I wrote about Linux mcelog utility a few weeks back, and described how it can be used to monitor the /dev/mcelog device for machine check exception (MCEs). By default, the Linux kernel will check for MCEs every five minutes. The polling interval is defined in the sysfs check_interval entry, which you can view with cat:
$ cat
/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck0/check_interval
12c
$ python
print “%d” % 0x12c 300
To configure the host to use a shorter check interval, you can echo the desired value to the sysfs entry for processor 0:
$ echo 60 >
/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck0/check_interval
$ cat
/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck0/check_interval
3c
$ cat
/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck1/check_interval
3c
If you want to get additional information on check_interval, check out the machinecheck text file in the kernel documentation directory. If you are curious how the code actually detects a MCE, you can look through the source code in <KERNEL_SOURCE_ROOT>/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck.