Re: [smartmontools-support] smartmontools on Mac OS X, syslog events

[Bill D. <va...@ch...>]

 <cfrees <at> imapmail.org> writes:

> 
> On Wed 11th Aug, 2010 at 16:44, Scott Haneda seems to have written:

> > My issue is with logging...

Sorry I don't have an answer yet, but I'll let you know what I've found...

I also use the smartd from macports smartmontools-port, and wanted smartd to
routinely write to some log file. I'll follow-up with some testing results. I've
got something like debian's smart-notify working for windows, and am trying to
do so for mac os x as well.

The other major shortcoming in darwin-osx seems to be that it does not support
smartctrl --offlineauto=on flag per 
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=26943608
Even with newest 5.41:
$ ./smartctl  --offlineauto=on disk0
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [x86_64-apple-darwin10.7.0] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
Error SMART Enable Automatic Offline failed: Operation not supported
Smartctl: SMART Enable Automatic Offline Failed.

Yet I can boot the very same intel mac from a live linux cd and this works fine:
smartctrl --offlineauto=on /dev/sda

And after rebooting back to mac-os-x it now shows "Auto offline data collection:
enabled" so the setting sticks. Go figure: darwin/osx is an odd bird.

Also, about getting smartd to automatically run after each reboot...
I recall having to do some tweaks so that macports launched smartd correctly via
launchd. You don't have to use the launchctl long-winded command, but, as
port-install now mentions, you can set it up to run as a daemon by just typing:

sudo /opt/local/bin/port load smartmontools

They only remind you once during the install script:
###########################################################
# A startup item has been generated that will aid in
# starting smartmontools with launchd. It is disabled
# by default. Execute the following command to start it,
# and to cause it to launch at startup:
#
# sudo port load smartmontools
###########################################################

Above command really does set up smartd as the startup item on all 10.5 and 10.6
boxes I've tried but see notes below.

BTW I think the port load command works for other ports like mysql, apache, etc.

Somewhat equivalent to this in linux:
chkconfig smartd on, /etc/init.d/smartd start

Originally smartd kept crashing, so ran it with -d and found I had to create
path or fix permissions where darwin-ports smartd wants to write log-like files
namely:

 /opt/local/var/lib/smartmontools

Works on both 10.6-intel and 10.5-ppc boxes I've tested. Now if I can figure out
a way to periodically log to a plain flat text file. I don't trust the new mac
syslog database system: if there's one place you want simplicity, it is the
logging system! And don't get me started on those #$%#+@ plists.

Entire transcript below...

$ sudo /opt/local/bin/port selfupdate

--->  Updating the ports tree
--->  Updating MacPorts base sources using rsync
MacPorts base version 1.9.2 installed,
MacPorts base version 1.9.2 downloaded.
--->  MacPorts base is already the latest version

The ports tree has been updated. To upgrade your installed ports, you should run
  port upgrade outdated
$ sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v upgrade outdated
Error: No ports matched the given expression
$ sudo /opt/local/bin/port  install smartmontools
--->  Fetching smartmontools
--->  Attempting to fetch smartmontools-5.40.tar.gz from
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/smartmontools
--->  Verifying checksum(s) for smartmontools
--->  Extracting smartmontools
--->  Applying patches to smartmontools
--->  Configuring smartmontools
--->  Building smartmontools
--->  Staging smartmontools into destroot
--->  Creating launchd control script
###########################################################
# A startup item has been generated that will aid in
# starting smartmontools with launchd. It is disabled
# by default. Execute the following command to start it,
# and to cause it to launch at startup:
#
# sudo port load smartmontools
###########################################################
--->  Installing smartmontools @5.40_3
--->  Activating smartmontools @5.40_3
--->  Cleaning smartmontools

$ sudo /opt/local/bin/port load smartmontools
$ ps -ef | grep -i smart
  501   143   118   0   0:01.18 ??         0:02.40
/Applications/SMARTReporter/SMARTReporter.app/Contents/MacOS/SMARTReporter
-psn_0_45067
    0  5840     1   0   0:00.01 ??         0:00.01 /opt/local/bin/daemondo
--label=smartd --start-cmd /opt/local/sbin/smartd -p
/opt/local/var/run/smartd.pid ; --pid=fileauto --pidfile
/opt/local/var/run/smartd.pid
    0  5843     1   0   0:00.01 ??         0:00.01 /opt/local/sbin/smartd -p
/opt/local/var/run/smartd.pid
  501  7631  3687   0   0:00.01 ttys001    0:00.01 grep -i smart

By the way, the fellow that wrote SMARTReporter said it's once-per-hour querry
should not 
interfere with any long self-tests since in effect it only does "smartctl -l
selftest disk0" which does not interrupt any tests. That is the way
gsmartcontrol gives a progress bar of the self-test.  The fink gsmartcontrol can
be run on mac os x, at least I got it to run in 10.5. In an X11 xterm window
type sudo /sw/bin/gsmartcontrol