path: root/sbin/atactl/atactl.8

.\"	$OpenBSD: atactl.8,v 1.12 2002/02/11 18:43:51 mpech Exp $
.\"	$NetBSD: atactl.8,v 1.5 1999/02/24 18:49:14 jwise Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1998 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
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.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation
.\" by Ken Hornstein.
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.Dd November 18, 1998
.Dt ATACTL 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm atactl
.Nd a program to manipulate ATA (IDE) devices
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm atactl
.Ar device
.Ar command
.Oo
.Ar arg Oo ...
.Oc
.Oc
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
allows a user or system administrator to issue commands to and otherwise
control devices which reside on standard IDE and ATA controllers.
It is used by specifying
a device to manipulate, the command to perform, and any arguments
the command may require.
.Pp
The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA devices.
Note that not all devices support all commands.
.Pp
If the
.Ar device
is specified without a
.Ar command ,
the
.Cm identify
command is implied.
.Pp
.Cm identify
.Pp
Identify the specified device, displaying the device's vendor, product,
revision strings, supported capabilities and enabled capabilities.
.Pp
.Cm idle
.Pp
Place the specified device into Idle mode.
This mode may consume less power than Active mode.
.Pp
.Cm standby
.Pp
Place the specified device into Standby mode.
This mode will consume less power than Idle mode.
.Pp
.Cm sleep
.Pp
Place the specified device into Sleep mode.
This mode will consume less power than Standby mode,
but requires a device reset to resume operation.
Typically the
.Xr wd 4
driver performs this reset automatically, but this should still be
used with caution.
.Pp
.Cm setidle
.Ar standby-timer
.Pp
Places the specified device into Idle mode, and sets the Standby timer
to
.Ar standby-timer
seconds.
A value of 0 will disable the Standby timer.
.Pp
.Cm setstandby
.Ar standby-timer
.Pp
Places the specified device into Standby mode, and sets the Standby timer
to
.Ar standby-timer
seconds.
A value of 0 will disable the Standby timer.
.Pp
.Cm checkpower
.Pp
Will print out if the device is in Active, Idle, or Standby power
management mode.
.Pp
.Cm apmset
.Ar power-management-level
.Pp
Enables and sets the advanced power management level to the requested
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
.Em may cause disk time-outs
and is therefore
.Em not
recommended.
These values are more suitable optimization 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 performance.
Support for advanced power management is indicated by the device with
.Sq Advanced Power Management feature set
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command.
.Pp
.Cm apmdisable
.Pp
Disables support for advanced power management on the specified device.
Note that devices supporting advanced powermanagement may refuse to
disable it, resulting in an
.Sq ATA device returned Aborted Command
warning.
.Pp
.Cm acousticset
.Ar acoustic-management-level
.Pp
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 including 126.
Support for automatic acoustic management is indicated by the device with
.Sq Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command. 
.Pp
.Cm acousticdisable
.Pp
Disables support for automatic acoustic management on the specified device.
Note that devices supporting automatic acoustic management may refuse to
disable it, resulting in an
.Sq ATA device returned Aborted Command
warning.
.Pp
.Cm podenable
.Pp
Allows the specified device to revert to power-on default (pod) settings
after a reset.
.Pp
.Cm poddisable
.Pp
Disallows the specified device to revert to power-on default (pod) settings
after a reset.
.Pp
.Cm puisenable
.Pp
Enables power-up in standby (puis) on the specified device, causing the
device to wait with spinning up the disks after power-up.
This may cause problems at boot if the device is to slow in spin-up.
This option is therefore
.Em 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
.Sq Power-up in standby feature set
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command.
.Pp
.Cm puisdisable
.Pp
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.
.Pp
.Cm puisspinup
.Pp
Explicitly spins up the device if it powered-up into standby mode (i.e.
power-up in standby was enabled).
.Pp
.Cm readaheadenable
.Pp
Enables read look-ahead on the specified device.
This may increase performance.
Support for and status of read look-ahead is indicated by
the device with
.Sq read look-ahead
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command.
.Pp
.Cm readaheaddisable
.Pp
Disables read look-ahead on the specified device.
This may decrease performance.
Note that the device may use
.Sq vendor specific
behaviour in implementing this, so it is
.Em not
recommended to issue this command on a disk containing any currently
mounted filesystems.
.Pp
.Cm smartenable
.Pp
Enables SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) on the
specified device (if supported).
This causes the device to record information
for prediction of device degradation and/or faults.
Support for SMART is indicated by the device with
.Sq SMART feature set
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command.
.Pp
.Cm smartdisable
.Pp
Disables support for SMART on the specified device.
Note that this means that the device will no longer record any SMART
information.
.Pp
.Cm smartstatus
.Pp
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
.Sq SMART threshold exceeded!
is printed to stderr and a status of 2 is returned.
Note that SMART
.Em must
be enabled or the device will return an error.
.Pp
.Cm writecachedisable
.Pp
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
.Sq write cache
in the output of the
.Cm identify
command.
.Pp
.Cm writecacheenable
.Pp
Enables the write cache on the specified device (if supported).
This may increase performance, however data still in the device's cache at
powerdown
.Em may be lost.
The
.Xr wd 4
driver performs a cache flush automatically before shutdown.
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Cm # atactl /dev/wd0c identify
.Pp
Displays the vendor, product, revision strings and capabilities (such as
support for SMART) as reported by
.Pa /dev/wd0 .
.Pp
.Cm # atactl /dev/wd1c smartenable
.Pp
Enables the SMART support on
.Pa /dev/wd1
for detection of early warning signs of device failure.
.Pp
.Cm 0 * * * * /sbin/atactl /dev/wd0c smartstatus >/dev/null
.Pp
In a
.Xr crontab 5
entry queries
.Pa /dev/wd0
each hour for early warning signs of failure.
If the device exceeded one of the SMART thresholds,
.Nm
will output
.Sq SMART threshold exceeded!
to stderr and
.Xr cron 8
will mail it.
.Sh 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
.Cm identify
command indicates support for the requested action.
The device will typically respond with an
.Sq 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.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ioctl 2 ,
.Xr wd 4
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
command was written by Ken Hornstein.
It was based heavily on the
.Xr scsictl 8
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.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command first appeared in
.Ox 2.6 .
Support for acoustic management, advanced power management, power-up in
standby, read look-ahead and SMART was added in
.Ox 2.9 .
.Sh BUGS
The output from the
.Cm identify
command is rather ugly.
.Pp
Disabling read look-head with the
.Cm readaheaddisable
might cause problems with mounted filesystems on that device.
.Pp
There is no support for reading SMART logs or initiating a SMART
selftest.
.Pp
There is no support for the Secure Mode commands (in particular the
Security Erase Unit).