HDAPS

HDAPS - IBM Active Protection System Linux Driver

This is the Linux driver for the IBM Active Protection System.

Features

• prints accelerometer values
• uses userspace tool to park HD

Project Homepage / Availability

• Project Homepage
• The driver is included in the 2.6-mm series of kernels since August, 26th 2005.
• The driver is now in the mainline (2.6.14).

Status

A driver is included in recent Linux kernels and is actively maintained. However, presently the driver only enables reading of the acceleration data; it does not perform automatic disk head parking. The latter feature is under development. But there are already some useful applications for HDAPS, using the /sys interface it provides. See below.

Disk protection howto

As mentioned above, the hdaps kernel driver is only responsible for reading the accelerometer data and exporting it through the sysfs interface. In order to use this information to protect the disk, some additional steps are required.

• 1. Download and build the latest disk protection kernel patches. These patches export a sysfs interface that enables an ide or sata disk to be protected by a userspace process.
• 2. Download and build the hdapsd userspace daemon. This monitors the accelerometer data provided by the hdaps kernel driver, and automatically protects the disk when movement exceeds a user specified threshold.
• 3. Download and build the gnome panel applet to get a real-time representation of the disk protection status.

Debian source and sid binary packages for hdapsd and the disk protection patches (kernel-patch format) are available via APT access:

deb http://www.oakcourt.dyndns.org/debian/ ./
deb-src http://www.oakcourt.dyndns.org/debian/ ./

The above components are still under development, but are known to work on a variety of ThinkPad models. Additonal information and support is available through the hdaps mailing list.

Applications

Security & Safety

• disk park patch an experimental patch for parking the disk (Linux 2.6.14 for 2.6.15 see below)
• disk park patch adapted for the t41p model kernel 2.6.14 (capability detection disabled, no libata support)
• disk park patch adapted for the t41p model kernel 2.6.15 (capability detection disabled, no libata support)
• Latest sata/ide disk protection patch for 2.6.15
• Latest userspace parking daemon
• Script for theft alarm using HDAPS

Monitoring

• gkhdaps a GKrellM applet displaying tilt data
• gnome-tilt a gnome applet showing tilt data
• khdapsmon KDE System Tray app similar to the Windows one (also at kde-apps.org)
• gnome-hdaps-applet visual display of disk protection status in gnome panel

Visualisation (of ThinkPad orientation)

• hdaps-gl a little app animating a 3D-ThinkPad
• hdapsgl-applet a GNOME applet animating a 3D-ThinkPad
• wmadhps a WindowMaker DockApp animating a 3D-ThinkPad
• OpenGL gyroscope hack keeps your display levelled when tilting the ThinkPad

Interesting links related to this project

• HDAPS mailinglist and its archive
• #hdaps channel on irc.freenode.org
• hdaps projects overview of userspace programs using hdaps
• IBM ThinkPads hardware drive firmware site
• http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/accelerometer/
• http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100167 Gentoo ebuild for hdaps driver and daemon including a initscript