Re: [Patch V1 1/3] x86, mce: MCE log size not enough for high core parts

Borislav Petkov
2015-09-24T19:22:32Z

On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 07:00:46PM +0000, Luck, Tony wrote:
> > If we get new ones logged in the meantime and userspace hasn't managed
> > to consume and delete the present ones yet, we overwrite the oldest ones
> > and set MCE_OVERFLOW like mce_log does now for mcelog. And that's no
> > difference in functionality than what we have now.
>
> Ummmm. No.
>
> for (;;) {
>
> /*
> * When the buffer fills up discard new entries.
> * Assume that the earlier errors are the more
> * interesting ones:
> */
> if (entry >= MCE_LOG_LEN) {
> set_bit(MCE_OVERFLOW,
> (unsigned long *)&mcelog.flags);
> return;
> }

Ah, we return. But we shouldn't return - we should overwrite. I believe
we've talked about the policy of overwriting old errors with new ones.

TBH, I don't think there's a 100%-correct policy to act according to
when our error logging buffers are full:

- we can overwrite old errors with new but then this way we might lose
the one important error record with which it all started.

- if we don't overwrite, we might fill up with "unimportant" correctable
error records and miss other, more important ones which happen now

- ...

We could try to implement some cheap heuristics which decide what and
when to overwrite but I'm sceptical it'll be always correct...

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

ECO tip #101: Trim your mails when you reply.