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TankieTanuki

Member

Registered: 2024-11-21

Posts: 5

What is an NVMe mechanism action type? (Determining LBA)

I'm trying to determine my NVMe's physical block size, but I don't understand this error:

# nvme get-lba-status /dev/nvme0n1
action type (--action) has to be given

The manual says:

-a <action-type>, --action=<action-type>
        Action Type(ATYPE) specifies the mechanism it uses in determining the LBA Status Descriptors.

Can someone translate that to simple English, please?

Last edited by TankieTanuki (2025-02-01 01:42:12)

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,557

Re: What is an NVMe mechanism action type? (Determining LBA)

# nvme get-lba-status --help
  [  --action=<NUM>, -a <NUM> ]         --- Action Type(ATYPE) specifies the
                                            mechanism
                                            the controller uses in
                                            determining the LBA Status
                                            Descriptors to return.

Well, this is passed to nvme_get_lba_status

Description
The Get LBA Status command requests information about Potentially Unrecoverable LBAs. Refer to the specification for action type descriptions.

So the specification...

...the specification...

...has hundreds of pages...

...what am I doing reading that stuff at 11pm...

...that took a while to find, NVM Express® NVM Command Set Specification, Revision 1.1, Page 111, Figure 130: Get LBA Status – Command Dword 13, Action Type (ATYPE): This field specifies the mechanism the controller uses in determining the LBA Status Descriptors to return as defined in Figure 132.

Followed by two pages of explanations.

So yeah, I don't know either.