Looking further this memory problem is already tracked in bug #785394, untouched for almost two years now.
So this bug here should serve as a reminder that the official documentation (https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/kernel-crash- dump.html) is wrong. It should at least contain links to the bugs affecting linux-crashdump, like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/CrashdumpRecipe#Release_specific_notes does, because when just following the documentation the crashdump functionality just does not work. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to kexec-tools in Ubuntu. 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. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kexec-tools/+bug/1235616/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
