[Crash-utility] crash 4.0-3.14 and SLES 10

[Dave Anderson]

Bernhard Walle wrote:
> For the debug kernel, you have to install kernel-debug-debuginfo to
> have debugging information available. For the location, the debuginfo
> packages are not on CD/DVD but only available as online repository.
> 
> If you have problems finding the location, please contact support
> (yes, that's nothing for this mailinglist here, but I hope Dave
> doesn't remove me from the list now ;-)).

Hey, no problem -- this list is meant to be distribution-independent...

> 
> You can always use the KOTD [1], BTW.
> 
> 
>>However, when I attempted to feed that kernel to crash, it freezed 
>>my host. I tried it both with the smp kernel and default kernel, and both 
>>times the host freezed up. Right now I'm planning to patch up the system 
>>(current version is 2.6.16.46-0.12) to the latest updates and hope this 
>>might take care of the problem.
> 
> 
> This looks like a bug.

Really -- that's bizarre.  There's no good reason why running
crash on a live system should freeze anything!  It's just a
user program -- although on SLES I'm guessing that it reads
/dev/mem right?  That's the only thing I can think of, i.e.,
that by using the wrong vmlinux it's somehow accessing the
wrong location in physical memory, which is mapped to a device
that reacts to being read, or non-existent memory that causes
the kernel to go off into the weeds?  I have no idea...

Of course, this is one of those Virtual Iron beasts, right?

Dave