kernel-packages team mailing list archive

[Igor Galić <i.galic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

In our infrastructure we have a large number of virtual machines running Ubuntu 12.04 (and some that are running 10.04), as well as a couple of CentOS machines.
>From time to time they will panic and we'll be left with nothing but a screenshot, which makes for poor debugging. I pushed forward to install linux-crashdump (or crash on CentOS) by default.
Following this documentation on how to enable crash dumps: https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/kernel-crash-dump.html I've done the testing myself, on both libvirt/qemu, virtualbox, but also on actual hardware (my laptop, which is the yet unreleased running Ubuntu 13.04).

The results have been rather sobering. After initiating a panic, the machines shows a back-trace and then just hangs. As the documentation says that the crash-dump can take some time, I've left the machines for several hours in this state with no change.
I've followed several cues, documenting my journey in this ask.ubuntu answer: http://askubuntu.com/questions/310885/kernel-dump-using-linux-crashdump-under-vmware — The testing on my own laptop has led to seeing the first bluescreen in over ten years: http://i.imgur.com/oAwEJZ8.jpg

My final tests were with CentOS, since we only have a handful of machines running CentOS I put a lower priority on testing/implementing that. However, following RHEL's documentation ( https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/ch-kdump.html ) I managed to get crash/dump/reboot and crashdump on the very first try.
By this token I'm assuming it's not entirely my fault or my systems' fault, but perhaps is more specific to Debian.

** Affects: kexec-tools (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1235616

Title:
  linux-crashdump doesn't actually dump and reboot

Status in “kexec-tools” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  In our infrastructure we have a large number of virtual machines running Ubuntu 12.04 (and some that are running 10.04), as well as a couple of CentOS machines.
  From time to time they will panic and we'll be left with nothing but a screenshot, which makes for poor debugging. I pushed forward to install linux-crashdump (or crash on CentOS) by default.
  Following this documentation on how to enable crash dumps: https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/kernel-crash-dump.html I've done the testing myself, on both libvirt/qemu, virtualbox, but also on actual hardware (my laptop, which is the yet unreleased running Ubuntu 13.04).

  The results have been rather sobering. After initiating a panic, the machines shows a back-trace and then just hangs. As the documentation says that the crash-dump can take some time, I've left the machines for several hours in this state with no change.
  I've followed several cues, documenting my journey in this ask.ubuntu answer: http://askubuntu.com/questions/310885/kernel-dump-using-linux-crashdump-under-vmware — The testing on my own laptop has led to seeing the first bluescreen in over ten years: http://i.imgur.com/oAwEJZ8.jpg

  My final tests were with CentOS, since we only have a handful of machines running CentOS I put a lower priority on testing/implementing that. However, following RHEL's documentation ( https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Deployment_Guide/ch-kdump.html ) I managed to get crash/dump/reboot and crashdump on the very first try.
  By this token I'm assuming it's not entirely my fault or my systems' fault, but perhaps is more specific to Debian.

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