smartd_daemon is not running. Manually edited smartd.conf file

[artis1sysop]

I was getting the "WARNING smartd_daemon is not running" and even after unchecking the S.M.A.R.T. checkbox for the drives, I could still not start the S.M.A.R.T. service.

I looked at the console and it was showing "freenas smartd: Configuration file /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf parsed but has no entries"

So I compared the smartd.conf file in the FreeNAS server (let's call "NAS_B") which is empty except for the remarks block

Code:

################################################
# smartd.conf generated by /etc/ix.rc.d/ix-smartd
################################################

...to the smartd.conf file from another FreeNAS server (let's call "NAS_A") and saw that it had entries

Code:

################################################
# smartd.conf generated by /etc/ix.rc.d/ix-smartd
################################################
/dev/ada0 -a -n never -W 0,0,0 -m root -M exec /usr/local/www/freenasUI/tools/smart_alert.py
/dev/ada1 -a -n never -W 0,0,0 -m root -M exec /usr/local/www/freenasUI/tools/smart_alert.py
/dev/ada3 -a -n never -W 0,0,0 -m root -M exec /usr/local/www/freenasUI/tools/smart_alert.py
/dev/ada2 -a -n never -W 0,0,0 -m root -M exec /usr/local/www/freenasUI/tools/smart_alert.py

So I copied the entries and changed the "ada0-3" drive names from the NAS_A conf file to the "da0-3" drive names in NAS_B and saved the smartd.conf file, started the service, and viola! the S.M.A.R.T. service started.

Is this OK? Why are the drives named "ada0-3" in NAS_A but named "da0-3" in NAS_B? Does this have something to do with why S.M.A.R.T. wasn't working until I edited the conf file?

EDIT: NAS_A has the SATA drives connected directly to the motherboard. NAS_B has the SATA drives connected to a Dell Perc controller (but not using hardware RAID)

 

[BigDave]

EDIT: NAS_A has the SATA drives connected directly to the motherboard. NAS_B has the SATA drives connected to a Dell Perc controller (but not using hardware RAID)

"Disks attached to (S)ATA controllers are labeled ada, which stands for ATA Direct Attach. Anything that uses the SCSI stack (including USB Mass Storage and SAS) is labeled da for Direct Attach." @Ericloewe

Does this have something to do with why S.M.A.R.T. wasn't working until I edited the conf file?

Yes!
Is the Dell card been configured for IT mode? If this question does not make sense, read this please.

 

[artis1sysop]

"Disks attached to (S)ATA controllers are labeled ada, which stands for ATA Direct Attach. Anything that uses the SCSI stack (including USB Mass Storage and SAS) is labeled da for Direct Attach." @Ericloewe

Yes!
Is the Dell card been configured for IT mode? If this question does not make sense, read this please.

Thanks for the replies! Very helpful.

I don't know if the Dell card is configured for IT mode or not. It's just the stock server config as shipped from Dell. Any idea how to check the IT mode of the Dell card, and what it should be set to?

 

[BigDave]

I'm admittedly not familiar with those controllers, but try this from the
Secure Shell.

IIRC that is the proper driver (mrsas) used by those cards

Code:

dmesg | grep mrsas

Paste the output here please.

That's not right! I'll find it for you.

 

[BigDave]

From the secure shell type cat /var/log/messages
The results you are looking for are your controller card and driver/firmware, my card is LSI and uses the mps driver.
There is one card in my system, so it shows up as mps0. We need to see which driver your card is running with
so we can proceed. Unless someone can step in and tell us straight up

Code:

Jun 18 10:12:33 dozer mps0: <Avago Technologies (LSI) SAS2308> port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0xdf240000-0xdf24ffff,0xdf200000-0xdf23ffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci2
Jun 18 10:12:33 dozer mps0: Firmware: 20.00.07.00, Driver: 21.02.00.00-fbsd
Jun 18 10:12:33 dozer mps0: IOCCapabilities: 5a85c<ScsiTaskFull,DiagTrace,SnapBuf,EEDP,TransRetry,EventReplay,MSIXIndex,HostDisc>