ECC RAM
ECC RAM should not be confused with Registered Memory, commonly called RDIMM; they are different technologies.
ECC RAM, short for Error Correcting Code Random Access Memory, is a kind of RAM can detect most common kinds of memory errors and correct a subset of them. ECC RAM is common in enterprise deployments and most server-class hardware. Above a certain scale and memory density, single-bit errors which were up to this point are sufficiently statistically unlikely begin to occur with enough frequency that they can no longer be ignored. At certain scales and densities of memory arbitrary memory errors that are literally "one in a million chances" (or more) may in fact occur several times throughout a system's operational life.
Mozilla has written about some of these issues playing out in the wild.
Kernel
The following kernel drivers are relevant here:
- CONFIG_EDAC — EDAC (Error Detection And Correction) reporting hardware driver.
- CONFIG_EDAC_AMD64 — Required if running and AMD based system.
- CONFIG_EDAC_DEBUG — Only required if you plan on doing driver debugging by simulating various classes of error in RAM.
Hardware
AMD
Most AMD hardware, even for consumers, will support ECC RAM. Sometimes ECC RAM will be listed under "tested RAM" in a motherboard's Qualified Vendor List (QVL); but if it isn't, it may still work if using AMD hardware. In such a case, the ECC RAM will function as expected even if the manufacture does not formally provide support for such a configuration.
Intel
This is in contrast with Intel whose hardware will not support ECC unless buying from their server range, notably Xeon, unless the device happens to support DDR5. Unlike previous generations of DDR RAM, all variants of DDR5 RAM fully support ECC internally.
Software
Checking
If you see ECC errors occurring in your system log on anything like a regular basis, you have one or more failing DIMM's and need to replace the RAM immediately; this is a hardware failure in progress.
To verify that ECC RAM is installed and working correctly, first consult sys-apps/dmidecode. Running dmidecode -t memory should show a 'Total Width' greater than 'Data Width' and say 'Error Correction Type: Multi-bit ECC'.
Verify also that dmesg | grep -i EDAC returns some results.
Status reports
The sys-apps/edac-utils and app-admin/mcelog packages are functionally obsolete. The former does not report all events on modern kernels and the later only works on supported Intel hardware; it will not work on AMD systems.
Use app-admin/rasdaemon to receive reports in syslog/journal when an EDAC event (hardware issue like a memory error being detected or corrected) occurs.
Make sure to start the daemon and enable it to run on boot.
Once running, try ras-mc-ctl --layout:
root #ras-mc-ctl --layout +-------------------------------------------------+
| mc0 |
| csrow0 | csrow1 | csrow2 | csrow3 |
----------+-------------------------------------------------+
channel1: | 0 MB | 0 MB | 16384 MB | 16384 MB |
channel0: | 0 MB | 0 MB | 16384 MB | 16384 MB |
----------+-------------------------------------------------+
root #ras-mc-ctl --statusras-mc-ctl: drivers are loaded.
root #ras-mc-ctl --summaryNo Memory errors. No PCIe AER errors. No ARM processor errors. No Extlog errors. No devlink errors. No disk errors. No MCE errors.