On the BMC, PELs are created from the standard event logs provided by phosphor-logging using a message registry that provides the PEL related fields. The message registry is a JSON file.
A component ID is a 2 byte value of the form 0xYY00 used in a PEL to:
BD SRCs.Component IDs are specified in the message registry either as the upper byte of the SRC reason code field for BD SRCs, or in the standalone ComponentID field.
Component IDs will be unique on a per-repository basis for errors unique to that repository. When the same errors are created by multiple repositories, those errors will all share the same component ID. The master list of component IDs is here.
The message registry schema is here, and the message registry itself is here. The schema will be validated either during a bitbake build or during CI, or eventually possibly both.
In the message registry, there are fields for specifying:
This is the key into the message registry, and is the Message property of the OpenBMC event log that the PEL is being created from.
"Name": "xyz.openbmc_project.Power.Fault"
This field is part of the PEL User Header section, and is used to specify the subsystem pertaining to the error. It is an enumeration that maps to the actual PEL value.
"Subsystem": "power_supply"
This field is part of the PEL User Header section, and is used to specify the PEL severity. It is an optional field, if it isn't specified, then the severity of the OpenBMC event log will be converted into a PEL severity value.
"Severity": "unrecoverable"
This is an optional field and is used to override the Severity field when a specific manufacturing isolation mode is enabled.
"MfgSeverity": "unrecoverable"
This field is part of the PEL User Header section, and is used to specify the event scope, as defined by the PEL spec. It is optional and defaults to "entire platform".
"EventScope": "entire_platform"
This field is part of the PEL User Header section, and is used to specify the event type, as defined by the PEL spec. It is optional and defaults to "not applicable" for non-informational logs, and "misc_information_only" for informational ones.
"EventType": "na"
This field is part of the PEL User Header section, and is used to specify the PEL action flags, as defined by the PEL spec. It is an array of enumerations.
The action flags can usually be deduced from other PEL fields, such as the severity or if there are any callouts. As such, this is an optional field and if not supplied the code will fill them in based on those fields.
In fact, even if supplied here, the code may still modify them to ensure they are correct.
"ActionFlags": ["service_action", "report", "call_home"]
This is an optional field and is used to override the Action Flags field when a specific manufacturing isolation mode is enabled.
"MfgActionFlags": ["service_action", "report", "call_home"]
This is the component ID of the PEL creator, in the form 0xYY00. For BD SRCs, this is an optional field and if not present the value will be taken from the upper byte of the reason code. If present for BD SRCs, then this byte must match the upper byte of the reason code.
"ComponentID": "0x5500"
This specifies the type of SRC to create. The type is the first 2 characters of the 8 character ASCII string field of the PEL. The allowed types are BD, for the standard OpenBMC error, and 11, for power related errors. It is optional and if not specified will default to BD.
Note: The ASCII string for BD SRCs looks like: BDBBCCCC, where:
For 11 SRCs, it looks like: 1100RRRR, where RRRR is the SRC reason code.
"Type": "11"
This is the 4 character value in the latter half of the SRC ASCII string. It is treated as a 2 byte hex value, such as 0x5678. For BD SRCs, the first byte is the same as the first byte of the component ID field in the Private Header section that represents the creator's component ID.
"ReasonCode": "0x5544"
The symptom ID is in the Extended User Header section and is defined in the PEL spec as the unique event signature string. It always starts with the ASCII string. This field in the message registry allows one to choose which SRC words to use in addition to the ASCII string field to form the symptom ID. All words are separated by underscores. If not specified, the code will choose a default format, which may depend on the SRC type.
For example: ["SRCWord3", "SRCWord9"] would be: <ASCII_STRING>_<SRCWord3>_<SRCWord9>, which could look like: B181320_00000050_49000000.
"SymptomIDFields": ["SRCWord3", "SRCWord9"]
In a PEL, these SRC words are free format and can be filled in by the user as desired. On the BMC, the source of these words is the AdditionalData fields in the event log. The message registry provides a way for the log creator to specify which AdditionalData property field to get the data from, and also to define what the SRC word means for use by parsers. If not specified, these SRC words will be set to zero in the PEL.
"Words6to9":
{
"6":
{
"description": "Failing unit number",
"AdditionalDataPropSource": "PS_NUM"
}
}
The SRC has a bit in it to indicate if the error is a power fault. This is an optional field in the message registry and defaults to false.
"PowerFault: false
The documentation fields are used by PEL parsers to display a human readable description of a PEL. They are also the source for the Redfish event log messages.
This field is used by the BMC's PEL parser as the description of the error log. It will also be used in Redfish event logs. It supports argument substitution using the %1, %2, etc placeholders allowing any of the SRC user data words 6 - 9 to be displayed as part of the message. If the placeholders are used, then the MessageArgSources property must be present to say which SRC words to use for each placeholder.
"Message": "Processor %1 had %2 errors"
This optional field is required when the Message field contains the %X placeholder arguments. It is an array that says which SRC words to get the placeholders from. In the example below, SRC word 6 would be used for %1, and SRC word 7 for %2.
"MessageArgSources":
[
"SRCWord6", "SRCWord7"
]
A short description of the error. This is required by the Redfish schema to generate a Redfish message entry, but is not used in Redfish or PEL output.
"Description": "A power fault"
This is an optional free format text field for keeping any notes for the registry entry, as comments are not allowed in JSON. It is an array of strings for easier readability of long fields.
"Notes": [
"This entry is for every type of power fault.",
"There is probably a hardware failure."
]