Bug#1029210: smartmontools.service fails since bookworm

[Harald Dunkel]

Package: smartmontools
Version: 7.3-1+b1

smartmontools.service fails, if there is nothing to monitor. Sample:

root@srvl065:~# systemctl status smartmontools
x smartmontools.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/smartmontools.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2023-01-19 12:06:21 CET; 5h 59min ago
Docs: man:smartd(8)
man:smartd.conf(5)
Process: 13278 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/smartd -n $smartd_opts (code=exited, status=17)
Main PID: 13278 (code=exited, status=17)
Status: "No devices to monitor"
CPU: 36ms

Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Device: /dev/sda, IE (SMART) not enabled, skip device
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Try 'smartctl -s on /dev/sda' to turn on SMART features
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Device: /dev/sdb, opened
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Device: /dev/sdb, [LSI 9750-4i DISK 5.12], lu id: 0x600050e0dce50d007c020000ad720000, S/N: 03019314DCE50D007C02, 137 GB
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Device: /dev/sdb, IE (SMART) not enabled, skip device
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Try 'smartctl -s on /dev/sdb' to turn on SMART features
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de smartd[13278]: Unable to monitor any SMART enabled devices. Try debug (-d) option. Exiting...
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de systemd[1]: smartmontools.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=17/n/a
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de systemd[1]: smartmontools.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 19 12:06:21 srvl065.ac.aixigo.de systemd[1]: Failed to start Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon.


I saw that this is an experimental feature, but I wonder what this could
be good for? IMHO smartmontools should work out of the box, even if there
are no disks, as it does for Bullseye.


Regards
Harri

[Christian Franke]

Possible fix for the package: Add '-q nodev0' or '-q never' to ExecStart
in smartmontools.service.

Workaround for users: Add one of these to smartd_opts in
/etc/default/smartmontools.

Option '-q nodev0' is available since smartmontools 7.3. Then smartd
will exit with status 0 instead of 17 (default '-q nodev') if there are
no devices to monitor. Systemd should no longer report this as a failed
service.

With '-q never', smartd will keep running and does nothing. This was the
default for '-q' in some previous versions of (only!) the Debian
package. This Debian-specific patch was reverted later, see:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1006630

Regards,

Christian
smartmontools.org

[Alban Browaeys]

Even with "-q nodev0" the service ends up in a failed state (but now
with an exit status of 0/SUCCESS)

sudo systemctl status smartmontools
× smartmontools.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon

Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/smartmontools.service; enabled; preset: enabled)

Active: failed (Result: protocol) since Tue 2023-06-13 03:07:54 CEST; 2s ago

Docs: man:smartd(8)
man:smartd.conf(5)

Process: 4072 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/smartd -n $smartd_opts (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 4072 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Status: "No devices to monitor"

CPU: 29ms

juin 13 03:07:54 hercule systemd[1]: Starting smartmontools.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon...
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: smartd 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [aarch64-linux-6.2.0-rc3-meson64] (local build)
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: Opened configuration file /etc/smartd.conf
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: Drive: DEVICESCAN, implied '-a' Directive on line 21 of file /etc/smartd.conf
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: Configuration file /etc/smartd.conf was parsed, found DEVICESCAN, scanning devices
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: In the system's table of devices NO devices found to scan
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule systemd[1]: smartmontools.service: Failed with result 'protocol'.
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule smartd[4072]: Unable to monitor any SMART enabled devices. Try debug (-d) option. Exiting...
juin 13 03:07:54 hercule systemd[1]: Failed to start smartmontools.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon.

My storage as of now is only EMMC and SD. Though at time I can have
external USB HDDs to monitor with smartd.

Cheers,
Alban

[Alban Browaeys]

A way to avoid the smartmontools systemd service to fail is to switch
the Service type from notify to forking. This after adding the "-q
nodev0" flag to the /etc/default/smartmontools smart_options variable.

systemctl edit smartmontools
[Service]
Type=forking

then systemctl daemon-reload
and restart samrtmontools/

Why is smartd of type notify? Does it send notification to systemd via
sd_notify?

Cheers,
Alban

[Christian Franke]

Alban Browaeys wrote:
> Why is smartd of type notify? Does it send notification to systemd via
> sd_notify?

Yes, otherwise this would not appear in systemctl status output:

     Status: "No devices to monitor"

See 'man smartd' for details.

Unfortunately it does not properly work in conjunction with '-q nodev0'
because 'READY=1' is not notified before 'exit(0)' then. Systemd reports
"failed (Result: protocol)" in this case. This will be fixed in the next
release of smartmontools.

Regards,
Christian

[Christian Franke]

Fixed upstream: https://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/5475