Re: [PATCH v3] x86/mce: Honour bios-set CMCI threshold

[Borislav Petkov]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 05:28:11PM +0000, Luck, Tony wrote:
> > What's wrong with userspace tools parsing /proc/cmdline and seeing that
> > mce_bios_cmci_threshold has been set since this is the only way to set
> > it anyway?
> 
> The argument might be on the command line, but may have been rejected
> because the BIOS didn't set the thresholds? So then you'd have to look at
> the command line, *and* check /var/log/messages to make sure we hadn't
> printed the message saying the BIOS was unsupportive.

Right, but the sysfs read-only thing doesn't solve that either - it only
dumps the mce_bios_cmci_threshold value so it doesn't help.

The stuff you're talking about is not reflected in that variable but
saved in some other like bios_wrong_thresh and bios_zero_thresh.

> BUT ... I don't think that knowing this is sufficient. A userspace
> tool would want to know what value had been set for each bank. So if
> it really wants to do something interesting, just knowing that "bios
> set some thresholds" doesn't sound like enough information.

Yes. And I still haven't gotten a real use case of what userspace tool
will do with this information.

> BUT (squared) do you even really need to know that thresholds were
> set? You could look at bits {52:38} in the MCi_STATUS information for
> the bank to see how many corrected errors had been logged.

Right, a real use case which shows why we need that information should
be good.

Thanks.

> -Tony
> ï{.nï+ïïïïïïï+%ïïlzwmïïbïëïïrïïzXïïïiÈïïïÜ}ïïïÆzï&j:+vïïïïïïïzZ+ïï+zfïïïhïïï~ïïïïiïïïzïïwïïï?ïïïï&ï)ßf

What happened here? It seems your mail client wanted to say something
too but it has been censored.

:-)

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

Advanced Micro Devices GmbH
Einsteinring 24, 85609 Dornach
GM: Alberto Bozzo
Reg: Dornach, Landkreis Muenchen
HRB Nr. 43632 WEEE Registernr: 129 19551
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/