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NMI (Non Maskable Interrupt) is both a general term and a term that specifically refers to an IBM PC x86 compatible function built into motherboards. Historica
by throwaway2048 7y ago
NMI (Non Maskable Interrupt) is both a general term and a term that specifically refers to an IBM PC x86 compatible function built into motherboards.
Historically it took the form of a button on the computer/server that when pressed would signal the kernel to bluescreen/kernel panic and a dump of memory to disk, then a reboot, aka a "machine check". It is now present also in the virtual hardware of a VM.
This article is talking about the latter, not the generic idea of hardware raising an NMI (which many types of hardware raise during error conditions, such as ECC or raid controllers or other devices), which is likely what you are seeing in your logs.
- kccqzy 7y agoNo I'm talking about the latter. To be specific I'm referring to the kind of NMI interrupt defined by Intel in Volume 3 Section 6.7 of its manual, that triggers interrupt vector 2 in protected mode. I write code for a hypervisor and it's the hypervisor's job to pass on NMIs from the hardware to the guest, which is why I see these NMIs.