This read-only enum reports the Protected Mode status of a switch/IO module: standby (capability exists but not activated anywhere), pending (activated on the MM but not yet on the switch module), active (activated on both), or attention (enabled on the switch module but not the MM). It gives an admin the exact state of a coordination handshake between the MM and the switch module's Protected Mode feature, which matters for diagnosing why a switch module isn't behaving as protected when expected. An admin seeing smPMState report attention(2) would know the switch module itself has Protected Mode on, but the MM side hasn't granted the corresponding permission yet.