Bug 431584

Summary: Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: clive darra <cdrh>
Component: kernelAssignee: Red Hat Kernel Manager <kernel-mgr>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Red Hat Kernel QE team <kernel-qe>
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 5.1CC: akeelsiddiqvi2004, bug, bugzilla, charles, gerrit.slomma, javabrett, JHanes, jrobertoalas, lutz.willek, nicolai, offlimitgod, qcai, rjones, scott.rochford, uleman
Target Milestone: rcKeywords: Reopened
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of:
: 625996 (view as bug list) Environment:
Last Closed: 2008-02-07 15:05:01 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description clive darra 2008-02-05 16:58:54 UTC
Description of problem:
every time i boot 5.1 i get the error
"Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range"

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
5.1

How reproducible:

every time
Steps to Reproduce:
1. install 5.1 (without enabling kdump)
2. reboot
3. watch startup screen
  
Actual results:
"Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range"

Expected results:
"kdump disabled"

Additional info:

Comment 1 James Antill 2008-02-05 17:38:07 UTC
 I assume this was a mistake making this against zsh? Reassigning, and tweaking
the summary.


Comment 2 clive darra 2008-02-05 17:46:00 UTC
yes you're right thanks - i didn't realise kdump was actually listed as kexec-kdump

Comment 3 Neil Horman 2008-02-06 15:26:50 UTC
Its not a bug, its just an informative message, indicating that you haven't
specified an area of memory to reserve during boot up for use by the kdump
kernel.  You can specify it using the crashkernel=X@Y commandline parameter

Comment 4 clive darra 2008-02-07 11:44:38 UTC
if crashkernel=0x0@0x0 is not the "correct way" to disable kdump what is ?
and why doesn't install program use this "other way" instead ?

Comment 5 Neil Horman 2008-02-07 12:02:16 UTC
The correct way to disable kdump is to not start the kdump service.  Adding a
crashkernel line to the kernel command line won't enable or disable kdump at
all, that just reserves memory for use by kdump to use.  Sepcifying
crashkernel=0@0 is exactly the same as not specifying a crashkernel parameter at
all.  You'll still get the warning in the logs, which is there to inform you
that, even if you try to start the kdump service, it will fail.

Comment 6 clive darra 2008-02-07 13:55:03 UTC
sorry to keep going on a bit more but does this mean the installer is doing the
wrong thing if you untick the enable kdump box !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osde-info/2241815136/

BTW even if i # chkconfig kdump off and reboot i still see this message on the
boot up screen !

so does this make this is an grub/installer issue rather than kdump issue ?

Comment 7 Neil Horman 2008-02-07 15:05:01 UTC
No, there is no issue.

Kdump requires that a large chunk of contiguous memory be reseerved for its use.
 This chunk is sufficiently large that it can't be allocated dynamically in a
runing system.  As such we reserve it on bootup.  This process is 100% separate
from the starting of the kdump service .  It will be reserved weather or not you
start the kdump service later in the boot process.  conversely, if you do not
select any memory, you won't be able to use kdump if you try to start the service.

unchecking the box in the initial install prevents the kdump service from
starting, and thats working just fine.  But the kernel has no knoweldge of that
decision as early in the boot process as we need to reserve that memory.  As
such we need to issue a warning indicating that non crash kernel memory is
reserved, even if we don't intend to start the kdump service later

consider the converse situation.  if you had intended to start the kdump service
later, but didn't specify a valid crashkernel memory range, this warning
provides a  red flag as to what has gone wrong with the process.  If you don't
intend to start kdump, then you can safely ignore this warning.

This is working exactly the way its supposed to.

Comment 8 clive darra 2008-02-07 17:13:33 UTC
thanks

Comment 9 uleman 2009-04-06 15:53:53 UTC
"Its not a bug, its just an informative message, ..."
"No, there is no issue."
"This is working exactly the way its supposed to."

Despite the helpful explanations, Neil's responses are also a bit too much of the variety, "We developers know what we mean, but you users are just not getting it." 

Clearly, there is an issue: several people have stumbled over this (google it). In my work as a software developer, anything that generates customer support calls (or forum entries, as the case may be) is a bug, though you can argue over the severity. In this case, I think it's pretty obvious what the defect is: the message is poorly worded (not to mention poorly typed), causing it to be misleading and alarming (not "informative").

So I think a few edits would help. Note that I know nothing about kexec/kdump, nor anything about constraints on boot messages (lengthwise or otherwise). But I'm looking for these improvements:
1) If there's a more or less accepted way to indicate that this is just an informational message and not indicative of a failure, use it. (Info: or Warning:?)
2) Indicate that this has something to do with kdump (kexec?), so you can go look for instructions if you want to learn more.
3) While alerting the user to the fact that insufficient memory has been allocated for kdump, suggest that this is only relevant if you actually want to use kdump.

For example:
"Info: Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) insufficient for kdump. Allocate more if using kdump."

What do you think?

Comment 10 Gerrit Slomma 2009-06-30 21:39:51 UTC
Sounds good. Furthermore i would rather have the message disappear if - and only if - the memory-amount for crashkernel is set to "0x0 to 0x0" since this only means the crashkernel-feature is set to off by intention. Must be a rather simple "if-then-else" statement surrounding the statement that prints this message.

Comment 11 Lee Ball 2009-06-30 22:57:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> Sounds good. Furthermore i would rather have the message disappear if - and
> only if - the memory-amount for crashkernel is set to "0x0 to 0x0" since this
> only means the crashkernel-feature is set to off by intention. Must be a rather
> simple "if-then-else" statement surrounding the statement that prints this
> message.  

I would also prefer it to not report anything or at least reword it if this isn't a problem. "not within permissible range" gives the impression something is broken.

Comment 12 rjones 2009-09-16 13:36:58 UTC
Yeah, this was the first time I ever came across that, i thought for sure I had bad hardware or messed up the install or found a bug in 5.4.  Would be nice if when you go to install a server and turn off kdump, it disabled this message or gave a better worded message like "kdump disabled, not configured"

Comment 13 DWHS 2010-03-28 00:53:58 UTC
I thought this was a hardware issue as well, good to know it's just a alert.

Comment 14 Gavin Burris 2010-04-26 13:41:20 UTC
Please reword this "alert".  It is unnecessarily alarming and generates many help requests.  I think many people are tired of explaining this to alarmed users.  It only teaches users to ignore real errors, which is a VERY BAD THING.

Comment 15 Lutz Willek 2010-06-24 15:24:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> No, there is no issue.

Take a step back, try to understand, here is an issue. 

Hundreds of thousands people wasting time by searching informations about a stupid warning message.

Please disable this warning, if no crashkernel=xy line is provided and:

> consider the converse situation.  if you had intended to start the kdump service
> later, but didn't specify a valid crashkernel memory range, this warning
> provides a  red flag as to what has gone wrong with the process.  If you don't
> intend to start kdump, then you can safely ignore this warning.

later, if you try to start kdump check for a valid cmdline "crashkernel=xy".

Comment 16 Nicolai Nielsen 2010-08-19 19:03:15 UTC
I notice that this is a closed ticket so I am not sure if this is even read or considered by the developers but I fail to understand why this is even reported by the kernel. As I understand it the reasoning is: "If you ever want to enable kdump later this may be a problem at that time so we tell you now". That is just confusing people. Why isn't it kdump that gives this error, as in:

 if (no-enough-memory-reserved-for-crash-kernel) {
   fail("Not enough memory reserved. Please add more memory using the crashkernel=X@Y kernel parameter");
 }

As others have said, this is a defect since it is causing confusion for end-users.

Comment 17 Scott Rochford 2010-10-20 22:52:28 UTC
Another vote for hiding this message when it's disabled intentionally.

But please, at the very least, make it grammatically correct and change "notwithin" to "not within"!

Comment 18 David Gibbs 2010-12-17 21:40:22 UTC
If it causes confusion, it's a bug that should be addressed.

Comment 19 akeel 2011-06-20 09:43:30 UTC
i think there is lot of rubish conversation is going on.
sorry if any one heart with that line becoz when i read that comment and rply i get   .

we are expecting answer about problem how to come out but no one is providing solution ,
thing is that if any one have solution regarding that problem then welcome other wise why are u all giving suggesstion .
post regarding problem so we can come out with that problem.
thnx

we are waiting for solution of that problem

Comment 20 akeel 2011-06-20 09:50:21 UTC
i think there is lot of rubish conversation is going on.
sorry if any one heart with that line becoz when i read that comment and rply i get   .

we are expecting answer about problem how to come out but no one is providing solution ,
thing is that if any one have solution regarding that problem then welcome other wise why are u all giving suggesstion .
post regarding problem so we can come out with that problem.
thnx

we are waiting for solution of that problem

Comment 21 cheperobert 2011-10-14 15:21:12 UTC
Should be a little more friendly message to the user, not to cause alarm and waste time searching the WEB

Comment 22 Surdu Dumitru Alexandru 2012-01-02 09:28:42 UTC
You can download   system-config-kdump  and enable kdump with  256 MB.. and should work. 

Regard

Comment 23 Gerrit Slomma 2012-01-02 20:21:47 UTC
The problem is: The message is there if one disables kdump. Why should one enable kdump with an arbitrary size to get rid of an anoying message that only appears if one disabled kdump on purpose. Seems outright pointless to me. Furthermore is this only treating of the symptom and not of the root cause that still persists.