Your opinion about smartmontools persistent logs

[stormi]

Hello.

smartmontools, which is installed by default, can populate the /var/lib/smartmontools directory if it exists, but won't if it doesn't. Someone suggested, via https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/issues/137, that we create it automatically at initial installation (which means that I'd probably also create it in next update because I prefer installed systems and updated systems not to diverge).

I think it's a good idea but I want to have your input first, because I may be missing some parts of the puzzle (adverse effects).

So, what do you think? And should we logrotate the files to avoid them to grow too much?

jotihojr created this issue in xcp-ng/xcp

open Enable smartmontools logging by default #137

[maxcuttins]

It seems to be a good idea.

My only concern was about logrotate, but I see you have already take it into account.
Than perfect.

[stormi]

I'm not sure smartd likes having its files logrotated though, since it relies on that data to issue warnings.

[borzel]

Yes, cool idea. Logrotate++

[stormi]

So, XCP-ng 8.0 is approaching, beta is already there, and I need to decide about this enhancement request.

Anyone knows enough about smartmontools to ensure us that there's no adverse effect in making smartd output report logs?

And also: I'm looking for volunteers to test this during all the beta phase (and you know I need to be watched over when I touch logrotate configuration!)

[cg]

From my admin-view:
I wonder about the benefits of that (and if work shouldn't be put into other usefull things). If no monitoring is connected / some autonotify via E-Mail or such, to me it's rather useless. I don't really care since when a device is broken, when it already happened $somewhen ago - I need ASAP notify of it, when it happens. Like some health monitoring for XCP, however realized (via XenCenter, central Mail service, SNMP, Nagios/Montoring plugins...)