

fluffbook:~ root# smartctl -a /dev/disk0
smartctl version 5.38 [i386-apple-darwin9.7.0] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST9500325AS
Serial Number:    5VE0PAXB
Firmware Version: 0001SDM1
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is:    Sat Jul 25 22:12:04 2009 CDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		 (   0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x73) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					No Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					Conveyance Self-test supported.
					Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
					power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time: 	 (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 ( 139) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x103b)	SCT Status supported.
					SCT Feature Control supported.
					SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   117   099   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       138182619
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   100   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       257
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   070   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       11919135
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       741
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   037   020    Old_age   Always       -       372
184 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   099    Old_age   Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
188 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       78
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   063   057   045    Old_age   Always       -       37 (Lifetime Min/Max 33/38)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       18
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   074   074   000    Old_age   Always       -       53902
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   037   043   000    Old_age   Always       -       37 (0 19 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   048   036   000    Old_age   Always       -       138182619
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
254 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       738         -
# 2  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       713         -
# 3  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       712         -
# 4  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       705         -
# 5  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       705         -
# 6  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       693         -
# 7  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       693         -
# 8  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       693         -
# 9  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       660         -
#10  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       629         -
#11  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       627         -
#12  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       624         -
#13  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       624         -
#14  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       621         -
#15  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       618         -
#16  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       613         -
#17  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       612         -
#18  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       612         -
#19  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       611         -
#20  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       605         -
#21  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       604         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

The above output makes me think smartd might be trying to do something... but failing. :( [ the latest test was one I ran manually to make sure smart was working properly ]

Also, I've been having issues with iTunes, Safari, and friends all freezing up for about 30 seconds or so... and whenever that happens I *always* get the following output in Console.app

7/25/09 7:24:28 PM smartd[229] Device: IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@B/AppleMCP79AHCI/PRT0@0/IOAHCIDevice@0/AppleAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCIBlockStorageDevice, failed to read SMART Attribute Data

These problems completely stopped once I moved the SMART folder out of my /Library/StartupItems/.

[tobypeterson]

using a plist as of r54383

Can't reproduce the issue with hangs though...

[tobypeterson]

Fixed the startupitem, can't reproduce the hanging issue (been running smartd for almost a day now). You should report this issue upstream, I suspect some sort of issue with your specific hardware config.

[fluffyarmada@…]

Thanks for the fix. Strangely, I can't get smartd to cause a hang anymore either. Not sure what the issue is now, but it's not causing me any trouble anymore, so I guess I made out pretty well. :)

[snaury@…]

I'm not sure what it was supposed to fix. I've just upgraded smartmontools, started smartd (it was previously disabled because of frequent freezes), and after some time (something around 30 minutes, just when smartd was expected to check SMART) my laptop (2008 13" aluminium macbook) froze. The log contains this line:

31/07/2009 22:29:07 smartd[87288] Device: IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/SATA@B/AppleMCP79AHCI/PRT0@0/IOAHCIDevice@0/AppleAHCIDiskDriver/IOAHCIBlockStorageDevice, failed to read SMART Attribute Data

And sure enough, smartctl -a /dev/disk0 showed that SMART is disabled on my drive (even though 20 minutes earlier it was enabled). Could it be that the problem is not in the way smartd is started, but something that smartd tries to do to the drive? It seems strange to me that SMART disables itself on its own...

Also, I specifically checked with kill -usr1 and hangs didn't happen. Why do they happen only when smartd is kicking in on 30 minutes timer?

[mklein-de (Michael Klein)]

10.4's launchd doesn't understand the KeepAlive flag, so I had to add the following to the plist:

        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>

Furthermore, all mails sent by smartd have an empty message body. From /var/log/asl.log:

[Time 2009.07.27 20:18:38 UTC] [Facility daemon] [Sender smartd] [PID 33] [Message Test of mail to michael produced unexpected output (85 bytes) to STDOUT/STDERR: ;csh: No $home variable set.;"~/.mailrc": No match.;Null message body; hope that's ok;;] [Level 2] [UID -2] [GID -2] [Host localhost]

To work around this I additionally added

        <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
        <dict>
                <key>HOME</key>
                <string>/var/root</string>
        </dict>