It is easy to install smartmontools on Citrix XenServer (see this article for instructions), but that smartmontools release is somewhat dated and does not support recent RAID controllers such as the LSI/3ware 9750 family of RAID controllers. When executed, the following error message is returned:

# smartctl -a -d 3ware,1 /dev/twl0
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

WARNING - NO DEVICE FOUND ON 3WARE CONTROLLER (disk 1)
Note: /dev/sdX many need to be replaced with /dev/tweN or /dev/twaN
Smartctl: Device Read Identity Failed (not an ATA/ATAPI device)

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

So I have created a new smartmontools package which can be installed on Citrix XenServer and which is based on the latest smartmontools release 5.42. The RPM package has been compiled under CentOS 5.7 and it installs in CentOS 5, Citrix XenServer (which is based on CentOS 5), RedHat and probably many other distributions similar to CentOS and RedHat.

Download the smartmontools 5.42 RPM package

Download the corresponding smartmontools 5.42 source package

Installation

Run the commands below on the Citrix XenServer console:

wget http://www.schirmacher.de/download/attachments/36012250/smartmontools-5.42-1.i386.rpm
wget http://vault.centos.org/5.4/os/i386/CentOS/mailx-8.1.1-44.2.2.i386.rpm
rpm -hiv smartmontools-5.42-1.i386.rpm mailx-8.1.1-44.2.2.i386.rpm

Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:mailx                  ########################################### [ 50%]
   2:smartmontools          ########################################### [100%]

To update smartmontools, run rpm -U smartmontools-5.42-1.i386.rpm only.

Checking the RAID controller status

When issuing a standard status command such as smartctl -a /dev/sda, smartctl returns the status of the LSI 9750 RAID controller:

# smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-linux-2.6.32.12-0.7.1.xs6.0.0.529.170661xen] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

Vendor:               LSI
Product:              9750-4i    DISK
Revision:             5.12
User Capacity:        249,988,907,008 bytes [249 GB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Logical Unit id:      0x600050e0f9f62a006aa60000379c0000
Serial number:        R011DA355F4CA
Device type:          disk
Local Time is:        Thu Dec 29 11:32:04 2011 CET
Device supports SMART and is Disabled
Temperature Warning Disabled or Not Supported
SMART Health Status: OK

Error Counter logging not supported
Device does not support Self Test logging

Checking the status of disks in the RAID array

To retrieve the status of one of the disks in the RAID array, we have to specify the RAID controller and the device number of the disk, for example smartctl -a -d 3ware,1 /dev/twl0 . This will return the status of disk #1 connected to the controller #0 .

The devices /dev/twl* will be created by smartctl if they do not exist.

# smartctl -a -d 3ware,0 /dev/twl0
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-linux-2.6.32.12-0.7.1.xs6.0.0.529.170661xen] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital RE4 Serial ATA
Device Model:     WDC WD2503ABYX-01WERA0
Serial Number:    WD-WMAYR324822324
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 0ad6f4641
Firmware Version: 01.01S01
User Capacity:    251,059,544,064 bytes [251 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Thu Dec 29 11:43:20 2011 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                ( 4080) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  46) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x303f) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       17
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   143   143   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       3808
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       10
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       96
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       9
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       8
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   120   108   000    Old_age   Always       -       23
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       9

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        74         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Additional configuration

For additional information on how to configure smartmontools on XenServer, see Install smartmontools on Citrix XenServer.