smartctl_exporter

Export smartctl statistics to prometheus

Example output you can show in EXAMPLE.md

Need more?

If you need additional metrics - contact me :)

Create a feature request, describe the metric that you would like to have and attach exported from smartctl json file

Requirements

smartmontools >= 7.0, because export to json released in 7.0

Configuration

Command line options

The exporter will scan the system for available devices if no --smartctl.device flags are used.

usage: smartctl_exporter [<flags>]

Flags:
  -h, --help                   Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
      --smartctl.path="/usr/sbin/smartctl"  
                               The path to the smartctl binary
      --smartctl.interval=60s  The interval between smartctl polls
      --smartctl.rescan=10m    The interval between rescanning for new/disappeared devices. If the interval is smaller than 1s no
                               rescanning takes place. If any devices are configured with smartctl.device also no rescanning takes
                               place.
      --smartctl.device=SMARTCTL.DEVICE ...  
                               The device to monitor (repeatable)
      --smartctl.device-exclude=""
                               Regexp of devices to exclude from automatic scanning. (mutually exclusive to
                               device-include)
      --smartctl.device-include=""
                               Regexp of devices to include in automatic scanning. (mutually exclusive to
                               device-exclude)
      --web.telemetry-path="/metrics"  
                               Path under which to expose metrics
      --web.systemd-socket     Use systemd socket activation listeners instead of port listeners (Linux only).
      --web.listen-address=:9633 ...
                               Addresses on which to expose metrics and web interface. Repeatable for multiple
                               addresses.
      --web.config.file=""     [EXPERIMENTAL] Path to configuration file that can enable TLS or authentication.
      --log.level=info         Only log messages with the given severity or above. One of: [debug, info, warn,
                               error]
      --log.format=logfmt      Output format of log messages. One of: [logfmt, json]
      --version                Show application version.

TLS and basic authentication

This exporter supports TLS and basic authentication.

To use TLS and/or basic authentication, you need to pass a configuration file using the --web.config.file parameter. The format of the file is described in the exporter-toolkit repository.

Example of running in Docker

Minimal functional docker-compose.yml:

version: "3"

services:
  smartctl-exporter:
    image: prometheuscommunity/smartctl-exporter
    privileged: true
    user: root
    ports:
      - "9633:9633"

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting data inconsistencies

smartmon_exporter uses the JSON output from smartctl to provide the data to Prometheus. If the data is incorrect, look at the data from smartctl to determine if the issue should be reported upstream to smartmontools or to this repo. In general, the smartctl_exporter should not modify the data in flight. If the data is missing from smartctl, it should not be in smartctl_exporter. If the data from smartctl is incorrect, it should be reported upstream. Requests for smartctl_exporter to "fix" incorrect data where smartctl is reporting incorrect data will be closed. The grey area is when invalid or missing data from smartctl is causing multiple invalid or incorrect data in smartctl_exporter. This could happen if the data is used in a calculation for other data. This will need to be researched on a case by case basis.

-	smartctl valid	smartctl missing	smartctl invalid/incorrect
smartctl_exporter valid	all good	N/A	N/A
smartctl_exporter missing	issue for smartctl_exporter	report upstream to smartmontools	report upstream to smartmontools
smartctl_exporter invalid	issue for smartctl_exporter	issue for smartctl_exporter and report upstream	report upstream to smartmontools

smartctl output vs smartctl_exporter output

The S.M.A.R.T. attributes are mapped in smartctl.go. Each function has a prometheus.MustNewConstMetric or similar function with the first parameter being the metric name. Find the metric name in metrics.go to see how the exporter displays the information. This may sound technical, but it's crucial for understanding how data flows from smartctl to smartctl_exporter to Prometheus.

If the data looks incorrect, check the Smartmontools Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). It's likely your question may already have an answer. If you still have questions, open an issue.

Gathering smartctl data

Follow these steps to gather smartctl data for troubleshooting purposes. If you have unique drives/data/edge cases and would like to "donate" the data, open a PR with the redacted JSON files.

1. Run scripts/collect-smartctl-json.sh to export all drives to a smartctl-data directory (created in the current directory).
2. Run scripts/redact_fake_json.py to redact sensitive data.
3. Provide the JSON file for the drive in question.

cd scripts
./collect-smartctl-json.sh
./redact-fake-json.py smartctl-data/*.json

Run smartctl_exporter using JSON data

The smartctl_exporter can be run using local JSON data. The device names are pulled from actual devices in the machine while the data is redirected to the debug directory. Save the JSON data in the debug directory using the actual device names using a 1:1 ratio. If you have 3 devices, sda, sdb and sdc, the smartctl_exporter will expect 3 files: debug/sda.json, debug/sdb.json and debug/sdc.json.

Once the "fake devices" (JSON files) are in place, run the exporter passing the hidden --smartctl.fake-data switch on the command line. The port is specified to prevent conflicts with an existing smartctl_exporter on the default port.

smartctl_exporter --web.listen-address 127.0.0.1:19633 --smartctl.fake-data

FAQ

How do I run smartctl_exporter against a JSON file?

If you're helping someone else, request the output of the smartctl command above. Feed this into the smartctl_exporter using the hidden --smartctl.fake-data flag. If a smartctl_exporter is already running, use a different port; in this case, it's 19633. Run collect_fake_json.sh first to collect the JSON files for your devices. Copy the requested JSON file into one of the fake files. After starting the exporter, you can query it to see the data generated.

# Dump the JSON files for your devices into debug/
./collect_fake_json.sh

# copy the test JSON into one of the files in debug/
cp extracted-from-above-sda.json debug/sda.json

# Make sure you have the latest version
go build
# Use a different port in case smartctl_exporter is already running
sudo ./smartctl_exporter --web.listen-address=127.0.0.1:19633 --log.level=debug --smartctl.fake-data

# Use curl with grep
curl --silent 127.0.0.1:19633/metrics | grep -i nvme
# Or xh with ripgrep
xh --body :19633/metrics | rg nvme

Why is root required? Can't I add a user to the "disk" group?

A blogger had the same question and opened a ticket on smartmontools. This is their response. smartctl needs to be run as root.

RFE: add O_RDRW mode for sat/scsi/ata devices

According to function blk_verify_command() from current kernel sources (see ​block/scsi_ioctl.c), O_RDONLY or O_RDWR make no difference if device was opened as root (or with CAP_SYS_RAWIO).

The SCSI commands listed in function blk_set_cmd_filter_defaults() show that some of the smartctl -d scsi functionality might work with O_RDONLY for non-root users. Some more might work with O_RDWR.

But smartctl -d sat (to access SATA devices) won't work at all because the SCSI commands ATA_12 and ATA_16 (see ​scsi_proto.h) are always blocked for non-root users.

What about my NVMe drive?

From the smartmontools FAQ: My NVMe drive is not in the smartctl/smartd database

SCSI/SAS and NVMe drives do not provide ATA/SATA-like SMART Attributes. Therefore the drive database does not contain any entries for these drives. This may change in the future as some drives provide similar info via vendor specific commands (see ticket #870).

smartmontools also has a wiki page for NVMe devices.

How do I report upstream to smartmontools?

Check their FAQ: How to create a bug report.