How to configure smartd and be notified of hard disk problems via email - LinuxConfig.org

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We will talk about the smartd daemon: we will see how to schedule tests and how to configure it to so to be notified via email when an error is found on a storage device. In the course of the article I will assume the smartmontools package to be already installed. Please refer to the aforementioned article for installation instructions. This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-configure-smartd-and-be-notified-of-hard-disk-problems-via-email
2

I followed the guide and msmtp is working; however, email alerts from smartd aren’t working. Any advice?

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Hi Discipulus,

Welcome to our forums.

Do you see any relevant error messages in the logfiles?

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Have the same problem… I can use msmtp from the command line fine. So I know it is setup right with the email account I configured for its use. The /var/log/msmtp.log, only shows the successful test from the command line. It does not appear that smartd even tried to invoke msmtp. The smartd log from systemctl/journalctl shows no errors, only report successful send of mail. So where else should I look for what really happened?

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Hi Nodi.Rubrum,

Welcome to our forums.

So your smartd journal shows successful mail send, does that relate to the command line test, or the mail that actually never arrived?

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The smartd service reported success, but it was a false report. The mail as never generated or sent. I back-tracked the issue to the fact that mail or mailx was not sending mail to an external source as directed. I installed msmtp, and then rewrote the smartd-runner script to call msmtp correctly and with the correct parameter order that msmtp needs versus the default the smartmontools (smartd) attempts on Debian 10. Not only is smartmontools staged a bit different than other distros (different paths and different dependencies) for Debian via the package creator decision, but deviates from the common use of notification via the runner script.

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Ah yes, the beauty of different distros using different paths, package names, config files, service names… The list is long and quite chaotic sometimes.

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Mind sharing your smartd-runner script? I can’t seem to get mine running and believe I have the same problem

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Sure…

# cat /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner
#!/bin/bash -e
tmp=$(tempfile)
cat >$tmp
run-parts --report --lsbsysinit --arg=$tmp --arg="$1" \
    --arg="$2" --arg="$3" -- /etc/smartmontools/run.d
rm -f $tmp

Basically mail or mailx use a different command line parameters set, than msmtp, I happen to have msmtp available so just changed the script to be compatible with msmtp.

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Thank you for this nice tutorial. Unfortunately, I get the following error after starting smartd.

XXX@Server:~$ sudo service smartd status
● smartmontools.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/smartmontools.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2023-09-08 19:11:56 CEST; 3s ago
       Docs: man:smartd(8)
             man:smartd.conf(5)
   Main PID: 3188108 (smartd)
     Status: "Next check of 6 devices will start at 19:21:56"
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 76951)
     Memory: 1.9M
     CGroup: /system.slice/smartmontools.service
             └─3188108 /usr/sbin/smartd -n --interval=600 -A /var/log/smartd/

Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Test of <mail> to XXX@googlemail.com produced unexpected output (65 bytes) to STDOUT/STDERR:
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: mail: cannot send message: Process exited with a non-zero status
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Test of <mail> to XXXX@googlemail.com: failed (32-bit/8-bit exit status: 9216/36)
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD60EZRX_00MVLB1-WD_WX11D557YXL8.ata.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/sdb [SAT], state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD60EFRX_68L0BN1-WD_WX31D8815CKJ.ata.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/sdc [SAT], state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD60EZRX_00MVLB1-WD_WX21D84PDY2J.ata.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/sdd [SAT], state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD60EFRX_68L0BN1-WD_WX31D8815UDZ.ata.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/nvme0, state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.INTEL_SSDPED1D280GA-PHMB73920175280CGN.nvme.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server smartd[3188108]: Device: /dev/nvme1, state written to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.INTEL_SSDPEKKW128G8-BTHH95101JMM128A.nvme.state
Sep 08 19:11:56 Server systemd[1]: Started Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon.