Syntax

%addon com_redhat_kdump [OPTIONS]
%end

Kdump is a kernel crash dumping mechanism that you can use to save the contents of the system’s memory for later analysis. It relies on kexec, which you can use to boot a Linux kernel from the context of another kernel without rebooting the system. It also preserves the contents of the first kernel’s memory that would otherwise be lost.

In case of a system crash, kexec boots into a second kernel (a capture kernel). This capture kernel resides in a reserved part of the system memory. Kdump then captures the contents of the crashed kernel’s memory (a crash dump) and saves it to a specified location. The location cannot be configured using this Kickstart command; it must be configured after the installation by editing the /etc/kdump.conf configuration file.

For more information about Kdump, see the Installing kdump.

Options

• --enable - Enable kdump on the installed system.
• --disable - Disable kdump on the installed system.
• --reserve-mb= - The amount of memory you want to reserve for kdump, in MiB. For example:

  %addon com_redhat_kdump --enable --reserve-mb=128
  %end

  You can also specify auto instead of a numeric value. In that case, the installation program will determine the amount of memory automatically based on the criteria described in the Memory requirements for kdump section of the Managing, monitoring and updating the kernel document.

  If you enable kdump and do not specify a --reserve-mb= option, the value auto will be used.

• --enablefadump - Enable firmware-assisted dumping on systems which allow it (notably, IBM Power Systems servers).