version mismatch in smartmontools?

[Jeff Lane ]

When I check the available smartmontools versions I get this:
bladernr@galactica:~/Downloads/ISOs/Bionic$ rmadison smartmontools
 smartmontools | 5.41+svn3365-1 | precise | source, amd64, armel, armhf, i386, powerpc
 smartmontools | 6.2+svn3841-1.2 | trusty | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 smartmontools | 6.2+svn3841-1.2ubuntu0.1 | trusty-updates | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 smartmontools | 6.4+svn4214-1 | xenial | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 smartmontools | 6.5+svn4324-1 | bionic | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 smartmontools | 6.5+svn4324-1 | cosmic | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 smartmontools | 6.6-1 | disco | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x

Note Bionic says it's version 6.5+svn4324, matching cosmic.

However, when I do a --version on smartctl and smartd, I get this instead:
bladernr@galactica:~/Downloads/ISOs/Bionic$ smartd --version
smartd 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-4.15.0-42-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

bladernr@galactica:~/Downloads/ISOs/Bionic$ smartctl --version
smartctl 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-4.15.0-42-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

This comes from what is in Main for Bionic:
bladernr@galactica:~/Downloads/ISOs/Bionic$ apt-cache policy smartmontools
smartmontools:
  Installed: 6.5+svn4324-1
  Candidate: 6.5+svn4324-1
  Version table:
 *** 6.5+svn4324-1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: smartmontools 6.5+svn4324-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-42.45-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-42-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity:Unity7:ubuntu
Date: Tue Dec 18 11:06:32 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-02-11 (1040 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Alpha amd64 (20160210)
SourcePackage: smartmontools
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Karl Stenerud (kstenerud)]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for reporting this issue! It looks like the problem originates with the Debian package. Could you report this to them so that it can be fixed upstream?

[Robie Basak (racb)]

I'm not sure that package version "6.5+svn4324-1" reporting as "6.6" is a bug. It's quite common for VCS-based builds to anticipate the next version.

Please could you explain why this is a problem for you?

[Christian Franke (christian-franke)]

> ... It's quite common for VCS-based builds to anticipate the next version.

Which is also the case for smartmontools since its early days (~2002). "6.5+svn4324-1" is a few commits (drivedb.h additions) ahead of 6.5 (r4318), so it reports "6.6":

https://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/4318
https://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/4319
https://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/4324
https://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/4594

Suggested fix: Release 7.0 :-)
https://www.smartmontools.org/browser/tags/RELEASE_7_0/smartmontools/NEWS

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

Our package is currently a sync from debian, so as soon as Debian updates it over there, we will get it in ubuntu as well.

For the moment, I'll mark this bug as low prio, as it's not clear what issues the version mismatch is causing other than, well, being a mismatch.

[Christian Franke (christian-franke)]

All pre-release builds from SVN snapshots now report "pre-7.4" in the output and man pages. A tarball generated with 'make dist' still uses the plain version.