Description of problem: Forcing dump under kdump failed with explanation that dump kernel wasn't installed, so investigated manually installing dump kernel. Oh, and yes, there was a properly formed crashkernel=128M@16M option on the boot commandline, plus the appropriate region appeared carved out in /proc/iomem. Incidentally there was nothing in syslog that indicated that dump kernel installation had failed. Using the kexec installation line from /etc/init.d/kdump: /sbin/kexec -p --args-linux --command-line="ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet" --initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2849.fc6kdump.img /boot/vmlinux-2.6.18-1.2849.fc6kdump I got the message: Overlapping memory segments at 0x1460000 sort_segments failed This may be similar or identical to a bug reported against kexec w/ x86-64 on the fastboot mailing list around the beginning of October, and may require tweaking the dump kernel. Incidentally, there is no kernel-kdump component in bugzilla presently to speculatively report this problem against. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kexec-tools-1.101-51.fc6 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6kdump How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1.run kexec line above 2. 3. Actual results: Overlapping memory segments at 0x1460000 sort_segments failed Expected results: installed kernel Additional info: Installing the dump kernel is a crucial first step in an attempt to detect a quiet, frequent lockup of an x86-64 system under Fedora Core 6.
Hey! Thanks for the report. This is actually a kernel bug though, that results from overlapping physical address for program headers getting written into the compiled kdump kernel. you need this patch for your kernel: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=dbaab49f92ff6ae6255762a948375e4036cbdbd2 It just got added to Linus' tree today, so I expect Dave J. will have it in the FC-6 kernel shortly.