NetBSD/sbin/atactl/atactl.8

.\"	$NetBSD: atactl.8,v 1.23 2008/04/30 13:10:52 martin Exp $
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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, 2007
.Dt ATACTL 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm atactl
.Nd a program to manipulate ATA (IDE) devices and busses
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.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, or
the ATA bus itself.
It is used by specifying a device or bus to manipulate,
the command to perform, and any arguments the command may require.
.Sh DEVICE COMMANDS
The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA devices.
Note that not all devices support all commands.
.Bl -tag -width setidleXX
.It Cm identify
Identify the specified device, displaying the device's vendor, product,
revision strings, and the device's capabilities.
.It Cm idle
Place the specified device into Idle mode.
This mode may consume less power than Active mode.
.It Cm standby
Place the specified device into Standby mode.
This mode will consume less power than Idle mode.
.It Cm sleep
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.
.It Cm setidle Ar idle-timer
Places the specified device into Idle mode,
and sets the Idle timer to
.Ar idle-timer
seconds.
A value of 0 will disable the Idle timer.
.It Cm setstandby Ar standby-timer
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.
.It Cm checkpower
Will print out if the device is in Active, Idle, or Standby power
management mode.
.It Cm apm Bq Ar disable | set #
Controls the Advanced Power Management feature of the specified device.
Advanced Power Management is an optional feature used to specify a power
management level to balance between device performance and power consumption.
.Bl -tag -width selftestXlogXX
.It Ar disable
Disable the Advanced Power Management.
.It Ar set #
Enable the Advanced Power Management feature and set its level to the value #,
where # is an integer within the scale 0-253; being 0 the mode with the
lowest power consumption (and thus the worse performance) and 253 the mode
which provides the better performance at a cost of more power consumption.
.Pp
It should be noted that the effect of the value need not be continous.
For example, a device might provide only two modes: one from 0 to 126
and other from 127 to 253.
Per the specification, values of 127 and higher do not permit the device
to spin down to save power.
.El
.It Cm smart Bq Ar enable | disable | status | offline # | error-log | selftest-log
Controls SMART feature set of the specified device.
SMART stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology.
It provides an early warning system by comparing subtle operation
characteristics to those determined in vendor testing
to precede device failures.
.Bl -tag -width selftestXlogXX
.It Ar enable
Enables access to SMART capabilities within the device.
Prior to being enabled, a SMART capable device neither
monitors nor saves SMART attribute values.
The state of SMART, either enabled or disabled, will
be preserved by the device across power cycles.
.It Ar disable
Disables access to SMART capabilities within the device.
Attribute values will be saved, and will no longer be monitored.
.It Ar status
Reports whether SMART is supported by the device, and whether SMART is
enabled on the device (can only be determined on ATA6 or better devices).
If SMART is enabled, then a table of attribute information is printed.
Attributes are the specific performance or calibration parameters that
are used in analyzing the status of the device.
The specific set of attributes being used and the identity of
these attributes is vendor specific and proprietary.
.Pp
Attribute values are used to represent the relative reliability of
individual performance or calibration parameters.
The valid range of attribute values is from 1 to 253 decimal.
Lower values indicate that the analysis algorithms being used by the device
are predicting a higher probability of a degrading or faulty condition.
.Pp
Each attribute value has a corresponding threshold limit which is used for
direct comparison to the attribute value to indicate the existence of a
degrading or faulty condition.
The numerical value of the attribute thresholds are determined by the
device manufacturer through design and reliability testing and analysis.
Each attribute threshold represents the lowest limit to which its
corresponding attribute value can equal while still retaining a
positive reliability status.
.Pp
If the crit field is
.Dq yes
then negative reliability of this attribute
predicts imminent data loss.
Otherwise it merely indicates that the intended design life period
of usage or age has been exceeded.
The collect field indicates whether this attribute is updated while the
device is online.
The reliability field indicates whether the attribute
value is within the acceptable threshold.
.It Ar offline #
Runs the numbered offline self-test on the drive.
.It Ar error-log
Prints the error log.
.It Ar selftest-log
Prints the self-test log.
.El
.It Cm security Bq Ar freeze | status
Controls
.Dq security
(password protection) features of modern ATA drives.
The security commands are intended to be issued by low-level
software (firmware / BIOS) only.
Generally, the security status should be
.Dq frozen
before the operating system is started so that misbehaving or malicious
software cannot set or change a password.
Older and buggy BIOSes neglect to do so; in these cases it might make
sense to issue the
.Dq freeze
command early in the boot process.
.Bl -tag -width freezeXX
.It Ar freeze
freezes the drive's security status
.It Ar status
displays the drive's security status
.El
.El
.Sh BUS COMMANDS
The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA busses.
Note that not all devices support all commands.
.Bl -tag -width resetXX
.It Cm reset
Reset the bus.
This will reset all ATA devices present on the bus.
Any ATAPI device with pending commands will also be reset.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ioctl 2 ,
.Xr wd 4 ,
.Xr dkctl 8 ,
.Xr scsictl 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command first appeared in
.Nx 1.4 .
.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.
.Sh BUGS
The output from the
.Cm identify
command is rather ugly.