ATACTL(8) BSD System Manager's Manual ATACTL(8)NAMEatactl - a program to manipulate ATA (IDE) devices
SYNOPSISatactl device command [arg [...]]
DESCRIPTIONatactl allows a user or system administrator to issue commands to and
otherwise control devices which reside on standard IDE and ATA controll-
ers. It is used by specifying a device to manipulate, the command to per-
form, and any arguments the command may require.
If the device is specified without a command, the identify command is im-
plied.
The following commands may be used:
identify
Identify the specified device, displaying the device's vendor,
product, revision strings, supported capabilities and enabled
capabilities.
idle Place the specified device into Idle mode. This mode may consume
less power than Active mode.
standby Place the specified device into Standby mode. This mode will
consume less power than Idle mode.
sleep Place the specified device into Sleep mode. This mode will con-
sume less power than Standby mode, but requires a device reset
to resume operation. Typically the wd(4) driver performs this
reset automatically, but this should still be used with caution.
setidle idle-timer
Places the specified device into Idle mode, and sets the Idle
timer to idle-timer seconds. A value of 0 will disable the Idle
timer.
setstandby standby-timer
Places the specified device into Standby mode, and sets the
Standby timer to standby-timer seconds. A value of 0 will dis-
able the Standby timer.
checkpower
Will print out if the device is in Active, Idle, or Standby
power management mode.
apmset power-management-level
Enables and sets the advanced power management level to the re-
quested level on the specified device (if supported). Device
performance may increase with increasing power management levels
at the cost of potentially requiring more power. Values up to
and including 126 allow the device to go into standby mode and
spin-down the disk. This may cause disk time-outs and is there-
fore not recommended. These values are more suitable optimiza-
tion for low power usage on infrequently used devices. Values
127 up to and including 253 do not allow the device to go to
standby mode and are more suitable for optimization for perfor-
mance. Support for advanced power management is indicated by the
device with 'Advanced Power Management feature set' in the out-
put of the identify command.
apmdisable
Disables support for advanced power management on the specified
device. Note that devices supporting advanced power management
may refuse to disable it, resulting in an 'ATA device returned
Aborted Command' warning.
acousticset acoustic-management-level
Enables and sets the automatic acoustic management level to the
requested level on the specified device (if supported). Device
performance may increase with increasing automatic acoustic
management levels at the cost of potentially generating more
noise and requiring more power. Valid values are 0 up to and in-
cluding 126. Support for automatic acoustic management is indi-
cated by the device with 'Automatic Acoustic Management feature
set' in the output of the identify command.
acousticdisable
Disables support for automatic acoustic management on the speci-
fied device. Note that devices supporting automatic acoustic
management may refuse to disable it, resulting in an 'ATA device
returned Aborted Command' warning.
podenable
Allows the specified device to revert to power-on default (pod)
settings after a software reset.
poddisable
Disallows the specified device to revert to power-on default
(pod) settings after a software reset. In other words this per-
mits the settings that have been modified since power-on to
remain after a software reset.
puisenable
Enables power-up in standby (puis) on the specified device,
causing the device to wait while spinning up the disks after
power-up. This may cause problems at boot if the device is too
slow in spin-up. This option is therefore not recommended unless
the implications are understood. Note that the power-up in
standby mode stays enabled over power-downs, hardware and
software resets. Support for power-up in standby is indicated by
the device with 'Power-up in standby feature set' in the output
of the identify command.
puisdisable
Disables power-up in standby (puis) on the specified device,
causing the device to spin up the disks after power-up. This
should be the factory default setting of the device and it is
recommended to leave this setting disabled.
puisspinup
Explicitly spins up the device if power-up in standby (puis)
mode is enabled.
readaheadenable
Enables read look-ahead on the specified device. This may in-
crease performance. Support for and status of read look-ahead is
indicated by the device with 'read look-ahead' in the output of
the identify command.
readaheaddisable
Disables read look-ahead on the specified device. This may de-
crease performance. Note that the device may use 'vendor
specific' behaviour in implementing this, so it is not recom-
mended to issue this command on a disk containing any currently
mounted filesystems.
secsetpass user high|maximum
secsetpass master
Sets password and security level for the specified device. There
are two passwords, user and master, and two security levels,
high and maximum. The maximum password length is 32 symbols. The
security system is enabled by sending a user password to the
device with this command. When the security system is enabled,
access to user data on the device is denied after a power cycle
until the user password is sent to the device with the secunlock
command. A master password may be set in addition to the user
password. The purpose of the master password is to allow an ad-
ministrator to establish a password that is kept secret from the
user, and which may be used to unlock the device if the user
password is lost. Setting the master password does not enable
security system. Each master password change decrements the mas-
ter password revision code value which is displayed in the
identify command output if supported. After value 0x0001 is
reached the next value will be 0xfffe. The security level deter-
mines device behavior when the master password is used to unlock
the device. When the security level is set to high the device
requires the secunlock command if the master password is used to
unlock. When the security level is set to maximum the device re-
quires a secerase command if the master password is used to un-
lock it. Execution of the secerase command erases all user data
on the device.
secunlock user|master
Unlocks the specified device with user or master password. The
device will always unlock if a valid user password is received.
If the security level was set to high during the last secsetpass
command, the device will unlock if the master password is re-
ceived. If the security level was set to maximum during the last
secsetpass command, the device won't unlock even if the master
password is received.
secerase user|master [enhanced]
Erases all user data and unlocks the specified device. Execution
of this command with the master password is the only way to un-
lock a device locked at maximum security level with the
secsetpass command if the user's password is lost or unknown.
There are two erase modes: normal and enhanced. Default erase
mode is normal. In the normal erase mode this command will write
binary zeroes to all user data areas. The enhanced erase mode is
optional and may not be supported by the device. When enhanced
erase mode is specified, the device will write predetermined
data patterns to all user data areas. In enhanced erase mode,
all previously written user data will be overwritten, including
sectors that are no longer in use due to reallocation. This com-
mand will disable the device lock mode, however, the master
password will still be stored internally within the device and
may be reactivated later when a new user password is set.
secfreeze
Prevents changes to passwords until a following power cycle. The
purpose of this command is to prevent password setting attacks
on the security system. After command completion any other com-
mands that update the device lock mode will be aborted.
secdisablepass user|master
Disables the lock mode for the specified device with user or
master password. This command won't change the master password.
The master password will be reactivated when a user password is
set.
Support for the security commands is indicated by the device
with 'Security Mode feature set' in the output of the identify
command.
WARNING
Be very careful while playing with these commands. Loss of the
user and master passwords for the device will result in an inac-
cessible device.
smartenable
Enables SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technol-
ogy) on the specified device (if supported). This causes the
device to record information for prediction of device degrada-
tion and/or faults. Support for SMART is indicated by the device
with 'SMART feature set' in the output of the identify command.
smartdisable
Disables support for SMART on the specified device. Note that
this means that the device will no longer record any SMART in-
formation.
Note that SMART must be enabled while executing the following
commands or the device will return an error.
smartstatus
Reads the reliability status of the specified device. If the
device reports that one of its thresholds is exceeded (a strong
indication of imminent failure), the warning 'SMART threshold
exceeded!' is printed to stderr and a status of 2 is returned.
smartautosave enable|disable
Enables/disables attribute autosave feature on the specified
device.
smartoffline subcommand
Causes the specified device to immediately initiate the optional
set of activities that collect SMART data in off-line mode and
then save this data to the device's non-volatile memory, or exe-
cute self-diagnostic test routines in either captive or off-line
mode. The subcommand may be one of the following:
collect
Start SMART off-line data collection immediately.
shortoffline
Execute SMART short self-test routine immediately in
off-line mode.
extenoffline
Execute SMART extended self-test routine immediately in
off-line mode.
abort Abort off-line mode self-test routine.
shortcaptive
Execute SMART short self-test routine immediately in
captive mode.
extencaptive
Execute SMART extended self-test routine immediately in
captive mode.
Note that executing self-test routines in captive mode causes
the device to be not accessible until the routine completes.
This option is therefore not recommended unless the implications
are understood.
smartread
Reads various SMART information from the specified device and
prints it to stdout.
smartreadlog log
Reads specified log and prints it to stdout. The log may be one
of the following:
directory
The error log directory.
summary
The summary error log.
comp The comprehensive error log.
selftest
The self-test log.
readattr
Displays attribute thresholds and values for the specified dev-
ice. Besides attribute values, device vendors may provide addi-
tional information shown in the last column, ``Raw''. Attributes
names can be completely wrong since they vary between vendors
and even models, so don't rely on it. SMART must be enabled
while executing this command or the device will return an error.
SMART commands and readattr command are for experts only.
writecachedisable
Disable the write cache on the specified device (if supported).
This may decrease performance. Support for and status of write
caching is indicated by the device with 'write cache' in the
output of the identify command.
writecacheenable
Enables the write cache on the specified device (if supported).
This may increase performance, however data still in the
device's cache at powerdown may be lost. The wd(4) driver per-
forms a cache flush automatically before shutdown.
dump Extracts the records about issued ATA commands from the log
buffer. The log buffer is cleared after extraction.
EXAMPLES
# atactl /dev/wd0c identify
Displays the vendor, product, revision strings and capabilities (such as
support for SMART) as reported by /dev/wd0.
# atactl /dev/wd0c smartenable
Enables the SMART support on /dev/wd0 for detection of early warning
signs of device failure.
0 * * * * /sbin/atactl /dev/wd0c smartstatus >/dev/null
In a crontab(5) entry queries /dev/wd0 each hour for early warning signs
of failure. If the device exceeded one of the SMART thresholds, atactl
will output 'SMART threshold exceeded!' to stderr and cron(8) will mail
it.
DIAGNOSTICS
Not all devices are created equally. Some may not support the feature
sets and/or commands needed to perform the requested action, even when
the identify command indicates support for the requested action. The dev-
ice will typically respond with an 'ATA device returned Aborted Command'
if the requested action is not supported. Similarly a device might not
implement all commands in a feature set, so even though disabling a
feature works, enabling might not.
SEE ALSOioctl(2), wd(4)HISTORY
The atactl command first appeared in OpenBSD 2.6. Support for acoustic
management, advanced power management, power-up in standby, read look-
ahead and SMART was added in OpenBSD 2.9.
AUTHORS
The atactl command was written by Ken Hornstein. It was based heavily on
the scsictl command written by Jason R. Thorpe. Support for acoustic
management, advanced power management, power-up in standby, read look-
ahead and SMART was added by Wouter Slegers.
BUGS
The output from the identify command is rather ugly.
Disabling read look-ahead with the readaheaddisable might cause problems
with mounted filesystems on that device.
MirOS BSD #10-current November 18, 1998 5
