Re: Linux kernel crash dump

[Bernhard Walle <bwalle@xxxxxxx>]

* "Peter Teoh" <htmldeveloper@xxxxxxxxx> [2008-05-03 00:21]:
>
> Just curious....
> 
> a.   What are the essential capabilities/features of kdump?   As far
> as I know kdump is only a stacktrace, but systap tool can deliver
> stack trace at many user-defined functions....and it has other
> features to extract out the dynamic values of the variables....much
> more powerful....
> 
> b.   Is the various memory snapshot tools provided by /proc fs and
> /dev/*mem* not enough?   (/proc/vmstat, /proc/kcore (piped to xxd)),
> /proc/iomem, /dev/mem (piped to xxd) etc)

Well, kdump takes a dump when the system oopsed. It does more or less
the same like LKCD, but it boots a crashkernel through kexec instead of
dumping from the old, broken kernel. That's more reliable.

But it's not for live debugging (system tap or /proc/kcore only works
when your system is still *running* and not oopsed).

HTH,


	Bernhard

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with
"unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ