Smartmontools Newer Version

[TheBull369]

Hello,

The current version of smartmontools that ships with PVE has a known issue with certain models of NVMe drive (in my case Micron 2200S NVMe 256GB with a firmware of 2200104). This issue has been resolved in later versions of the package, is there an expected plan to upgrade the current version supplied with PVE to the newer 7.2 release? What will happen with this pairing is after an unknown period of time your drive will no longer be accessible causing PVE to stop working and requires a hard reboot in order to fix.

If anyone can let me know if there is a plan to move to a newer version I would appreciate it. Right now PVE is very unstable for me and can literally crash at any time with no warning.

Thank you

 

[ph0x]

Proxmox 6 is tied to Debian 10 and EOL has not been announced. Considering the Debian upgrade strategy, this might take a while.
Is this issue not fixable with an update of the drive database?

 

[TheBull369]

Proxmox 6 is tied to Debian 10 and EOL has not been announced. Considering the Debian upgrade strategy, this might take a while.
Is this issue not fixable with an update of the drive database?

I am not familiar with how I would fix a firmware - software incompatibility issue with the drive database? If you have some suggestions I am open to alternative solutions. I do know there isnt a newer firmware available for the drive so my options (to my knowledge) are to try to use a newer version of smartmontools with PVE (not sure if it would work or not) or buy a new NVMe hard drive.

Here is a link to the issue I am referring to: https://www.smartmontools.org/ticket/1404

 

[ph0x]

Here you'll find how to upgrade the drive database. If that doesn't fix your problem, you can either try to update the nvme firmware or not use smartmontools. Both is risky and depends on your skills.

Edit: just saw that there is no newer firmware. Hm ...

Edit2: that problem you linked doesn't sound like it could be solved with a drive database update ...

 

[ph0x]

With linux you can always compile software yourself. It's then up to you to apply security updates and integrate it into your services etc.

 

[Ramalama]

Probably best way is to add buster-backports repo and update them with:
apt install -t buster-backports smartmontools

Or if there is no never version, try to install it either from ubuntu packages:
https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/20.04/ubuntu-main-amd64/smartmontools_7.1-1build1_amd64.deb.html
Or from debian bullseye repos:
https://debian.pkgs.org/11/debian-main-amd64/smartmontools_7.2-1_amd64.deb.html

And if you want to revert back, well, install the debian 10 package again?
https://debian.pkgs.org/10/debian-main-amd64/smartmontools_6.6-1_amd64.deb.html

But i didn't tested this all, so I can't guarantee anything....

Cheers

 

[leesteken]

Installing smartmontools from buster-backports wants to update version 7.1-pve2 to 7.2.1-bpo10+1. Maybe consult with the Proxmox developers first before replacing their version with a newer Debian version?

 

[ness1602]

Can you maybe just download .deb file of smartmontools and try dpkg -i *.deb ?

 

[TheBull369]

Installing smartmontools from buster-backports wants to update version 7.1-pve2 to 7.2.1-bpo10+1. Maybe consult with the Proxmox developers first before replacing their version with a newer Debian version?

Still new to Proxmox, what is the best way to consult with them? Does that entail purchasing a support subscription and would the cheapest one work? To my knowledge the only support a non-subscriber has is posting questions in here, and I thought the cheapest support option offered that same solution.

 

[leesteken]

Still new to Proxmox, what is the best way to consult with them? Does that entail purchasing a support subscription and would the cheapest one work? To my knowledge the only support a non-subscriber has is posting questions in here, and I thought the cheapest support option offered that same solution.

Yes, this forum would be a good place. Alternatives would be the PVE-User mailing list, or their Bugzilla, maybe? Mostly, I wanted to warn about the fact that the developers created a Proxmox-specific package for smartmontools. It would be nice if a Proxmox employee could comment (in this topic) whether upgrading it to a non-Proxmox version would be wise.

 

[Ramalama]

Yes, this forum would be a good place. Alternatives would be the PVE-User mailing list, or their Bugzilla, maybe? Mostly, I wanted to warn about the fact that the developers created a Proxmox-specific package for smartmontools. It would be nice if a Proxmox employee could comment (in this topic) whether upgrading it to a non-Proxmox version would be wise.

Correct, an official answer would be great, i didn't seen that it is a proxmox package.

But i think honestly, that thats simply the ubuntu 20.04 package, cause the kernel is ubuntu 20.04 either xD

The only big problem is, what happens if you install it, in case of the other pve package requirements. Normally apt would say, that it will remove all the other packages and replace it with debian ones. That would be a bummer, cause you remove whole proxmox xD
If the apt package requirements isn't a issue, im pretty sure the smartmontools itself would work.

So in short, the only way is probably dpkg -i and not installing it from buster-backports.

But please don't do anything until someone official confirms this xD

Cheers

 

[t.lamprecht]

Sure, we'll update the version of that package. We ship a newer version (7.1) than the 6.6 from Debian Stable, so not much work to do for this update. Currently, there a pretty much no changes from our side, so running the backports version won't break anything - in PVE 5 we had to adapt quite a few things to make it work.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Oh, and in general I'd use apt install ./package.deb (the ./ is important) over dpkg -i, as apt can do dependency handling and asks about installing new dependencies or cries and stops if it cannot work, dpkg has no access to such information, it's only the low level tool, so it does it anyway, but does not pull in new dependencies if any, and may easier result in a broken package state (all fixable, but still just easier to use apt from the beginning).

Further note also that manual download + manual installation means that the package was not verified to come from Debian or us, you'd need to verify checksums yourself to ensure nothing funky interfered with your download. In general, it's better to just add the buster-backports suite repository and install the few packages one wants from that via:

apt update
apt install -t buster-backports smartmontools

 

[TheBull369]

Oh, and in general I'd use apt install ./package.deb (the ./ is important) over dpkg -i, as apt can do dependency handling and asks about installing new dependencies or cries and stops if it cannot work, dpkg has no access to such information, it's only the low level tool, so it does it anyway, but does not pull in new dependencies if any, and may easier result in a broken package state (all fixable, but still just easier to use apt from the beginning).

Further note also that manual download + manual installation means that the package was not verified to come from Debian or us, you'd need to verify checksums yourself to ensure nothing funky interfered with your download. In general, it's better to just add the buster-backports suite repository and install the few packages one wants from that via:

apt update
apt install -t buster-backports smartmontools

Thank you for your response and help. I have run the commands you recommended and will see how it goes. When you do update the PVE version will it autoupdate this one or will I need to something else to get it back on the PVE released version?

 

[t.lamprecht]

When you do update the PVE version will it autoupdate this one or will I need to something else to get it back on the PVE released version?

I used a package version which is slightly newer than the Debian backports one, but not newer than any possible future updates (say 7.3), so you'll automatically get out provided version (which we can easier support) once it gets available without the need for any adaptions from your side.