JSON output mode for smartctl reports

[hi2u]

More and more command line programs now have an option to output information as a single big JSON string.

It makes it super easy for anybody to integrate another program or even simple scripts. Pretty much any programming/scripting language can read JSON very easily with only a few lines of code.

A good example of one program that does this (of many now) is "exiftool". Adding "-json" to the command arguments will have it output all information in a big JSON string (with pretty print so its not just one long line).

For example, the command...

exiftool -json /usr/sbin/smartctl

Will output:

[{
  "SourceFile": "/usr/sbin/smartctl",
  "ExifToolVersion": 9.74,
  "FileName": "smartctl",
  "Directory": "/usr/sbin",
  "FileSize": "620 kB",
  "FileModifyDate": "2014:12:21 05:29:41+10:00",
  "FileAccessDate": "2016:11:11 08:02:52+10:00",
  "FileInodeChangeDate": "2015:04:15 00:36:10+10:00",
  "FilePermissions": "rwxr-xr-x",
  "FileType": "ELF executable",
  "MIMEType": "application/octet-stream",
  "CPUArchitecture": "64 bit",
  "CPUByteOrder": "Little endian",
  "ObjectFileType": "Shared object file",
  "CPUType": "AMD x86-64"
}]

This is a much simpler method of effectively giving the same functionality requested in ticket "#501 make smartctl into a library". And would be usable to a much wider audience, much more easily.

I recommend this for any command line program that outputs any kind of information these days. In fact, considering that JSON is quite human readable anyway, I'd even suggest making it the first output format for any new program before bothering to create your own custom ASCII layout. In a lot of cases, the JSON would be all you really need. And anyone else can easily make their own scripts to generate a nicer looking ASCII output if they like. Much easier than doing it in reverse, i.e. writing custom code to parsing an ASCII table.

[Christian Franke]

Makes plenty of sense - but is possibly too complex for next release.

[Alex Samorukov]

+1, i think it would be much easier to implement compared to an API (mostly formatting changes) and is already implemented, for example, in nvmetools. Patches are welcome )

[Christian Franke]

Ticket #916 has been marked as a duplicate of this ticket.

[otakuto]

I wrote patch for now.
However, only drive info.
​https://github.com/otakuto/smartmontools/commit/41068b6d8b05211f295f2f926398be693734cc86
Is this approach all right?
Thank you.

[Christian Franke]

Sorry no. This 'direct output' approach would require that JSON structure follows program structure.

We already discuss a more general approach & patch on the ​smartmontools-devel mailing list.

[Christian Franke]

r4640 added initial JSON support for ATA and some SCSI support:

smartctl -j -i -A -H /dev/sdX

smartctl --json=au -x /dev/sdX

[Christian Franke]

r4641, r4642: compile fixes.
r4644: smartctl -j --scan ...
r4645: smartctl -j -l sataphy ...

[Christian Franke]

r4646: smartctl --json=s ...
r4647: smartctl --json=g ...
r4648: compile fix.
r4650: smartctl -j -c ...
r4652: smartctl -j -l selftest -l xselftest ...
r4653: smartctl -j -l directory ...
r4654: show command line error messages.
r4655: smartctl --json=o ... (instead of --json=a)
r4656: smartctl -j -l error -l xerror ...
r4657: smartctl -j -A ... changes and enhancements.
r4659: smartctl -j -l scttemp ...
r4660: smartctl -j -l scterc ...
r4661: smartctl -j -g all ...

[Andrius Štikonas]

Any idea when this might be released?

In KDE Partition Manager git branch we have ported away from libatasmart to calling "smartctl --all --json deviceNode"

[Christian Franke]

Any idea when this might be released?

Not yet known, sorry.

In KDE Partition Manager git branch we have ported away from libatasmart to calling "smartctl --all --json deviceNode"

Which specific ATA/SCSI/NVMe info do you need for this use case?

BTW: Try --xall instead of --all.

[Caio Jordão Carvalho]

Replying to chrfranke:

Any idea when this might be released?

Not yet known, sorry.

In KDE Partition Manager git branch we have ported away from libatasmart to calling "smartctl --all --json deviceNode"

Which specific ATA/SCSI/NVMe info do you need for this use case?

BTW: Try --xall instead of --all.

We don't need all data from --xall, because --all already provides the information that we need.

Actually, only these informations are needed by KDE Partition Manager:

• Device attributes (model name, serial number, firmware)
• Capacity
• SMART status
• Self Test status
• Temperature
• SMART attributes info as seen in ["ata_smart_attributes"]["table"] array.

[Christian Franke]

r4721: smartctl -j -i -A -H (NVMe)

[Christian Franke]

r4663: revision; scsi_version; (SCSI)
r4679: format_status.*; (SCSI)
r4683: pending_defects.*; (SCSI)
r4726: user_capacity.blocks.*; user_capacity.bytes.*;
r4745: 128-bit support
r4752: smartctl -j -l devstat
r4753: smartctl -j -l scttempsts enhancements
r4755: power_cycle_count; power_on_hours; (ATA, NVMe)

[Christian Franke]

ticket #1079: SCSI enhancement error_counter_log;

[Christian Franke]

r4762: power_on_time.*; (ATA, SCSI, NVMe)
r4775: temperature.op_limit*; (ATA)
r4779: smartctl -l selective
r4815: scsi_error_counter_log.*; temperature.drive_trip;
r4816: scsi_grown_defect_list;
r4817: scsi_percentage_used_endurance_indicator
r4827: smartctl -l defects
r4829: interface_speed.*; (ATA)

[Christian Franke]

r4870: Minor SCSI fix for r4679.

[Christian Franke]

Initial JSON support completed, see above comments for details. Format version set to 1.0 in r4871.

[Christian Franke]

Milestone renamed