Yes, normal is to use zipl to make a disk with the standalone dumper on it.
RH as early as 5.4 supported zipl and zgetdump in s390-tools package. See http://www.vm.ibm.com/education/lvc/lvc0504c.pdf starting page 19. Once you set up the dump pack, your server can link to it (#CP LINK <DUMPOWNER> XXXX XXXX MR) or you can attach it to the guest in trouble and go from there. So you really only need 1 per cluster. Marcy -----Original Message----- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Rob van der Heij Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 7:22 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [LINUX-390] Big Dumps I believe it is normal procedure to create a menu entry with zipl to do a stand-alone dump of the guest. For large guests you may need to prepare for multi-volume dump. If you're brave you could set up a single set of minidisks and link them when you need to dump. With FCP you may be able to use a common LUN. http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/linux390/docu/l3n5dt11.pdf The emphasis on VMDUMP was initially because essential information was missing from a stand-alone dump when the guest used NSS and/or DCSS on z/VM. This is where VMDUMP was appropriate, plus some code in Linux to read the dump back in and convert it to Linux dump format. For very large guests, VMDUMP is unpractical because it's too slow. So one should avoid using NSS in that case and set up a dump partition. IIRC the kdump feature is an additional mini-kernel that is loaded in the guest already during boot time, sitting there ready to take over when you need to dump (or when the kernel chooses to do so himself). This was already available for x86 etc and the s390 port was done two years ago. There was some debate on whether you want to spend the memory on each guest, but with z/VM that would probably get paged out anyway. Rob On 10 May 2013 05:19, Filipe Miranda <fmira...@redhat.com> wrote: > As fas as I know, the Kdump and exec Kernel Dumping Mechanism was a > tech preview on RHEL6.3 - its only fully supported by the GSS (Red > Hat's Global Support Services) on RHEL6.4 > > Bellow is a summary of the technical features for RHEL6.4 just for > reference: > > http://www.slideshare.net/ftmiranda/red-hat-enterprise-linux-64-for-sy > stem-z-technical-highlights > > -- > Filipe Miranda > > On May 9, 2013, at 6:46 PM, Shane G <ibm-m...@tpg.com.au> wrote: > > > On Fri, May 10th, 2013 at 2:32 AM, David Boyes wrote: > > > >> You're probably not going to budge them on that. > > > > With luck maybe Filipe can bring some more clout to the table .... > > ;-) > > > > Shane ... > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > > send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO > > LINUX-390 > or visit > > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit > > http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send > email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or > visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For more information on Linux on System z, visit > http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/