Re: [PATCH] x86, MCE: Flesh out when to panic comment

[Jiri Kosina]

On Mon, 26 May 2014, Borislav Petkov wrote:

> On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 03:13:54PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > Seems like a comment would be in order, though.
> 
> ---
> From: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [PATCH] x86, MCE: Flesh out when to panic comment
> 
> Recent discussion (link below) showed that it is not really clear what
> appropriate recovery actions we're taking when in a machine check
> exception. Flesh out the comment which was explaining that with more
> detail.
> 
> Suggested-by: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Tony Luck <tony.luck@xxxxxxxxx>
> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CALCETrXudJ8BkNF_M-r4O40XLN%2BPnZ5TOZw0P7N4kqo3qngzyg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx>
> ---
>  arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c | 12 ++++++++----
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c
> index 68317c80de7f..9f070339b09f 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c
> @@ -1151,10 +1151,14 @@ void do_machine_check(struct pt_regs *regs, long error_code)
>  		no_way_out = worst >= MCE_PANIC_SEVERITY;
>  
>  	/*
> -	 * At insane "tolerant" levels we take no action. Otherwise
> -	 * we only die if we have no other choice. For less serious
> -	 * issues we try to recover, or limit damage to the current
> -	 * process.
> +	 * At insane "tolerant" levels we take no action. Otherwise we only die
> +	 * if we have no other choice. Which means, we're definitely going to
> +	 * panic on unrecoverable, uncontainable errors which would otherwise
> +	 * influence machine state and/or cause any type of corruption. The
> +	 * decision what do to is done by mce_severity().
> +	 *
> +	 * For less serious issues we try to recover, or limit damage to the
> +	 * current process.
>  	 */

I think the comment is still not explaining the big part of what the 
discussion was about -- i.e. if it was in kernel context, we always panic.

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs
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