[smartmontools-support] Smartctl Exit 4 on Megaraid

[Christian Franke]

Haci Monk wrote:
> **
> I am in the process of building healthcheck for our various linux 
> machines (DELL, HP etc) and trying to utilize some of the standard 
> tools to expose physical disk health state. I am a noob on smartctl 
> and trying to understand how it can help here.
> I am encountering exit 4 running smartctl against my DELL machines on 
> megaraid devices. Checking the man page for this return code, it 
> states: “Bit 2: Some SMART or other ATA command to the disk failed, or 
> there was a checksum error in a SMART data structure (see '-b' option 
> above)”
> I am assuming the failure here is because of the “ATA return 
> descriptor not supported by controller firmware”?
> Has anyone experienced this and how to overcome it?
> Platform: Dell PowerEdge R740/R740XD
>
>   * PERC H730P RAID Controller, 2GB NV Cache, Adapter, Full Height
>   * 480GB SSD SATA Read Intensive 6Gbps 512 2.5in Hot-plug AG Drive, 1
>     DWPD
>   * 1.6TB Enterprise NVMe Mixed Use AG Drive U.2 Gen4 with carrier
>
> The full output from scan and query against each device is uploaded to:
> https://pastebin.com/5tcCvyCp
> *$ sudo smartctl --scan*
> /dev/sda -d scsi # /dev/sda, SCSI device
> /dev/bus/0 -d megaraid,0 # /dev/bus/0 [megaraid_disk_00], SCSI device
> /dev/bus/0 -d megaraid,1 # /dev/bus/0 [megaraid_disk_01], SCSI device
> /dev/nvme0 -d nvme # /dev/nvme0, NVMe device
> /dev/nvme1 -d nvme # /dev/nvme1, NVMe device
> *$ sudo smartctl --xall -d megaraid,1 /dev/bus/0; echo "exit code: 
> $(echo $?)"*
> smartctl 7.1 2020-04-05 r5049 [x86_64-linux-4.18.0-394.el8.x86_64] 
> (local build)
> Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, 
> www.smartmontools.org <http://www.smartmontools.org>
> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
> Device Model: MTFDDAK480TDS
> ,,,
> === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
> SMART Status not supported: ATA return descriptor not supported by 
> controller firmware
> SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
> Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.
> ...
> exit code: 4

Should no longer occur in smartctl 7.3, see
https://www.smartmontools.org/ticket/1441