Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.

As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
I marked THAT on the tray handle.

Is this serial number available in the OS somehow? If it is
then I would wanna explore using it with the partition # as
an ID such as 276-17 ...unique enough in my house.

--
Artificial-Stupidity will never be competitive

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:25:58 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@INVALID.net> wrote:
>
> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>
> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>
> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow?
[snip]

Like this?

$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdb | fgrep Serial
Serial Number: 17501A1840C6
$

--
To email me, substitute nowhere->runbox, invalid->com.

On 14/04/2023 at 14.25, bad sector wrote:
>
> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>
> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>
> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow?

Inspect the links in /dev/disk/by-id/ directory. They are
created by udev, so you can create whatever links you need.
E.g. I have a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ that cotains these
lines:

KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}"
KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}-%n"

which create links in /dev/disk/by-sn/ in the form pretty much
what you ask for: “serial_number dash partition_number”.

--
mrg

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:25:58 -0400
bad sector <forgetski@INVALID.net> wrote:

> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>
> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>
> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow? If it is
> then I would wanna explore using it with the partition # as
> an ID such as 276-17 ...unique enough in my house.
>
>
>

MX Linux has a tool called Quick System Info, it gives the model number
of the drives.

I only have two. ST1000DM003 and FNX512MORM

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:25:58 -0400, bad sector wrote:

> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>
> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>
> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow? If it is
> then I would wanna explore using it with the partition # as
> an ID such as 276-17 ...unique enough in my house.

Try hdparm -i

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:25:58 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@invalid.net> wrote:

>
> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>
> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>
> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow? If it is
> then I would wanna explore using it with the partition # as
> an ID such as 276-17 ...unique enough in my house.

Look at "udevadm info /dev/sdb|grep -i serial"

I've experimented with using a udev rule to take an action based on the
serial when inserting a drive ...
$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/00-myusb2.rules
# udev rules file for my usb drive
ACTION!="add", GOTO="myusb2_rules_end"
KERNEL=="sd?1", ATTRS{serial}=="070526931096D296" , ACTION=="add", RUN+="/bin/logger -t cryptdrive inserted %k"
LABEL="myusb2_rules_end"

The above just rus the logger command, but changing it to run a script to mount
the drive and do something like run a backup script would be easy.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

On 4/14/23 09:05, marrgol wrote:
> On 14/04/2023 at 14.25, bad sector wrote:
>>
>> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
>> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>>
>> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
>> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>>
>> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow?
>
> Inspect the links in /dev/disk/by-id/ directory.  They are
> created by udev, so you can create whatever links you need.
> E.g. I have a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ that cotains these
> lines:
>
> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
> SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}"
> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
> SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}-%n"
>
> which create links in /dev/disk/by-sn/ in the form pretty much
> what you ask for: “serial_number dash partition_number”.

This is close to what I have in mind though over my head and pay-grade.
I used to be hard-wired to dev-names since IDE days and since sata blew
that into the weeds I've been looking for an alternative bulletproof
hardaware ID. When a disk was plugged into a mobile IDE tray I knew
exactly which disk that was so dev-name was just fine. Disk-by-sn is
pretty hard to beat for being both hardware-locked AND unique.

How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is

mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt

I did run into a problem trying to mount by-sn though

# mount /dev/disk/by-sn/WD-WXH2A31NPJZJ-1 /mnt
mount: /mnt: /dev/sdc1 already mounted or mount point busy.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount
system call.

and 'dmesg' says:
[ 2689.519819] /dev/sdc1: Can't open blockdev

And this is how it pans out for every disk I try

NB
In Suse-Tumbleweed fdisk now lists by dm-#
*as well as* dev-name, it so happens that the
above disk-partition-1 is listed there as /dev/sdc1.
So maybe there's a relation (like /dev/sdc1 being
just a mountpoint hence 'busy'? Really a Suse question
I guess).

On 2023-04-15 04:06, bad sector wrote:
> On 4/14/23 09:05, marrgol wrote:
>> On 14/04/2023 at 14.25, bad sector wrote:
>>>
>>> Using mmobile racks I have started (physically) labeling my
>>> drives with the last 3 digits of the manufacturers serial #.
>>>
>>> As an example one of my 2tb blue WD's ends with 276 so
>>> I marked THAT on the tray handle.
>>>
>>> Is this serial number available in the OS somehow?
>>
>> Inspect the links in /dev/disk/by-id/ directory.  They are
>> created by udev, so you can create whatever links you need.
>> E.g. I have a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ that cotains these
>> lines:
>>
>> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
>> SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}"
>> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="partition", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*",
>> SYMLINK+="disk/by-sn/$env{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}-%n"
>>
>> which create links in /dev/disk/by-sn/ in the form pretty much
>> what you ask for: “serial_number dash partition_number”.
>
> This is close to what I have in mind though over my head and pay-grade.
> I used to be hard-wired to dev-names since IDE days and since sata blew
> that into the weeds I've been looking for an alternative bulletproof
> hardaware ID. When a disk was plugged into a mobile IDE tray I knew
> exactly which disk that was so dev-name was just fine. Disk-by-sn is
> pretty hard to beat for being both hardware-locked AND unique.
>
> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>
> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt

Nope. At besst, you would get to do:

mount /dev/disk/by-myserial/ /mnt

>
>
> I did run into a problem trying to mount by-sn though
>
>
> # mount /dev/disk/by-sn/WD-WXH2A31NPJZJ-1  /mnt
> mount: /mnt: /dev/sdc1 already mounted or mount point busy.
>        dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount
>        system call.
>
> and 'dmesg' says:
> [ 2689.519819] /dev/sdc1: Can't open blockdev
>
> And this is how it pans out for every disk I try
>
> NB
> In Suse-Tumbleweed fdisk now lists by dm-#
> *as well as* dev-name, it so happens that the
> above disk-partition-1 is listed there as /dev/sdc1.
> So maybe there's a relation (like /dev/sdc1 being
> just a mountpoint hence 'busy'? Really a Suse question
> I guess).

No, should be a block device. Exactly this:

Telcontar:~ # l /dev/sdc1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 33 Apr 14 23:41 /dev/sdc1
Telcontar:~ #

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 15/04/2023 at 04.06, bad sector wrote:
> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>
> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt

Add this line:

KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk|partition",
ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/disk-by-sn"

again to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory, and these lines:

-------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
#!/bin/bash
SNDEVNAME="/dev/${ID_SERIAL_SHORT: -3}${PARTN:+-}${PARTN}"
case $ACTION in
add) /usr/bin/ln -s "$DEVNAME" "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
remove) /usr/bin/rm "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
esac
-------------------------- 8< ----------------------------

make the /sbin/disk-by-sn script (must be executable of course).
It's a bare minimum, but if all your serial numbers are at least
3 characters long and the last 3 characters are unique to each,
it will do.

> I did run into a problem trying to mount by-sn though

It's no different from mounting by-label, by-uuid etc.
-- just another symbolic link to the actual block device file.
Works fine here in openSUSE Leap 15.4 and there's no reason
for it not to work in Tumbleweed (or any other distro).

--
mrg

On 4/16/23 13:23, marrgol wrote:
> On 15/04/2023 at 04.06, bad sector wrote:
>> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
>> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>>
>> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt
>
> Add this line:
>
> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk|partition",
> ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/disk-by-sn"
>
> again to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory, and these lines:
>
> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
> #!/bin/bash
> SNDEVNAME="/dev/${ID_SERIAL_SHORT: -3}${PARTN:+-}${PARTN}"
> case $ACTION in
>      add) /usr/bin/ln -s "$DEVNAME" "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>   remove) /usr/bin/rm "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
> esac
> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>
> make the /sbin/disk-by-sn script (must be executable of course).

I would execute this once only, right?

> It's a bare minimum, but if all your serial numbers are at least
> 3 characters long and the last 3 characters are unique to each,
> it will do.
>
>> I did run into a problem trying to mount by-sn though
>
> It's no different from mounting by-label, by-uuid etc.
> -- just another symbolic link to the actual block device file.
> Works fine here in openSUSE Leap 15.4 and there's no reason
> for it not to work in Tumbleweed (or any other distro).

It was Paul or Malcolm who suggested I use labels several years ago :-)

This method, like uuid, is diferent though in that it uses real data and
not something I just imagined. Not even uuid uses hard hardware specs.
That said, I _could_ use labels that happen to be the last digits of the SN.

On 2023-04-16 23:15, bad sector wrote:
> On 4/16/23 13:23, marrgol wrote:
>> On 15/04/2023 at 04.06, bad sector wrote:
>>> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
>>> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>>>
>>> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt
>>
>> Add this line:
>>
>> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk|partition",
>> ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/disk-by-sn"
>>
>> again to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory, and these lines:
>>
>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>> #!/bin/bash
>> SNDEVNAME="/dev/${ID_SERIAL_SHORT: -3}${PARTN:+-}${PARTN}"
>> case $ACTION in
>>       add) /usr/bin/ln -s "$DEVNAME" "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>>    remove) /usr/bin/rm "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>> esac
>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>>
>> make the /sbin/disk-by-sn script (must be executable of course).
>
> I would execute this once only, right?

No, "you" don't ever execute it. The udev rule executes it automatically
when needed.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 4/16/23 17:43, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2023-04-16 23:15, bad sector wrote:
>> On 4/16/23 13:23, marrgol wrote:
>>> On 15/04/2023 at 04.06, bad sector wrote:
>>>> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in
>>>> the
>>>> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>>>>
>>>> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt
>>>
>>> Add this line:
>>>
>>> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk|partition",
>>> ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/disk-by-sn"
>>>
>>> again to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory, and these lines:
>>>
>>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>>> #!/bin/bash
>>> SNDEVNAME="/dev/${ID_SERIAL_SHORT: -3}${PARTN:+-}${PARTN}"
>>> case $ACTION in
>>>       add) /usr/bin/ln -s "$DEVNAME" "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>>>    remove) /usr/bin/rm "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>>> esac
>>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>>>
>>> make the /sbin/disk-by-sn script (must be executable of course).
>>
>> I would execute this once only, right?
>
> No, "you" don't ever execute it. The udev rule executes it automatically
> when needed.

Ok, done. One of the unmounted disks' ser# ends with 15L and it has only
1 partition for data.

What I have been doing is run "fdisk -l" to see what is plugged-in AND
powered in the raid-rack used for mobile hot-plugged sata drives. That
used to give me a nice list of short dev-names to pick what I want to
mount from.

With any such kind of alternative method I'd need "fdisk -l" or
something else to list them by the names I'm going to want to mount them
with. Fdisk doesn't list them by label either.

ls -l /dev/disk/by-sn

STILL list them by the FULL ser# and partition as well as dev-name but
if I do "mount dev /dev/15L-1 /mnt" it gets mounted there.

Summing up, the doing is good (thank you marrgol) but the deciding what
to do isn't yet.

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 22:06:53 -0400, bad sector wrote:

> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1 in the
> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>
> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt

In my stupid opinion, all you would need to do is
partition name the partition as jzj-1
add a rule in /etc/fstab like,
PARTLABEL=jzj-1 /jzj-1 ext4 users,noauto,relatime,acl 1 2
and create a mount point like
mkdir /jzj-1

After that all you would need to do is
mount /jzj-1

You can use LABEL=jzj if you label the partition, but keep in mind
anytime you format a partition you have to re-label the partition.

On 2023-04-17 05:00, bad sector wrote:
> On 4/16/23 17:43, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> On 2023-04-16 23:15, bad sector wrote:
>>> On 4/16/23 13:23, marrgol wrote:
>>>> On 15/04/2023 at 04.06, bad sector wrote:
>>>>> How would I create a ENV{ID_SERIAL_LAST3} that will produce jzj-1
>>>>> in the
>>>>> case cited below? I'd like to get to a point where all I have to do is
>>>>>
>>>>> mount /dev/jzj-1 /mnt
>>>>
>>>> Add this line:
>>>>
>>>> KERNEL=="sd*", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="disk|partition",
>>>> ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/disk-by-sn"
>>>>
>>>> again to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory, and these lines:
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>>>> #!/bin/bash
>>>> SNDEVNAME="/dev/${ID_SERIAL_SHORT: -3}${PARTN:+-}${PARTN}"
>>>> case $ACTION in
>>>>       add) /usr/bin/ln -s "$DEVNAME" "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>>>>    remove) /usr/bin/rm "$SNDEVNAME" ;;
>>>> esac
>>>> -------------------------- 8< ----------------------------
>>>>
>>>> make the /sbin/disk-by-sn script (must be executable of course).
>>>
>>> I would execute this once only, right?
>>
>> No, "you" don't ever execute it. The udev rule executes it
>> automatically when needed.
>
>
> Ok, done. One of the unmounted disks' ser# ends with 15L and it has only
> 1 partition for data.
>
> What I have been doing is run "fdisk -l" to see what is plugged-in AND
> powered in the raid-rack used for mobile hot-plugged sata drives. That
> used to give me a nice list of short dev-names to pick what I want to
> mount from.

The best command for that is lsblk, which you can customize to print the
information you prefer. For example, my concoction is (one single line):

lsblk --output
NAME,KNAME,RA,RM,RO,PARTFLAGS,SIZE,TYPE,FSTYPE,LABEL,PARTLABEL,PTTYPE,MOUNTPOINT,UUID,PARTUUID,WWN,MODEL,ALIGNMENT
| less -S

This produces a list of available fields:

lsblk --help

You probably want these:

MODEL device identifier
SERIAL disk serial number
VENDOR device vendor

> With any such kind of alternative method I'd need "fdisk -l" or
> something else to list them by the names I'm going to want to mount them
> with. Fdisk doesn't list them by label either.

Try "fdisk --list-details"

>
> ls -l /dev/disk/by-sn
>
> STILL list them by the FULL ser# and partition as well as dev-name but
> if I do "mount dev /dev/15L-1 /mnt" it gets mounted there.
>
> Summing up, the doing is good (thank you marrgol) but the deciding what
> to do isn't yet.
>
>
>
>
>
>

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 17/04/2023 at 05.00, bad sector wrote:
> What I have been doing is run "fdisk -l" to see what is plugged-in AND
> powered in the raid-rack used for mobile hot-plugged sata drives. That
> used to give me a nice list of short dev-names to pick what I want to
> mount from.
>
> With any such kind of alternative method I'd need "fdisk -l" or
> something else to list them by the names I'm going to want to mount them
> with.

This should list your /dev/15L-1 type of links available at the moment
(among all links to block device files in /dev/ directory, so use
the filter behind your eyes ;-) ):

find /dev/ -maxdepth 1 -type l -xtype b -exec ls -gG {} +

> ls -l /dev/disk/by-sn
>
> STILL list them by the FULL ser# and partition as well as dev-name but

Not needed anymore. This:

> if I do "mount dev /dev/15L-1 /mnt" it gets mounted there.

will still work without the udev rules from my first post.

--
mrg