Package: smartmontools Version: 7.2-1 Severity: normal Tags: upstream Dear Maintainer,
after upgrading to Debian/bullseye I had to adapt/revert `/etc/smartd.conf`. For Debian/buster I had added a local modification to monitor my NVMe device. While reviewing the config file I learned that smartmontools/smartd is built with `--with-nvme-devicescan` (on Linux and Windows) since v7.0: https://github.com/smartmontools/smartmontools/releases/tag/RELEASE_7_0 So NVMe devices should work out-of-the-box. But I think the man page does not reflect that or is at least a bit confusing on that. Quoting smartd.conf(5): ,---- | In the absence of a configuration file smartd will try to open all | available devices (see smartd(8) man page). A configuration file with | a single line 'DEVICESCAN -a' would have the same effect. `---- So far so good, but quoting smartd(8): ,---- | 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 ATA/SATA or SCSI/SAS | devices. Disks behind RAID controllers are not included. | | If directive '-d nvme' or no '-d' directive is specified, | examine all entries "/dev/nvme[0-99]" for NVMe devices. `---- The default `/etc/smartd.conf` looks like this: ❯ grep "^DEVICESCAN" /etc/smartd.conf DEVICESCAN -d removable -n standby -m root -M exec /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner So the directive `-d removable` is given, which makes the statement above confusing. What about rephrasing the "LINUX" part to: ,---- | LINUX: Examine all entries "/dev/hd[a-t]" for IDE/ATA devices, | "/dev/sd[a-z]", "/dev/sd[a-c][a-z]" for ATA/SATA or SCSI/SAS | devices, and "/dev/nvme[0-99]" for NVMe devices. Disks | behind RAID controllers are not included. `---- And later in smartd.conf(5): ,---- | -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 error' to report increases | in the number of ATA errors, '-l selftest' to report increases in | the number of Self- | Test Log errors, '-l selfteststs' to report changes of | Self-Test execution status, '-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. `---- As none of the Directives above are set in the default DEVICESCAN line, I assume "-a" kicks in which is "default for ATA devices". But what about NVMe devices, is -a assumed there too? As you can clearly see, I have not much knowledge about the internals of smartmontools/smartd, so please bear with me and lets try to phrase the documentation as clear as possible. Thank you very much. Best, - Darsha -- System Information: Debian Release: bullseye/sid APT prefers testing-security APT policy: (500, 'testing-security'), (500, 'testing') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-6-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads) Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) LSM: AppArmor: enabled Versions of packages smartmontools depends on: ii debianutils 4.11.2 ii libc6 2.31-11 ii libcap-ng0 0.7.9-2.2+b1 ii libgcc-s1 10.2.1-6 ii libselinux1 3.1-3 ii libstdc++6 10.2.1-6 ii libsystemd0 247.3-3 ii lsb-base 11.1.0 smartmontools recommends no packages. Versions of packages smartmontools suggests: ii bsd-mailx [mailx] 8.1.2-0.20180807cvs-2 ii curl 7.74.0-1.2 ii gpg 2.2.27-1 pn gsmartcontrol <none> pn smart-notifier <none> ii wget 1.21-1+b1 -- no debconf information
