Hi,

I've configured my servers as described here:

http://prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2009/07/06/using-kdump-to-get-core-files-on-fedora-and-centos-hosts/

When I try to start the kdump service via service kdump start, I get the following warnings:

[root@lweb2 boot]# service kdump start
No kdump initial ramdisk found.                            [WARNING]
Rebuilding /boot/initrd-2.6.18-92.1.22.el5kdump.img
Starting kdump:                                                          [FAILED]

First of all I like the idea of automatically building an initrd image with kdump support, but
I also need MPP support. Just to give you an example, this is how both machines are booting up:

title RDAC CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.22.el5) with MPP
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.22.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
initrd /mpp-2.6.18-92.1.22.el5.img

At this point I'm wondering how to generate an initrd image with mpp & kdump support.


Also /var/log/messages gives me this:

Jul 17 11:42:27 lweb2 kdump: No crashkernel parameter specified for running kernel
Jul 17 11:42:27 lweb2 kdump: failed to start up

I assume that once the server is being rebooted with the correct kernel arguments like
crashkernel=128M@16M and the correct initrd with mpp & kdump support the service
should start just fine.

Regards,

-Andrei

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Matty <matty91@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Andrei F<frunzales@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have CentOS 5.2 installed on two of the afore-mentioned blades.
> I've noticed that the OS started to crash lately (kernel panic) and I've
> been assigned the task to troubleshoot this issue.
>
> I would like to know what is the best way of recovering the kernel
> dump after the OS crashes.
>
> I know there are two software implementations that would enable me
> to do this, kexec and 'crash' , redhat's own implementation that allows
> you to pust the dump via network to a remote machine.

I've used kdump to troubleshoot these types of issues in the past:

http://prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2009/07/06/using-kdump-to-get-core-files-on-fedora-and-centos-hosts/

Once you have a core file, you can use crash and company to figure out
what caused the kernel to panic.

- Ryan
--
http://prefetch.net