Public bug reported: 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. ** Affects: kexec-tools (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1235616 Title: linux-crashdump doesn't actually dump and reboot To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kexec-tools/+bug/1235616/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
