[Users] frequent kernel crashes with recent OpenVZ kernel in CentOS6

[Vasily Averin]

Dear Jonas,
it's hardware problem.
Machine Check Exception cannot be generated by software errors.

thank you,
	Vasily Averin

On 07/03/2013 02:12 PM, Jonas Meurer wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I experience frequent kernel crashes with the CentOS vzkernel provided by OpenVZ. After installing the corresponding vzkernel-devel and -debuginfo packages, I now have a crash coredump available for debugging.
> 
> These are my first steps at debugging a kernel crash, so please bear with me :)
> 
> The crash seems to happen in function start_secondary() of arch/x86/kernel/smpboot.c. To be exact, in line 380, which is the closing bracket of the function.
> 
> Here's the relevant log output:
> 
> [  777.533212] [Hardware Error]: CPU 12: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 2: b200000000020005
> [  777.533248] [Hardware Error]: TSC 1c181a41de4
> [  777.533272] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:206c0 TIME 1372805901 SOCKET 0 APIC 1
> [  777.533304] [Hardware Error]: CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 2: b200000000020005
> [  777.533335] [Hardware Error]: TSC 1c181a41d64
> [  777.533358] [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 0:206c0 TIME 1372805901 SOCKET 0 APIC 0
> [  777.533387] [Hardware Error]: Machine check: Processor context corrupt
> [  777.533413] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal Machine check
> [  777.533437] Pid: 0, comm: swapper veid: 0 Tainted: G   M       ---------------    2.6.32-042stab078.27.debug #1
> [  777.533476] Call Trace:
> [  777.533487]  <#MC>  [<ffffffff81556011>] ? panic+0xac/0x179
> [  777.533523]  [<ffffffff81026aaf>] ? mce_panic+0x20f/0x230
> [  777.533547]  [<ffffffff810280f8>] ? do_machine_check+0xa38/0xa80
> [  777.533576]  [<ffffffff8155b2a1>] ? machine_check+0x21/0x30
> [  777.533602]  [<ffffffff813145e6>] ? intel_idle+0xb6/0x190
> [  777.533624]  <<EOE>>  [<ffffffff8155e39d>] ? __atomic_notifier_call_chain+0x9d/0xc0
> [  777.533771]  [<ffffffff8145ce68>] ? menu_select+0x178/0x360
> [  777.533850]  [<ffffffff8145bce7>] ? cpuidle_idle_call+0xa7/0x170
> [  777.533934]  [<ffffffff8100a06b>] ? cpu_idle+0xbb/0x110
> [  777.534012]  [<ffffffff8154f783>] ? start_secondary+0x2cb/0x30e
> 
> I attached the full output of disassembled memory starting with address ffffffff8154f783 ('dis -rl ffffffff8154f783') to this mail.
> 
> To be honest, I don't know whether the crash is related to the OpenVZ patches in vzkernel at all. If I got it right, it happens when a secondary processor is activated, i.e. when a cpu is booted in order to take a process, right?.
> 
> As the crash happens on an OpenVZ kernel, I'm reporting it here first. Unfortunately it's not an option to try either vanilla upstream or CentOS mainline kernel. The server is a production system, and OpenVZ is critical to the provided services.
> 
> Maybe the crash is related to hardware issues? I already replaced both mainboard and CPUs, so at least broken chips are rather unlikely. Below follow some details about the hardware:
> 
> Tyan S7025 board
> 2x Intel Xeon L5640 CPU
> 48GB Kingston Registered ECC Memory
> LSI MegaRAID SAS 2108 RAID Controller with 29 physical drives in three RAID10 arrays (with two Chenbro expander cards)
> 
> 
> Issues with the particular used board or CPU are rather unlikely due to the replacements. But I cannot exclude hardware bugs in the used series.
> 
> 
> I hope that you have further advice for me on how to proceed with the debugging. At the moment I'm rather lost :(
> 
> Kind regards,
>  jonas
> 
> 
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