Re: smartd's email notifcations

Sven Köhler wrote:
> Am 09.11.2014 um 19:33 schrieb Christian Franke:
>>> Do I have to specify -U 198 to get emails about offline sectors? The
>>> documentation claims that -U 198 is the default. So I hope I'll get
>>> emails.
>> Yes, but note that the HDD may not set this attribute as expected.
> Do you mean "Yes, I have to specify it to get emails." or "Yes, I get
> the emails without specifying it" ?

The latter. The man page is correct, IMO.


> One of the annoying things is that I can't test my smartd configuration
> (or at least I don't know how) without having a failing harddisk at
> hand, so I rely on the man-page to be as clear as possible.

As usual: SHTDI [1] :-)
https://www.smartmontools.org/newticket


>>> In addition, I want to get an email whenever the reallocated sector
>>> counter increases (that's why I have -R 5!). But until recently, I
>>> didn't have -M daily in smartd.conf and -M once was the default,
>>> apparently.
>> If state persistence is enabled, -M daily is the default since smartd
>> 5.42, see man page.
> Right, I should have specified that I didn't have state persistence enabled.
>
>>>    So I got exactly one email from smartd saying the counter
>>> increased. I never got a second or even a third email, even though the
>>> counter continued to increase.
>>>
>>> So I added -M daily, but the documentation says that -M daily means that
>>> I get daily reminder emails. My interpretation is that once the
>>> reallocation sector count has increased, I get one mail per day forever
>>> - even if it does not increase further. That would be less than ideal,
>>> to be honest.
>> A mail is sent when smartd logs the corresponding LOG_CRIT messages to
>> syslog, but only if the last message of this type was sent more than one
>> day before.
> So when attribute 5 changes within the first 24 hours after the email,
> then I won't get an email at all about the events that happened within
> these 24 hours? Note that I have -R 5!, so to my understanding there
> will be LOG_CRIT messages.

There will be LOG_CRIT messages for each event, but the corresponding 
mail is disabled for 24 hours.


>> This means that daily reminder mails will be sent for error states (like
>> SMART failure, over temperature) which persisted. In case of an event
>> (attribute change), no reminder is sent later because there is no syslog
>> message.
> And if there were syslog message within the first 24 hours after the
> email was sent?
>
> In my case: At 2am today, reallocated sector count increased which
> triggered an email.  I already know that it increased even further from
> looking at the syslog.
>
> So you're saying there will not be another email tomorrow at 2am?

Yes. Only error states(!) which persisted would trigger another mail.


>>> Sure, reminder emails make sense for certain things (like failing
>>> attributed, non-zero offline sector count). But they don't make sense
>>> for other things (like reallocated sector count).
>>>
>>> Is there any way to tell smartd to send an email whenever the
>>> reallocated sector count changes - and only if it has changed since the
>>> last email?
>> No. You need to parse the LOG_CRIT level messages in syslog:
>> "... SMART Prefailure Attribute: 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct changed ..."
> It's a pity that this isn't supported.
>

https://www.smartmontools.org/newticket


Regards,
Christian

[1] https://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI


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