Issued:
2014-10-13
Updated:
2014-10-13

RHBA-2014:1401 - mcelog bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

mcelog bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated mcelog packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The mcelog packages contain a daemon that collects and decodes Machine Check Exception (MCE) data on AMD64 and Intel 64 machines.

The mcelog packages have been upgraded to upstream version 1.0.1, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. With this upgrade, mcelog correctly decodes MISC register when IO MCA error events occur. In addition, mcelog exits with an exit status 0, indicating success when stopped by signal. Finally, mcelog has been updated with a new NVR (Name, Version, Release) scheme to synchronize with rolling-release mechanism upstream. (BZ#1032283)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

  • Prior to this update, log rotation for the /var/log/mcelog file was disabled, which could cause the file system to reach maximum capacity as the existing mcelog files could not be moved. The mcelog.logrotate file has been added to the mcelogd daemon, and the file system can no longer grow indefinitely. (BZ#849252)

  • Previously, the mcelog packages did not specify mcelogd chkconfig levels. As a consequence, the mcelogd daemon could not be enabled using the ntsysv interface. Default chkconfig levels have been added to /etc/init.d/mcelog, and mcelogd can now be enabled using ntsysv. (BZ1006293)

  • Prior to this update, Intel Xeon E5 family processors were not identified uniquely, and the entry to the memory controller decode table was missing. A patch has been applied to fix this bug, and the mcelog packages have been updated to correctly identify Intel Xeon E5 family processors and to display corrected memory read errors. (BZ#1079360)

  • Previously, the select_intel_cputype() function did not work. As a consequence, the following error message was returned on Intel Xeon E6 family processors:

    mcelog: Family 6 Model 3f CPU: only decoding architectural errors

The mcelog utility has been updated to support Intel Xeon E6 family processors. Now, decoding on the CPUs with this microarchitecture works properly. (BZ#1079501)

  • Previously, the mcelog packages included three files, intel.c.orig, intel.c.rej, and mcelog.c.orig which were copies of files used in development. The files are not required for the source to compile, or by the mcelog utility, and therefore have been removed. (BZ#1059227)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancement:

  • Previously, the mcelog utility required the use of the "--logfile" argument when specifying daemon mode in order to ensure that mcelog started with a logging mode. This configuration, however, prevented mcelog from starting with logging only to syslog. With this update, mcelog allows syslog only logging when "--logfile" is not specified. (BZ#872387)

Users of mcelog are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64

Updated Packages

  • mcelog-debuginfo-101-0.el6.x86_64.rpm
  • mcelog-101-0.el6.src.rpm
  • mcelog-101-0.el6.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information