How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

wroot · 2009-03-02 12:51:01

Hi. My Arch linux "server" is working fine for ~4 years on a simple desktop box. Lately there were no problems with it at all. And i never worried about the hardware state. But now i have to fill out a form once per week about every server's health state. There is no problem with winbox But with linux I'm a bit lost. There is no graphical environment. So i can only use cmd tools, also i can get logs via ssh and open them in my text editor. I know there are such tools like fsck (i use ext3 file system). But to use them my partitions should be unmounted. I dont want to stop or reboot my server, so maybe there is some other way to check this while server is running? Probably not. Then the second question would be what logs should i check and what errors should i worry about. I mean, i can open all these logs in /var/log and i can see a lot of information here, but i just dont know what to look for. What are the common I/O errors showing that something is wrong with my hard disk or file system? Where does fsck save its results?
Thanks

R00KIE · 2009-03-02 15:00:32

I guess if you look into /var/log/everything.log and look for any errors or warnings that may be of concern should be a good start.
Also for hard disks you may want to use smartmontools and keep an eye on health parameters (you can check that with smartctl too anyway).
I guess there must be a way to check mounted partitions for errors, even if that means only reporting the errors and not trying to fix them (even errors that are simple and easy to fix).

Fingel · 2009-03-02 15:24:03

Smartmontools is excellent.
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

wroot · 2009-03-02 15:30:42

Hey. Thanks for the package name! I couldnt find these smart tools. Now i've got it. At least i can check smart state of my hdd now.

The problems with logs is that i dont know how errors look like. If i search for 'error' i can find lots of entries, but i dont know what they mean. Maybe somebody can give me a few examples of hard disk or file system errors?

Procyon · 2009-03-02 15:57:31

hdsentinel in aur gives nicely readable info.

A lot of hard drive failures go undetected by Smart though.

R00KIE · 2009-03-02 17:11:25

Well, I would say that if any error is really a concern to the system then it will make sure that you pay attention to it because something will stop working
You said it yourself, the box has been running fine for 4 years. If anything is to break down then there is nothing you can do I guess. Like Procyon said the hard disk's smart is almost a placebo, it will tell you about the really serious errors, like not being able to read or write but your programs will start complaining about that too as soon as it happens (keep and eye on the reallocated sector count value, if it is not zero and if it's increasing change the hd asap).

Arch Linux

#1 2009-03-02 12:51:01

How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

#2 2009-03-02 15:00:32

Re: How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

#3 2009-03-02 15:24:03

Re: How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

#4 2009-03-02 15:30:42

Re: How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

#5 2009-03-02 15:57:31

Re: How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

#6 2009-03-02 17:11:25

Re: How to check my HDD state (apps, logs)?

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