Recent x86_64 update broke administrator use of smartctl.exe

Recent x86_64 update broke administrator use of smartctl.exe

[banshee]

I have two windows 7 x64 boxes, one running cygwin x86 and the other 
x86_64.  I run smartctl on both boxes.  One can run smartctl as 
administrator or not, but it produces a fuller information set with 
admin rights.  A recent change to the x86_64 cygwin has broken 
administrator use of smartctl as detailed below.  It still runs fine on 
the x86 cygwin.

I'm not certain which version of cygwin broke the functionality, but it 
was working last week.

x86_64 running as NON-ADMIN can run smartctl with non-admin rights:
$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-6.1 myhost 1.7.35(0.287/5/3) 2015-03-04 12:09 x86_64 Cygwin
$ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-unknown-cygwin-win7-sp1] 
(cygwin-6.3-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Warning: Limited functionality due to missing admin rights
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
... runs ok ...
$ head /dev/sda
head: cannot open ‘/dev/sda’ for reading: Permission denied
$

x86_64 running as ADMIN fails to run smartctl
$ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-unknown-cygwin-win7-sp1] 
(cygwin-6.3-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Read Device Identity failed: Input/output error

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more 
'-T permissive' options.
$ head /dev/sda
(works)
$

x86_32 running as NON-ADMIN runs ok:
$ uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-6.1-WOW myhost2 1.7.35(0.287/5/3) 2015-03-04 12:07 i686 Cygwin
$ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [i686-pc-cygwin-win7(64)-sp1] (cygwin-6.3-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Warning: Limited functionality due to missing admin rights
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
... runs ok as non-admin ...
$

x86_32 running as ADMIN also runs ok:
$ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [i686-pc-cygwin-win7(64)-sp1] (cygwin-6.3-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
... runs ok as admin ...
$




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Re: Recent x86_64 update broke administrator use of smartctl.exe

[Marco Atzeri]

On 3/28/2015 1:52 AM, banshee wrote:
> I have two windows 7 x64 boxes, one running cygwin x86 and the other
> x86_64.  I run smartctl on both boxes.  One can run smartctl as
> administrator or not, but it produces a fuller information set with
> admin rights.  A recent change to the x86_64 cygwin has broken
> administrator use of smartctl as detailed below.  It still runs fine on
> the x86 cygwin.
>
> I'm not certain which version of cygwin broke the functionality, but it
> was working last week.
>
>
> x86_64 running as ADMIN fails to run smartctl
> $ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
> smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-unknown-cygwin-win7-sp1]
> (cygwin-6.3-1)
> Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
>
> Read Device Identity failed: Input/output error
>
> A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more
> '-T permissive' options.
> $ head /dev/sda
> (works)
> $
>

works fine for me.


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Re: Recent x86_64 update broke administrator use of smartctl.exe

[Christian Franke]

banshee wrote:
> I have two windows 7 x64 boxes, one running cygwin x86 and the other 
> x86_64.  I run smartctl on both boxes. One can run smartctl as 
> administrator or not, but it produces a fuller information set with 
> admin rights.  A recent change to the x86_64 cygwin has broken 
> administrator use of smartctl as detailed below.  It still runs fine 
> on the x86 cygwin.
>
> I'm not certain which version of cygwin broke the functionality, but 
> it was working last week.
>

Any driver updates performed since then?
Do both machines have similar SATA controllers and drivers?

> ...
> x86_64 running as ADMIN fails to run smartctl
> $ /usr/sbin/smartctl.exe -a /dev/sda
> smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-unknown-cygwin-win7-sp1] 
> (cygwin-6.3-1)
> Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, 
> www.smartmontools.org
>
> Read Device Identity failed: Input/output error
>

Could not reproduce this.

The Windows IO-controls IOCTL_ATA_PASS_THROUGH or SMART_RCV_DRIVE_DATA 
possibly return some unexpected error code. This is typically a SATA 
driver issue. The output of "smartctl -r ioctl,2 -i /dev/sda" should 
provide more details.

Could you possibly repeat the above test this with the "native" 
(non-Cygwin) Windows version of smartctl?

This is likely not a Cygwin specific issue. Smartctl does not use any 
Cygwin functionality to do ATA/SCSI pass-through access. Cygwin and 
native version of smartctl share the same code. We could continue the 
discussion by private mail or on smartmontools-support mailing list if 
desired.

Christian


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