Description of problem: On a IA64 machine (hp-rx2660-03.rhts.bos.redhat.com), makedumpfile -c seems did not have effect. It is a system with lots of memories. Looks like a few other IA64 boxes I have tried without this problem. However, If vmcore compressing is not working on this machine, it takes a long time and lots of disk spaces to save the vmcore. [root@hp-rx2660-03 ~]# ls -lh /var/crash/127.0.0.1-2008-08-08-05\:52\:07/vmcore -rw------- 1 root root 31G Aug 8 06:25 /var/crash/127.0.0.1-2008-08-08-05:52:07/vmcore [root@hp-rx2660-03 ~]# free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 31965 640 31325 0 33 270 -/+ buffers/cache: 336 31629 Swap: 1983 0 1983 /etc/kdump.conf, ext3 /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 core_collector makedumpfile -c Output from crash by opening this vmcore, [root@hp-rx2660-03 ~]# crash /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.18-92.el5/vmlinux /var/crash/127.0.0.1-2008-08-08-05\:52\:07/vmcore crash 4.0-5.0.3 Copyright (C) 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Red Hat, Inc. Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006 IBM Corporation Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Hewlett-Packard Co Copyright (C) 2005, 2006 Fujitsu Limited Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. Copyright (C) 2005 NEC Corporation Copyright (C) 1999, 2002, 2007 Silicon Graphics, Inc. Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Mission Critical Linux, Inc. This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Enter "help copying" to see the conditions. This program has absolutely no warranty. Enter "help warranty" for details. GNU gdb 6.1 Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "ia64-unknown-linux-gnu"... KERNEL: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.18-92.el5/vmlinux DUMPFILE: /var/crash/127.0.0.1-2008-08-08-05:52:07/vmcore CPUS: 4 DATE: Fri Aug 8 05:51:09 2008 UPTIME: 00:05:09 LOAD AVERAGE: 0.33, 0.26, 0.12 TASKS: 114 NODENAME: hp-rx2660-03.rhts.bos.redhat.com RELEASE: 2.6.18-92.el5 VERSION: #1 SMP Tue Apr 29 13:18:26 EDT 2008 MACHINE: ia64 (1594 Mhz) MEMORY: 31.4 GB PANIC: "SysRq : Trigger a crashdump" PID: 4355 COMMAND: "bash" TASK: e0000100e3800000 [THREAD_INFO: e0000100e3801040] CPU: 2 STATE: TASK_RUNNING (SYSRQ) crash> Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.18-92.el5 kexec-tools-1.102pre-21.el5 How reproducible: always
readelf could not read it though, [root@hp-rx2660-03 ~]# readelf -a /var/crash/127.0.0.1-2008-08-08-05\:52\:07/vmcore readelf: Error: Not an ELF file - it has the wrong magic bytes at the start
Can you capture the core without the use of makedumpfile, and then run makedumpfile manually to see what, if any errors are produced. Also, you may want to try the latest kexec-tools from brew. And IA64 problem was fixed inrelease -25.el5 or so that may have a bearing on the output of makedumpfile (making this a duplicate of bz 449111). Thanks!
I logged into the capture Kernel, and ran the following command, # makedumpfile --message-level 15 -c /proc/vmcore good and there is no error message, LOAD (0) phys_start : 4000000 phys_end : 4638ce0 virt_start : a000000100000000 virt_end : a000000100638ce0 LOAD (1) phys_start : 0 phys_end : 1000 virt_start : e000000000000000 virt_end : e000000000001000 LOAD (2) phys_start : 1000 phys_end : a0000 virt_start : e000000000001000 virt_end : e0000000000a0000 LOAD (3) phys_start : 100000 phys_end : 101000 virt_start : e000000000100000 virt_end : e000000000101000 LOAD (4) phys_start : 101000 phys_end : 4000000 virt_start : e000000000101000 virt_end : e000000004000000 LOAD (5) phys_start : 4000000 phys_end : 4db3000 virt_start : e000000004000000 virt_end : e000000004db3000 LOAD (6) phys_start : 4db3000 phys_end : 8000000 virt_start : e000000004db3000 virt_end : e000000008000000 LOAD (7) phys_start : 28000000 phys_end : 3e862000 virt_start : e000000028000000 virt_end : e00000003e862000 LOAD (8) phys_start : 3eb86000 phys_end : 3ee7a000 virt_start : e00000003eb86000 virt_end : e00000003ee7a000 LOAD (9) phys_start : 3fc00000 phys_end : 3fdd8000 virt_start : e00000003fc00000 virt_end : e00000003fdd8000 LOAD (10) phys_start : 3fdd8000 phys_end : 3fde4000 virt_start : e00000003fdd8000 virt_end : e00000003fde4000 LOAD (11) phys_start : 100000000 phys_end : 7ffffe000 virt_start : e000000100000000 virt_end : e0000007ffffe000 LOAD (12) phys_start : 10040000000 phys_end : 100fea88000 virt_start : e000010040000000 virt_end : e0000100fea88000 LOAD (13) phys_start : 100fea88000 phys_end : 100fefa0000 virt_start : e0000100fea88000 virt_end : e0000100fefa0000 LOAD (14) phys_start : 100fefa0000 phys_end : 100feffe000 virt_start : e0000100fefa0000 virt_end : e0000100feffe000 LOAD (15) phys_start : 100ff000000 phys_end : 100ff052000 virt_start : e0000100ff000000 virt_end : e0000100ff052000 LOAD (16) phys_start : 100ff052000 phys_end : 100ff801000 virt_start : e0000100ff052000 virt_end : e0000100ff801000 LOAD (17) phys_start : 100ff801000 phys_end : 100ff8d4000 virt_start : e0000100ff801000 virt_end : e0000100ff8d4000 LOAD (18) phys_start : 100ff8d4000 phys_end : 100ff8d6000 virt_start : e0000100ff8d4000 virt_end : e0000100ff8d6000 LOAD (19) phys_start : 100ff8d6000 phys_end : 100ff8d8000 virt_start : e0000100ff8d6000 virt_end : e0000100ff8d8000 LOAD (20) phys_start : 100ff8d8000 phys_end : 100ffa00000 virt_start : e0000100ff8d8000 virt_end : e0000100ffa00000 LOAD (21) phys_start : 100ffa00000 phys_end : 100ffc2e000 virt_start : e0000100ffa00000 virt_end : e0000100ffc2e000 LOAD (22) phys_start : 100ffc2e000 phys_end : 100ffc70000 virt_start : e0000100ffc2e000 virt_end : e0000100ffc70000 LOAD (23) phys_start : 100ffcda000 phys_end : 100ffe00000 virt_start : e0000100ffcda000 virt_end : e0000100ffe00000 LOAD (24) phys_start : 100ffe00000 phys_end : 100ffe40000 virt_start : e0000100ffe00000 virt_end : e0000100ffe40000 LOAD (25) phys_start : 100ffe80000 phys_end : 100fffe4000 virt_start : e0000100ffe80000 virt_end : e0000100fffe4000 max_mapnr : 403fff9 mem_map (0) mem_map : 0 pfn_start : 0 pfn_end : 403fff9 [ 0 %] I have also tried with the z-stream version of kexec-tools 1.102pre-21.el5_2.2 which had the fix of the BZ you mentioned, and it had the same problem here.
Ok, so no error, but no reduction in size of the vmcore either? Can you bring up the system you're testing on so I can look at it myself (hp-rx2660 seems to be down ATM). Thanks
Please make a new reservation of hp-rx2660-03.rhts.bos.redhat.com from RHTS. I could reserve it for you now, but the reservation will likely be expired when you come online.
so I just manually took an uncompressed dump and ran it through makdumpfile with this command: makedumpfile -c ./vmcore ./vmcore.comp And I got this result: -r-------- 1 root root 33808410252 Aug 11 09:38 vmcore -rw------- 1 root root 32998696809 Aug 11 10:20 vmcore.comp Thats about a 2% reduction in size, which IIRC is pretty typical for compression in makedumpfile So I appear unable to reproduce. I've got hp-rx2660-03.rhts.bos.redhat.com reserved for the next few days where these cores live, if you want to try to reproduce the problem.
OK, I believed that I saw the same thing here. I'd expect compression ratio should be much higher than %2. Otherwise, it does not help much in this case. Anyway, feel free to close this bug if %2 is as expected.
I agree, its not a great savings when you look at it as just two pewrcent, but thats several hundred MB smaller. Sorry.