MCELOG(8) Linux's Administrator's Manual MCELOG(8)NAMEmcelog - Decode kernel machine check log on x86 machines
SYNOPSISmcelog [options] [device]
mcelog [options] --daemon
mcelog [options] --client
mcelog [options] --ascii
mcelog--version
DESCRIPTION
X86 CPUs report errors detected by the CPU as machine check events
(MCEs). These can be data corruption detected in the CPU caches, in
main memory by an integrated memory controller, data transfer errors on
the front side bus or CPU interconnect or other internal errors. Pos‐
sible causes can be cosmic radiation, instable power supplies, cooling
problems, broken hardware, or bad luck.
Most errors can be corrected by the CPU by internal error correction
mechanisms. Uncorrected errors cause machine check exceptions which may
panic the machine.
When a corrected error happens the x86 kernel writes a record describ‐
ing the MCE into a internal ring buffer available through the
/dev/mcelog device mcelog retrieves errors from /dev/mcelog, decodes
them into a human readable format and prints them on the standard out‐
put or optionally into the system log.
Optionally it can also take more options like keeping statistics or
triggering shell scripts on specific events.
The normal operating modi for mcelog are running as a regular cron job
(traditional way, deprecated), running as a trigger directly executed
by the kernel, or running as a daemon with the --daemon option.
When an uncorrected machine check error happens that the kernel cannot
recover from then it will usually panic the system. In this case when
there was a warm reset after the panic mcelog should pick up the
machine check errors after reboot. This is not possible after a cold
reset.
In addition mcelog can be used on the command line to decode the kernel
output for a fatal machine check panic in text format using the --ascii
option. This is typically used to decode the panic console output of a
fatal machine check, if the system was power cycled or mcelog didn't
run immediately after reboot.
When the panic triggers a kdump kexec crash kernel the crash kernel
boot up script should log the machine checks to disk, otherwise they
might be lost.
Note that after mcelog retrieves an error the kernel doesn't store it
anymore (different from dmesg(1)), so the output should be always saved
somewhere and mcelog not run in uncontrolled ways.
OPTIONS
When the --syslog option is specified redirect output to system log.
The --syslog-error option causes the normal machine checks to be logged
as LOG_ERR (implies --syslog ). Normally only fatal errors or high
level remarks are logged with error level. High level one line sum‐
maries of specific errors are also logged to the syslog by default
unless mcelog operates in --ascii mode.
When the --logfile=file option is specified append log output to the
specified file. With the --no-syslog option mcelog will never log any‐
thing to the syslog.
When the --cpu=cputype option is specified set the to be decoded CPU to
cputype. See mcelog--help for a list of valid CPUs. Note that speci‐
fying an incorrect CPU can lead to incorrect decoding output. Default
is either the CPU of the machine that reported the machine check (needs
a newer kernel version) or the CPU of the machine mcelog is running on,
so normally this option doesn't have to be used. Older versions of
mcelog had separate options for different CPU types. These are still
implemented, but deprecated and undocumented now.
With the --dmi option mcelog will look up the addresses reported in
machine checks in the SMBIOS/DMI tables of the BIOS. This can some‐
times tell you which DIMM or memory controller has developed a problem.
More often the information reported by the BIOS is either subtly or
obviously wrong or useless. This option requires that mcelog has read
access to /dev/mem (normally requires root) and runs on the same
machine in the same hardware configuration as when the machine check
event happened.
When --ignorenodev is specified then mcelog will exit silently when the
device cannot be opened. This is useful in virtualized environment with
limited devices.
When --filter is specified mcelog will filter out known broken machine
check events (default on). When the --no-filter option is specified
mcelog does not filter events.
When --raw is specified mcelog will not decode, but just dump the
mcelog in a raw hex format. This can be useful for automatic post pro‐
cessing.
When a device is specified the machine check logs are read from device
instead of the default /dev/mcelog.
With the --ascii option mcelog decodes a fatal machine check panic gen‐
erated by the kernel ("CPU n: Machine Check Exception ...") in ASCII
from standard input and exits afterwards. Note that when the panic
comes from a different machine than where mcelog is running on you
might need to specify the correct cputype on older kernels. On newer
kernels which output the PROCESSOR field this is not needed anymore.
When the --file filename option is specified mcelog--ascii will read
the ASCII machine check record from input file filename instead of
standard input.
With the --config-file file option mcelog reads the specified config
file. Default is /etc/mcelog.conf See also CONFIG FILE below.
With the --daemon option mcelog will run in the background. This gives
the fastest reaction time and is the recommended operating mode. This
option implies --syslog. The option --foreground will prevent mcelog
from giving up the terminal in daemon mode. This is intended for debug‐
ging.
With the --client option mcelog will query a running daemon for accumu‐
lated errors.
With the --cpumhz=mhz option assume the CPU has mhz frequency for
decoding the time of the event using the CPU time stamp counter. This
also forces decoding. Note this can be unreliable. on some systems
with CPU frequency scaling or deep C states, where the CPU time stamp
counter does not increase linearly. By default the frequency of the
current CPU is used when mcelog determines it is safe to use. Newer
kernels report the time directly in the event and don't need this any‐
more.
The --pidfile file option writes the process id of the daemon into file
file. Only valid in daemon mode.
--version displays the version of mcelog and exits.
CONFIG FILEmcelog supports a config file to set defaults. Command line options
override the config file. By default the config file is read from
/etc/mcelog.conf unless overridden with the --config-file option.
The general format is optionname = value White space is not allowed in
value currently, except at the end where it is dropped Comments start
with #.
All command line options that are not commands can be specified in the
config file. For example t to enable the --no-syslog option use no-
syslog = yes (or no to disable). When the option has a argument use
logfile = /tmp/logfile
NOTES
The kernel prefers old messages over new. If the log buffer overflows
only old ones will be kept.
The exact output in the log file depends on the CPU, unless the --raw
option is used.
mcelog will report serious errors to the syslog during decoding.
FILES
/dev/mcelog (char 10, minor 227)
/etc/mcelog/mcelog.conf
/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck0/trigger
SEE ALSO
AMD x86-64 architecture programmer's manual, Volume 2, System program‐
ming
Intel 64 and IA32 Architectures Software Developer's manual, Volume 3,
System programming guide Parts 1 and 2. Machine checks are described in
Chapter 14 in Part1 and in Appendix E in Part2.
Datasheet of your CPU.
May 2009 MCELOG(8)
