ATACTL(8) NetBSD System Manager's Manual ATACTL(8)
NAME
atactl -- a program to manipulate ATA (IDE) devices and busses
SYNOPSIS
atactl device command [arg [...]]
DESCRIPTION
atactl allows a user or system administrator to issue commands to and otherwise control devices which reside on standard IDE and ATA con- trollers, 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.
DEVICE COMMANDS
The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA devices. Note that not all devices support all commands. identify Identify the specified device, displaying the device's vendor, product, revision strings, and the device's capabilities. idle Place the specified device into Idle mode. This mode may con- sume 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 consume less power than Standby mode, but requires a device reset to resume operation. Typically the wd(4) driver per- forms 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 disable the Standby timer. checkpower Will print out if the device is in Active, Idle, or Standby power management mode. apm [disable | set #] Controls the Advanced Power Management feature of the speci- fied device. Advanced Power Management is an optional feature used to specify a power management level to balance between device performance and power consumption. disable Disable the Advanced Power Management. 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. 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. smart [enable | disable | status | offline # | error-log | selftest-log] Controls SMART feature set of the specified device. SMART stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technol- ogy. It provides an early warning system by comparing subtle operation characteristics to those determined in vendor test- ing to precede device failures. 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. disable Disables access to SMART capabilities within the device. Attribute values will be saved, and will no longer be monitored. status Reports whether SMART is supported by the device, and whether SMART is enabled on the device (can only be determined on ATA6 or bet- ter devices). If SMART is enabled, then a ta- ble of attribute information is printed. Attributes are the specific performance or calibration parameters that are used in ana- lyzing the status of the device. The specific set of attributes being used and the identity of these attributes is vendor specific and proprietary. 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 algo- rithms being used by the device are predicting a higher probability of a degrading or faulty condition. Each attribute value has a corresponding threshold limit which is used for direct com- parison to the attribute value to indicate the existence of a degrading or faulty condition. The numerical value of the attribute thresh- olds 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 retain- ing a positive reliability status. If the crit field is ``yes'' then negative reliability of this attribute predicts immi- nent 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. offline # Runs the numbered offline self-test on the drive. error-log Prints the error log. selftest-log Prints the self-test log. security [freeze | status] Controls ``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 ``frozen'' before the operating sys- tem is started so that misbehaving or malicious software can- not set or change a password. Older and buggy BIOSes neglect to do so; in these cases it might make sense to issue the ``freeze'' command early in the boot process. freeze freezes the drive's security status status displays the drive's security status
BUS COMMANDS
The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA busses. Note that not all devices support all commands. reset Reset the bus. This will reset all ATA devices present on the bus. Any ATAPI device with pending commands will also be reset.
SEE ALSO
ioctl(2), wd(4), dkctl(8), scsictl(8)
HISTORY
The atactl command first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.
AUTHORS
The atactl command was written by Ken Hornstein. It was based heavily on the scsictl(8) command written by Jason R. Thorpe.
BUGS
The output from the identify command is rather ugly. NetBSD 5.2.2 November 18, 2007 NetBSD 5.2.2
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