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authorTim Hockin2007-05-02 19:27:19 +0200
committerAndi Kleen2007-05-02 19:27:19 +0200
commit8a336b0a4b6dfacc8cc5fd617ba1e1904077de2d (patch)
tree9e2a5f4aeb080fe68a1cf26860ebc7f69e9fccb2 /Documentation
parentf82af20e1a028e16b9bb11da081fa1148d40fa6a (diff)
[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>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86_64/machinecheck7
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86_64/machinecheck b/Documentation/x86_64/machinecheck
index 068a6d9904b9..feaeaf6f6e4d 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86_64/machinecheck
+++ b/Documentation/x86_64/machinecheck
@@ -36,7 +36,12 @@ between all CPUs.
check_interval
How often to poll for corrected machine check errors, in seconds
- (Note output is hexademical). Default 5 minutes.
+ (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.
tolerant
Tolerance level. When a machine check exception occurs for a non