MCELOG(8)						  Linux's Administrator's Manual						 MCELOG(8)

NAME

       mcelog - Decode kernel machine check log on x86 machines

SYNOPSIS

       mcelog [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.
       Possible 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 describing 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  exe-
       cuted 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
       summaries 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
       specifying  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 generated 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/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  --logfile=/var/log/mcelog.  Important messages will be logged as one-liner summaries to syslog unless --no-syslog is
       given.  The option --foreground will prevent mcelog from giving up the terminal in daemon mode. This is intended for debugging.

       With the --client option mcelog will query a running daemon for accumulated 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 anymore.

       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 FILE

       mcelog  supports  a  config  file  to  set defaults. Command line options override the config file. By default the config file is read from
       /etc/mcelog/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.

SIGNALS

       When mcelog runs in daemon mode and receives a SIGUSR1 it will close and reopen the log files. This can be  used  to  rotate  logs  without
       restarting the daemon.

FILES

       /dev/mcelog (char 10, minor 227)

       /etc/mcelog/mcelog.conf

       /var/log/mcelog

       /var/run/mcelog.pid

SEE ALSO

       AMD x86-64 architecture programmer's manual, Volume 2, System programming

       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)