Re: [smartmontools-support] SMART problems in 2.6.22

From: Adam Spiers
Date: Mon Jul 09 2007 - 19:57:54 EST


On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 08:14:10PM -0500, Bruce Allen wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Jul 2007, Bruce Allen wrote:
> > I'm afraid that there may be some problem with SMART + libata in the 2.6.22
> > kernel. An hour ago I discovered that I missed a month of correspondence
> > (some LKML, some private) about this problem which Alan, Tejun, Jeff, Mark
> > and others copied to me -- it was automatically shoved into one of my
> > mailboxes by my mail client. Sorry about that. So I am trying to catch up
> > to see if there is some real problem or not.
> >
> > Here is a typical bug report that worries me:
> > http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.smartmontools/4712
> >
> > Here is another similar report:
> > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.smartmontools/4713
> >
> > And another report:
> > http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg358354.html
> >
> > From some of the earlier threads that I missed (below) I have the impression
> > that the problem may be a very simple one, namely that starting with 2.6.22
> > one needs to run a command to enable SMART when a box is first booted -- the
> > kernel no longer does this as part of the init/setup of the disks. But that
> > is NOT consistent with the first two reports above, which show 'SMART
> > ENABLED'.

[snipped]

> Here is another similar report:
>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.smartmontools/4704/match=diamondmax
>
> Again, this indicates that SMART is enabled. But it's not clear what the
> kernel version here is. The report indicates that the problem started
> with an FC7 kernel upgrade

That was me, and the kernel in question is 2.6.21-1.3194.fc7. I tried
Jeff's noacpi suggestion, and here is the outcome. I am sure it comes
as no surprise that his patch to support the boot-time parameter
libata.noacpi is not included in this kernel:

Kernel command line: ro root=/dev/vg0/fc-root rhgb selinux=0 nodmraid libata.noacpi=1
Unknown boot option `libata.noacpi=1': ignoring

However, the module option is there:

# modinfo libata
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.21-1.3194.fc7/kernel/drivers/ata/libata.ko
version: 2.20
license: GPL
description: Library module for ATA devices
author: Jeff Garzik
srcversion: 44DAFFD701701A15EB2D574
depends: scsi_mod
vermagic: 2.6.21-1.3194.fc7 SMP mod_unload 686 4KSTACKS
parm: atapi_enabled:Enable discovery of ATAPI devices (0=off, 1=on) (int)
parm: atapi_dmadir:Enable ATAPI DMADIR bridge support (0=off, 1=on) (int)
parm: fua:FUA support (0=off, 1=on) (int)
parm: ignore_hpa:Ignore HPA (0=keep BIOS setting 1=ignore it) (int)
parm: ata_probe_timeout:Set ATA probing timeout (seconds) (int)
parm: noacpi:Disables the use of ACPI in suspend/resume when set (int)

And when used via:

# cat /etc/modprobe.d/libata
options libata noacpi=1

I still see the same problem:

smartctl version 5.37 [i686-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 family (ATA/133 and SATA/150)
Device Model: Maxtor 6L250S0
Serial Number: L50A1B8H
Firmware Version: BANC1G10
User Capacity: 251,000,193,024 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
Local Time is: Mon Jul 9 23:39:25 2007 BST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Error SMART Status command failed
Please get assistance from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
Register values returned from SMART Status command are:
CMD=0x50
FR =0x00
NS =0x00
SC =0x00
CL =0xc2
CH =0x00
SEL=0x00
A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

Regarding Kai's very recent analysis elsewhere in this thread:

> sata_nc has been changed between 2.6.21 and 2.6.22-rc1 and this
> particular smartctl problem may or may not be specific to CK804.

I should note that this particular machine is indeed using that chipset:

00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3)

HTH,
Adam
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