android_kernel_samsung_msm8976/Documentation/x86/x86_64/machinecheck

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Configurable sysfs parameters for the x86-64 machine check code.
Machine checks report internal hardware error conditions detected
by the CPU. Uncorrected errors typically cause a machine check
(often with panic), corrected ones cause a machine check log entry.
Machine checks are organized in banks (normally associated with
a hardware subsystem) and subevents in a bank. The exact meaning
of the banks and subevent is CPU specific.
mcelog knows how to decode them.
When you see the "Machine check errors logged" message in the system
log then mcelog should run to collect and decode machine check entries
from /dev/mcelog. Normally mcelog should be run regularly from a cronjob.
Each CPU has a directory in /sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheckN
(N = CPU number)
The directory contains some configurable entries:
Entries:
bankNctl
(N bank number)
64bit Hex bitmask enabling/disabling specific subevents for bank N
When a bit in the bitmask is zero then the respective
subevent will not be reported.
By default all events are enabled.
Note that BIOS maintain another mask to disable specific events
per bank. This is not visible here
The following entries appear for each CPU, but they are truly shared
between all CPUs.
check_interval
How often to poll for corrected machine check errors, in seconds
[PATCH] x86-64: Dynamically adjust machine check interval Background: We've found that MCEs (specifically DRAM SBEs) tend to come in bunches, especially when we are trying really hard to stress the system out. The current MCE poller uses a static interval which does not care whether it has or has not found MCEs recently. Description: This patch makes the MCE poller adjust the polling interval dynamically. If we find an MCE, poll 2x faster (down to 10 ms). When we stop finding MCEs, poll 2x slower (up to check_interval seconds). The check_interval tunable becomes the max polling interval. The "Machine check events logged" printk() is rate limited to the check_interval, which should be identical behavior to the old functionality. Result: If you start to take a lot of correctable errors (not exceptions), you log them faster and more accurately (less chance of overflowing the MCA registers). If you don't take a lot of errors, you will see no change. Alternatives: I considered simply reducing the polling interval to 10 ms immediately and keeping it there as long as we continue to find errors. This felt a bit heavy handed, but does perform significantly better for the default check_interval of 5 minutes (we're using a few seconds when testing for DRAM errors). I could be convinced to go with this, if anyone felt it was not too aggressive. Testing: I used an error-injecting DIMM to create lots of correctable DRAM errors and verified that the polling interval accelerates. The printk() only happens once per check_interval seconds. Patch: This patch is against 2.6.21-rc7. Signed-Off-By: Tim Hockin <thockin@google.com> Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
2007-05-02 17:27:19 +00:00
(Note output is hexademical). Default 5 minutes. When the poller
finds MCEs it triggers an exponential speedup (poll more often) on
the polling interval. When the poller stops finding MCEs, it
triggers an exponential backoff (poll less often) on the polling
interval. The check_interval variable is both the initial and
maximum polling interval. 0 means no polling for corrected machine
check errors (but some corrected errors might be still reported
in other ways)
tolerant
Tolerance level. When a machine check exception occurs for a non
corrected machine check the kernel can take different actions.
Since machine check exceptions can happen any time it is sometimes
risky for the kernel to kill a process because it defies
normal kernel locking rules. The tolerance level configures
x86_64: mcelog tolerant level cleanup Background: The MCE handler has several paths that it can take, depending on various conditions of the MCE status and the value of the 'tolerant' knob. The exact semantics are not well defined and the code is a bit twisty. Description: This patch makes the MCE handler's behavior more clear by documenting the behavior for various 'tolerant' levels. It also fixes or enhances several small things in the handler. Specifically: * If RIPV is set it is not safe to restart, so set the 'no way out' flag rather than the 'kill it' flag. * Don't panic() on correctable MCEs. * If the _OVER bit is set *and* the _UC bit is set (meaning possibly dropped uncorrected errors), set the 'no way out' flag. * Use EIPV for testing whether an app can be killed (SIGBUS) rather than RIPV. According to docs, EIPV indicates that the error is related to the IP, while RIPV simply means the IP is valid to restart from. * Don't clear the MCi_STATUS registers until after the panic() path. This leaves the status bits set after the panic() so clever BIOSes can find them (and dumb BIOSes can do nothing). This patch also calls nonseekable_open() in mce_open (as suggested by akpm). Result: Tolerant levels behave almost identically to how they always have, but not it's well defined. There's a slightly higher chance of panic()ing when multiple errors happen (a good thing, IMHO). If you take an MBE and panic(), the error status bits are not cleared. Alternatives: None. Testing: I used software to inject correctable and uncorrectable errors. With tolerant = 3, the system usually survives. With tolerant = 2, the system usually panic()s (PCC) but not always. With tolerant = 1, the system always panic()s. When the system panic()s, the BIOS is able to detect that the cause of death was an MC4. I was not able to reproduce the case of a non-PCC error in userspace, with EIPV, with (tolerant < 3). That will be rare at best. Signed-off-by: Tim Hockin <thockin@google.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2007-07-21 15:10:37 +00:00
how hard the kernel tries to recover even at some risk of
deadlock. Higher tolerant values trade potentially better uptime
with the risk of a crash or even corruption (for tolerant >= 3).
0: always panic on uncorrected errors, log corrected errors
1: panic or SIGBUS on uncorrected errors, log corrected errors
2: SIGBUS or log uncorrected errors, log corrected errors
3: never panic or SIGBUS, log all errors (for testing only)
Default: 1
Note this only makes a difference if the CPU allows recovery
from a machine check exception. Current x86 CPUs generally do not.
trigger
Program to run when a machine check event is detected.
This is an alternative to running mcelog regularly from cron
and allows to detect events faster.
x86, mce: switch x86 machine check handler to Monarch election. On Intel platforms machine check exceptions are always broadcast to all CPUs. This patch makes the machine check handler synchronize all these machine checks, elect a Monarch to handle the event and collect the worst event from all CPUs and then process it first. This has some advantages: - When there is a truly data corrupting error the system panics as quickly as possible. This improves containment of corrupted data and makes sure the corrupted data never hits stable storage. - The panics are synchronized and do not reenter the panic code on multiple CPUs (which currently does not handle this well). - All the errors are reported. Currently it often happens that another CPU happens to do the panic first, but reports useless information (empty machine check) because the real error happened on another CPU which came in later. This is a big advantage on Nehalem where the 8 threads per CPU lead to often the wrong CPU winning the race and dumping useless information on a machine check. The problem also occurs in a less severe form on older CPUs. - The system can detect when no CPUs detected a machine check and shut down the system. This can happen when one CPU is so badly hung that that it cannot process a machine check anymore or when some external agent wants to stop the system by asserting the machine check pin. This follows Intel hardware recommendations. - This matches the recommended error model by the CPU designers. - The events can be output in true severity order - When a panic happens on another CPU it makes sure to be actually be able to process the stop IPI by enabling interrupts. The code is extremly careful to handle timeouts while waiting for other CPUs. It can't rely on the normal timing mechanisms (jiffies, ktime_get) because of its asynchronous/lockless nature, so it uses own timeouts using ndelay() and a "SPINUNIT" The timeout is configurable. By default it waits for upto one second for the other CPUs. This can be also disabled. From some informal testing AMD systems do not see to broadcast machine checks, so right now it's always disabled by default on non Intel CPUs or also on very old Intel systems. Includes fixes from Ying Huang Fixed a "ecception" in a comment (H.Seto) Moved global_nwo reset later based on suggestion from H.Seto v2: Avoid duplicate messages [ Impact: feature, fixes long standing problems. ] Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com> Signed-off-by: Hidetoshi Seto <seto.hidetoshi@jp.fujitsu.com> Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
2009-05-27 19:56:55 +00:00
monarch_timeout
How long to wait for the other CPUs to machine check too on a
exception. 0 to disable waiting for other CPUs.
Unit: us
TBD document entries for AMD threshold interrupt configuration
For more details about the x86 machine check architecture
see the Intel and AMD architecture manuals from their developer websites.
For more details about the architecture see
see http://one.firstfloor.org/~andi/mce.pdf