Memory EDAC (Error Detection and Correction)

Document Scope

This article will go over installation and some basic operation of the edac-utils tool. This tool can be a useful way to quickly determine which specific DIMM is causing errors so that it can be replaced without having to do a lot of shuffling or trial/error.

What is 'edac-utils'?

The 'edac' kernel module goal is to detect and report errors that occur within the computer system running under Linux. edac-util will let you gather that data in a potentially easier to read format.

How to install and run EDAC

CentOS/Rocky

sudo yum install edac-utils

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get edac utils

Note: This will not work on in a liveboot environment (i.e. USB, Live CD, etc)

You can view the man page for more info on specific uses but support will generally ask for at least the simple report to get an idea of how many errors your DIMMs may be reporting to the system.

root:~$ edac-util --report=simple
mc0: Correctable errors: 0
mc0: Uncorrectable errors: 0
mc1: Correctable errors: 0
mc1: Uncorrectable errors: 0
mc2: Correctable errors: 0
mc2: Uncorrectable errors: 0
mc3: Correctable errors: 1778948
mc3: Uncorrectable errors: 0
Total CE: 1778948
Total UE: 0
If you want to check them yourself, the location of the edac files can be found at the following path:
/sys/devices/system/edac/
root:~$