Here's the scenario :

An ipod shuffle was connected to the desktop and mounted (/dev/sda on /media/IPOD).

It was unfortunaletly disconnected without having unmounted it first.

smartd later complained :

Nov  3 12:20:40 rms smartd[3532]: Device: /dev/sda, No such device, open() failed
Nov  3 12:20:40 rms smartd[3532]: Sending warning via /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner to root ...
Nov  3 12:20:41 rms smartd[3532]: Warning via /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner to root: successful

In such case, why is smartd monitoring an Ipod shuffle ?

I'm pretty sure there's no SMART support in Ipod shuffle music players.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Because you configured it to do so. Either by using DEVICESCAN or
/dev/sda in smartd.conf. Smartd doesn't care about mounting or
unmounting.
 -- Guido

reopen 504392
thanks

I think you misunderstood my point.

It shouldn't care for "disks" which are not smart enabled, and actually not even disks at all. DEVICESCAN is indeed configured, but that's no excuse for smartd to mess with non-disks, IMHO.

The mounting/unmounting shouldn't be done by smartd of course.

I hope it's clearer now.

Best regards,

severity 504392 wishlist
retitle 504392 should ignore ipod shuffle
thanks
This is how DEVICESCAN works. It looks for block devices in /dev/. It's
even in the man page:

| if DEVICESCAN is not followed by any Directives, then smartd will scan
| for both ATA and SCSI devices, and will monitor all possible SMART
| properties of any devices that are found.

Feel free to send patches to imporove this (e.g. by looking for
additional info in /sys).
Cheers,
 -- Guido

An Iriver T7 brings these frightening lines in the logs:

Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], FAILED SMART self-check. BACK UP DATA NOW!
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 181 = 181 = 1
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 2 = 2 = 3
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 181 = 181 = 5
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 2 = 2 = 7
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 2 = 2 = 9
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 2 = 2 = 189
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 105 = 105 = 190
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 101 = 101 = 194
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 48 = 48 = 195
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 32 = 32 = 197
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 84 = 84 = 199
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 83 = 83 = 200
Jun 16 21:25:04 menippe smartd[2345]: Device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron], same Attribute has different ID numbers: 48 = 48 = 202

I think that smartd should ignore this device (it's a mp3 player, with no hard disk, just 2G of memory), as well as an iPod.