7.96. kexec-tools

Bug Fixes

BZ#1068674

Previously, when the HugePages feature was in use, the makedumpfile utility was unable to exclude these pages based on page type specified with the "-d" option. This led to a much longer dump collection time compared to the same system with no HugePages in use. This bug has been fixed, and the dump collection time is again optimal.

BZ#1208490

When setting up the kdump environment on a system with specific memory hotplug regions and then starting kdump.service, the operating system previously ran out of memory at boot time, and the booting process thus failed. This update adds a parameter to disable memory hotplug for kexec-tools, and the system now boots successfully in the described scenario.

BZ#971017

Prior to this update, /sbin/mkdumprd was not handling the "blacklist [directory]" statement in the /etc/kdump.conf file properly. As a consequence, modules filtered out by "blacklist [directory]" were inserted into the kernel by the initrd block device. The underlying source code has been patched, and mkdumprd now handles the "blacklist [directory]" statement correctly.

BZ#1104837

When cluster ip address was specified as an ip address and not as a resolvable host name, the kdump utility terminated unexpectedly returning error messages. This bug has been fixed, and kdump no longer crashes in the aforementioned situation.

BZ#1131945

Previously, the kdump service was not able to start on iSCSI boot devices during boot because kdump tried to start before the file system was mounted. A patch has been provided to fix this bug, and kdump now starts automatically during boot.

BZ#1132300

When the kdump service was started and no kdump initial ramdisk was present, kdump attempted to rebuild the ramdisk and called the mkdumprd script. As a consequence, two error messages were returned within the "service kdump start" command output. With this update, the user is informed that the FIPS mode will not be enabled while rebuilding the ramdisk, and the error messages are no longer returned.

BZ#1099589

Previously, the mlx4_core driver was excluded from initrd by default as mlx4_core was consuming too much memory. Nevertheless, the absence of mlx4_core led to problems in the ethernet driver. The fix allows modules that are listed as extra_modules in the /etc/kdump.conf file to load, and the user can now use mlx4_core.

Enhancements

BZ#1195601

The makedumpfile utility now supports the new sadump format that can represent more than 16 TB of physical memory space. This allows users of makedumpfile to read dump files over 16 TB in size, generated by sadump on certain upcoming server models.

BZ#1142666

With this update, the kexec-tools-eppic package has been modified to create a directory for eppic scripts in the /usr/share/ directory. Now, users of kexec-tools-eppic can find some sample eppic scripts for reference though they are contained in the kexec-tools packages.