ledctl(8) Intel(R) Enclosure LED Control Application ledctl(8)

ledctl - Intel(R) LED control application for a storage enclosures.

ledctl [OPTIONS] pattern_name=list_of_devices ...

The ledctl is an user space application designed to control LEDs associated with each slot in an enclosure or a drive bay. The LEDs of devices listed in list_of_devices are set to the given pattern pattern_name and all other LEDs are turned off. User must have root privileges to use this application.

There are two types of systems: 2-LEDs systems (Activity LED, Status LED) and 3-LEDs systems (Activity LED, Locate LED, Fail LED).

The ledctl application supports LED management of the SAS/SATA and PCIe storages.

Supported protocols/methods for LED management are:

SAF-TE protocol is not supported.

For SAS/SATA storages supporting controllers may transmit LED management information to the backplane controllers via the SGPIO interface. The SGPIO bus carries bit patterns, which translate into LED blink patterns in accordance with the International Blinking Pattern Interpretation (IBPI) of SFF-8489 specification for SGPIO. Please note some enclosures do not stick close to the SFF-8489 specification. It might happen that the enclosure processor will accept the IBPI pattern but it will blink LEDs not according to SFF-8489 specification or it has a limited number of patterns supported.

The ledctl application has been verified to work with Intel(R) storage controllers (i.e. Intel(R) AHCI controller and Intel(R) SAS controller). The application might work with storage controllers of other vendors (especially SCSI/SAS controllers). However, storage controllers of other vendors have not been tested.

The ledmon application has the highest priority when accessing LEDs. It means that some patterns set by ledctl may have no effect if ledmon is running (except Locate pattern).

The ledctl application is a part of Intel(R) Enclosure LED Utilities.

The ledctl utilizes the following documents as references:

The ledctl application accepts the following names for pattern_name argument according to SFF-8489 specification.

Turns Locate LED associated with the given device(s) on.
Turns only Locate LED off.
Turns Status LED, Failure LED and Locate LED off.
Turns only Status LED and Failure LED off.
Visualizes "In a Critical Array" pattern.
Visualizes "Rebuild" pattern.
Visualizes "In a Failed Array" pattern.
Visualizes "Hotspare" pattern.
Visualizes "Predicted Failure Analysis" pattern.
Visualizes "Failure" pattern.
SES-2 R/R ABORD
SES-2 REBUILD/REMAP
SES-2 IN FAILED ARRAY
SES-2 IN CRIT ARRAY
SES-2 CONS CHECK
SES-2 HOT SPARE
SES-2 RSVD DEVICE
SES-2 OK
SES-2 IDENT
SES-2 REMOVE
SES-2 INSERT
SES-2 MISSING
SES-2 DO NOT REMOVE
SES-2 ACTIVE
SES-2 ENABLE BYP B
SES-2 ENABLE BYP A
SES-2 DEVICE OFF
SES-2 FAULT
SES-2 PRDFAIL

When non SES-2 pattern is send to device in enclosure automatic translation is being done.

locate is translated to ses_ident
locate_off is translated to ~ses_ident
normal or off is translated to ses_ok
ica or degraded is translated to ses_ica
rebuild is translated to ses_rebuild
ifa or failed_array is translated to ses_ifa
hotspare is translated to ses_hotspare
pfa is translated to ses_prdfail
failure or disk_failed is translated to ses_fault

The application accepts a list of devices in two formats. The first format is a list with comma separated elements. The second format is a list in curly braces and elements are separated by space. See examples section below for details.

A device is a path to file in /dev directory or in /sys/block directory.

The LEDs of devices listed in list_of_devices are set to the given pattern pattern_name and all other LEDs, on all devices, are turned off (unless --listed-only option is given).

Sets a path to local log file. If this option is specified the global log file /var/log/ledctl.log is not used.
Prints this text out and exits.
Displays version of ledctl and information about the license and exits.
Prints information (system path and type) of all controllers detected by ledmon and exits.
Prints all slots for the controller type. Slot definition depends on the controller and is unique across all controllers of the same type.

Definitions for supported controller types are described below:

  • VMD - PCI Express Hot Plug Controller Driver slot number
  • NPEM - PCI Express Downstream Port address

Command returns a list of all slots for the controller type with current state and attached device name (if any). controller-type is type of controller (vmd, NPEM) that should be scanned here.

Displays slot details of given device. device is devnode of selected drive.
Displays details of given slot. slot is unique slot identifier.
Changes led state for given slot. controller-type is type of the controller. slot is unique slot identifier. IBPI_state is led pattern.
With this option ledctl will change state only on devices listed in CLI. The rest of devices will not be touched.
Verbose level - 'quiet' means no logging at all and 'all' means to log everything. The levels are given in order. If user specifies more then one verbose option the last option comes into effect. The default level is 'warning'. Verbose level also can be set by --log-level=level.

/var/log/ledctl.log
Global log file, used by all instances of ledctl application. To force logging to user defined file use -l option switch.

The following example illustrates how to set locate on a single block device. Note that all remaining LEDs, on all devices, will be turned off.

    ledctl locate=/dev/sda

The following example illustrates how to set locate_off on a single block device.

    ledctl --listed-only locate_off=/dev/sda

The following example illustrates how to set off on the given devices. It uses second format of device list.

     ledctl --listed-only off={ /dev/sda /dev/sdb }

The following example illustrates how to set locate and rebuild on different devices at the same time. It uses the second format of device list.

     ledctl --listed-only locate={ /dev/sdb } rebuild={ /sys/block/sdc }

The following example illustrates how to locate on three block devices. It uses the first format of device list.

     ledctl --listed-only locate=/dev/sda,/dev/sdb,/dev/sdc

The following example illustrates how to set locate and rebuild on different devices at the same time. It uses the first format of device list.

     ledctl --listed-only locate=/dev/sdb rebuild=/sys/block/sdc

The following example illustrates how to set locate and rebuild on different devices at the same time. It uses the both formats of device list.

     ledctl --listed-only locate={ /dev/sdb } rebuild=/sys/block/sdc

Copyright (c) 2009-2022 Intel Corporation.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the built-in help for details on the License and the lack of warranty.

ledmon(8), ledmon.conf(5)

This manual page was written by Artur Wojcik <artur.wojcik@intel.com>. It may be used by others.

May 2023 LEDCTL Version 0.97