ATACTL(8)               NetBSD System Manager's Manual               ATACTL(8)

NAME
     atactl -- a program to manipulate ATA (IDE) devices and busses

SYNOPSIS
     atactl device command [arg [...]]

DESCRIPTION
     atactl allows a user or system administrator to issue commands to and
     otherwise control devices which reside on standard IDE and ATA con-
     trollers, or the ATA bus itself.  It is used by specifying a device or
     bus to manipulate, the command to perform, and any arguments the command
     may require.

DEVICE COMMANDS
     The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA devices.  Note that not
     all devices support all commands.

     identify   Identify the specified device, displaying the device's vendor,
                product, revision strings, and the device's capabilities.

     idle       Place the specified device into Idle mode.  This mode may con-
                sume less power than Active mode.

     standby    Place the specified device into Standby mode.  This mode will
                consume less power than Idle mode.

     sleep      Place the specified device into Sleep mode.  This mode will
                consume less power than Standby mode, but requires a device
                reset to resume operation.  Typically the wd(4) driver per-
                forms this reset automatically, but this should still be used
                with caution.

     setidle idle-timer
                Places the specified device into Idle mode, and sets the Idle
                timer to idle-timer seconds.  A value of 0 will disable the
                Idle timer.

     setstandby standby-timer
                Places the specified device into Standby mode, and sets the
                Standby timer to standby-timer seconds.  A value of 0 will
                disable the Standby timer.

     checkpower
                Will print out if the device is in Active, Idle, or Standby
                power management mode.

     apm [disable | set #]
                Controls the Advanced Power Management feature of the speci-
                fied device.  Advanced Power Management is an optional feature
                used to specify a power management level to balance between
                device performance and power consumption.

                disable         Disable the Advanced Power Management.

                set #           Enable the Advanced Power Management feature
                                and set its level to the value #, where # is
                                an integer within the scale 0-253; being 0 the
                                mode with the lowest power consumption (and
                                thus the worse performance) and 253 the mode
                                which provides the better performance at a
                                cost of more power consumption.

                                It should be noted that the effect of the
                                value need not be continous.  For example, a
                                device might provide only two modes: one from
                                0 to 126 and other from 127 to 253.  Per the
                                specification, values of 127 and higher do not
                                permit the device to spin down to save power.

     smart [enable | disable | status | offline # | error-log | selftest-log]
                Controls SMART feature set of the specified device.  SMART
                stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technol-
                ogy.  It provides an early warning system by comparing subtle
                operation characteristics to those determined in vendor test-
                ing to precede device failures.

                enable          Enables access to SMART capabilities within
                                the device.  Prior to being enabled, a SMART
                                capable device neither monitors nor saves
                                SMART attribute values.  The state of SMART,
                                either enabled or disabled, will be preserved
                                by the device across power cycles.

                disable         Disables access to SMART capabilities within
                                the device.  Attribute values will be saved,
                                and will no longer be monitored.

                status          Reports whether SMART is supported by the
                                device, and whether SMART is enabled on the
                                device (can only be determined on ATA6 or bet-
                                ter devices).  If SMART is enabled, then a ta-
                                ble of attribute information is printed.
                                Attributes are the specific performance or
                                calibration parameters that are used in ana-
                                lyzing the status of the device.  The specific
                                set of attributes being used and the identity
                                of these attributes is vendor specific and
                                proprietary.

                                Attribute values are used to represent the
                                relative reliability of individual performance
                                or calibration parameters.  The valid range of
                                attribute values is from 1 to 253 decimal.
                                Lower values indicate that the analysis algo-
                                rithms being used by the device are predicting
                                a higher probability of a degrading or faulty
                                condition.

                                Each attribute value has a corresponding
                                threshold limit which is used for direct com-
                                parison to the attribute value to indicate the
                                existence of a degrading or faulty condition.
                                The numerical value of the attribute thresh-
                                olds are determined by the device manufacturer
                                through design and reliability testing and
                                analysis.  Each attribute threshold represents
                                the lowest limit to which its corresponding
                                attribute value can equal while still retain-
                                ing a positive reliability status.

                                If the crit field is ``yes'' then negative
                                reliability of this attribute predicts immi-
                                nent data loss.  Otherwise it merely indicates
                                that the intended design life period of usage
                                or age has been exceeded.  The collect field
                                indicates whether this attribute is updated
                                while the device is online.  The reliability
                                field indicates whether the attribute value is
                                within the acceptable threshold.

                offline #       Runs the numbered offline self-test on the
                                drive.

                error-log       Prints the error log.

                selftest-log    Prints the self-test log.

     security [freeze | status]
                Controls ``security'' (password protection) features of modern
                ATA drives.  The security commands are intended to be issued
                by low-level software (firmware / BIOS) only.  Generally, the
                security status should be ``frozen'' before the operating sys-
                tem is started so that misbehaving or malicious software can-
                not set or change a password.  Older and buggy BIOSes neglect
                to do so; in these cases it might make sense to issue the
                ``freeze'' command early in the boot process.

                freeze    freezes the drive's security status

                status    displays the drive's security status

BUS COMMANDS
     The following commands may be used on IDE and ATA busses.  Note that not
     all devices support all commands.

     reset    Reset the bus.  This will reset all ATA devices present on the
              bus.  Any ATAPI device with pending commands will also be reset.

SEE ALSO
     ioctl(2), wd(4), dkctl(8), scsictl(8)

HISTORY
     The atactl command first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.

AUTHORS
     The atactl command was written by Ken Hornstein.  It was based heavily on
     the scsictl(8) command written by Jason R. Thorpe.

BUGS
     The output from the identify command is rather ugly.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE              November 18, 2007             NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
