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  • Which process wakes-up USB-drive?

    From Stefan Kaintoch@3:770/3 to All on Tue Nov 2 08:00:03 2021
    Hi *.*,
    I use a RPi4 with an external USB-HD as backup solution.
    It runs restic on
    pi:~ $ uname -a
    Linux resticrepo 5.10.60-v7l+ #1449 SMP Wed Aug 25 15:00:44 BST 2021
    armv7l GNU/Linux
    pi:~ $ lsb_release -a
    No LSB modules are available.
    Distributor ID: Raspbian
    Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
    Release: 10
    Codename: buster

    The USB-HD goes to sleep automatically a few minutes after usage.
    But it awakes about every 30 minutes. Of course it should not.
    It shall only work if needed for backup once a day.

    How can I identify the process which awakes the USB-HD?

    TIA, Stefan

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Martin Gregorie@3:770/3 to Stefan Kaintoch on Tue Nov 2 12:03:33 2021
    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 08:00:03 +0100, Stefan Kaintoch wrote:

    Hi *.*,
    I use a RPi4 with an external USB-HD as backup solution.
    It runs restic on pi:~ $ uname -a Linux resticrepo 5.10.60-v7l+ #1449
    SMP Wed Aug 25 15:00:44 BST 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux pi:~ $ lsb_release -a
    No LSB modules are available.
    Distributor ID: Raspbian Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) Release: 10 Codename: buster

    The USB-HD goes to sleep automatically a few minutes after usage. But it awakes about every 30 minutes. Of course it should not.
    It shall only work if needed for backup once a day.

    How can I identify the process which awakes the USB-HD?

    Try these suggestions:

    - see if there are any cron jobs with a 30 minute repeat rate. If there
    are any, they'll be in one of the /etc/cron.* directories

    - run "systemctl", which uses less to display a list of all systemd
    services, showing which are loaded and active together with a short
    description of what the job does.

    - run 'top' in a terminal window and watch it as the time for the disk
    activity approaches.

    - Better, run

    ls -s /var/log/*

    Make a note of all the logs with a timestamp thats a bit *later* than
    the last time you know the disk was woken up, and use 'less' to see
    what, activity was logged at that time. Then scan through these logs to
    see what happened at that time. There probably won't be more
    than half a dozen logs to look at.

    Hint: if you look for the last ocurrence it will be near the end of
    the log. Be sure to use a command like:

    sudo less /var/log/syslog

    to look at the log: log files are only intended to be read by the
    sysadmin, which is why you need to prefix the command with 'sudo'
    and provide a password when asked.

    If you've never used 'less' before, do read its manpage because its got
    very powerful file searching abilities, all triggered with with single
    key commands. Its one of the essential Linux tools that you really
    should know how to use.


    --
    --
    Martin | martin at
    Gregorie | gregorie dot org
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Theo@3:770/3 to Martin Gregorie on Tue Nov 2 15:15:22 2021
    Martin Gregorie <martin@mydomain.invalid> wrote:
    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 08:00:03 +0100, Stefan Kaintoch wrote:

    How can I identify the process which awakes the USB-HD?

    Try these suggestions:

    I'd also try:

    sudo lsof | grep /media

    where /media is (part of) the path to the USB-HD.

    It's trickier if your root fs is on the HDD, because everything will be
    living there.

    For processes you might also run:

    ps axl | awk '$10 ~ /D/'

    which will tell you everything that's waiting on I/O. You could log that in
    a file:

    #!/bin/sh
    while true; do
    ps axl | awk '$10 ~ /D/' >> unintsleep.log
    done

    (although that may cause a feedback loop if the logging causes its own I/O
    to block)

    Theo

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Stefan Kaintoch@3:770/3 to All on Wed Nov 3 08:42:24 2021
    Thanks for the advice.
    We had a power outage last night. Since then the external drive sleeps
    as it should. Therefore: no chance to identify the root cause.

    Bye, Stefan (semi-happy with the current state)
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)
  • From Dennis@3:770/3 to Stefan Kaintoch on Wed Nov 3 09:44:48 2021
    On 11/3/21 2:42 AM, Stefan Kaintoch wrote:
    Thanks for the advice.
    We had a power outage last night. Since then the external drive sleeps
    as it should. Therefore: no chance to identify the root cause.

    Bye, Stefan (semi-happy with the current state)

    Keep watching it. Remember the old saying "Problems that go away by
    themselves come back by themselves".

    It may be a sequence of events that causes the problem, and that
    sequence may take a while to happen.
    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)