Can't update smartmontools drivedb: /usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb is missing

[Matthew Eaton]

Installed the smartmontools package with apt-get but am unable to easily update the drive database because /usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb is missing.

matt@matt-1604:~$ apt-cache policy smartmontools
smartmontools:
  Installed: 6.4+svn4214-1
  Candidate: 6.4+svn4214-1
  Version table:
 *** 6.4+svn4214-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

matt@matt-1604:~$ sudo find /usr -name update-smart-drivedb
matt@matt-1604:~$

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: smartmontools 6.4+svn4214-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Mon Apr 25 16:13:07 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-04-25 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
SourcePackage: smartmontools
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Christian Franke (christian-franke)]

The /usr/sbin/update-smart-drivedb script was intentionally removed by (Debian) maintainers, see:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=804299

So I guess this bug will end up with "wontfix".

We at upstream decided to keep the script and let maintainers disable it via ./configure --without-update-smart-drivedb.

@maintainers:
- Please remove update-smart-drivedb.8.gz from the package. The man page does not make any sense if the script is missing.
- Please consider providing drivedb.h as a separate package which is updated more frequently. Same is discussed for FreeBSD, see FreeBSD Bugzilla 208398.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

Thank you for reporting this bug and helping us look after Ubuntu.

We'll follow Debian on this, so I'll mark Won't Fix accordingly. We are in sync with Debian right now, and I see no reason not to follow the Debian maintainer's direction on this.

@maintainers:
- Please remove update-smart-drivedb.8.gz from the package. The man page does not make any sense if the script is missing.
- Please consider providing drivedb.h as a separate package which is updated more frequently. Same is discussed for FreeBSD, see FreeBSD Bugzilla 208398.

Both of these make sense to me, but I think that's an action to be taken in Debian, not in Ubuntu (and Ubuntu will follow). The first point is a bug in Ubuntu we could fix, but I don't think it's worth introducing an Ubuntu delta over. If the Debian maintainer isn't already aware, then please forward these requests there.

[W-barath-hotmail (w-barath-hotmail)]

For those who just want a simple solution to this conundrum, write the following to /usr/local/bin/update-smart-drivedb:

--- snip
#!/bin/bash

(( UID == 0 )) || exec sudo "$0";

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smartmontools/smartmontools/master/smartmontools/drivedb.h
--- snip

Then sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/update-smart-drivedb

Bear in mind that you'll need to re-run this script every time you apply a package update to smartmontools, since that package will overwrite the downloaded db file.

For the debian package manage: why not make running the script part of the package install process so that at least it's state-of-the-art at the moment the package is installed. Surely that would be better than being 3 years out of date, which necessitates this package being broken for about 50% of all drives by halfway through a release cycle?

[Christian Franke (christian-franke)]

Please note that the new maintainer of the debian package re-added update-smart-drivedb in smartmontools 7.0-1. See this commit for the related comment:
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/smartmontools/commit/c894f39ddcbc48f478bad9ddf7702944eadbba8f