{
  "slug": "smartctl-exit-status",
  "term": "smartctl exit status",
  "aliases": [
    "smartctl return code"
  ],
  "definition": "The smartctl exit status is a process result whose normal ATA interpretation combines independent command, health-threshold and log-history flags in an eight-bit mask.",
  "note": "It is not a binary diagnosis of drive health. The -n option can assign custom return values, including zero when a low-power check is skipped. Decode bits only under a known normal-exit policy, retain warnings and preserve missing health as unknown. A reported passed boolean can come from attribute fallback rather than a successful SMART RETURN STATUS command.",
  "status": "shipping",
  "advantages": [],
  "limitations": [],
  "related": [
    "ata-smart",
    "smart",
    "smart-normalized-value",
    "smart-raw-value"
  ],
  "supersedes": [],
  "supersededBy": [],
  "firstSeen": null,
  "lastSeen": null,
  "updated": "2026-10-15",
  "citations": [
    {
      "id": "manual",
      "title": "smartmontools 7.5: smartctl exit status and -n policy",
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smartmontools/smartmontools/f276b249fdc84019403491303479485030ac7c80/smartmontools/smartctl.8.in",
      "accessed": "2026-10-15"
    },
    {
      "id": "ata",
      "title": "smartmontools 7.5: ATA health-result fallback",
      "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smartmontools/smartmontools/f276b249fdc84019403491303479485030ac7c80/smartmontools/ataprint.cpp",
      "accessed": "2026-10-15"
    },
    {
      "id": "hesela",
      "title": "Hesela: smartctl monitoring and tested collector examples",
      "url": "https://hesela.com/analyses/smartctl-monitoring/#collector-heading",
      "accessed": "2026-10-15"
    }
  ]
}