17.13. Optional: Configuring Kdump kernel crash-dumping mechanism
Kdump is a kernel crash-dumping mechanism. In the event of a system crash, Kdump captures the contents of the system memory at the moment of failure. The captured memory can be analyzed to find the cause of the crash. If Kdump is enabled, it must have a small portion of the system’s memory (RAM) reserved to itself. This reserved memory is not accessible to the main kernel.
Procedure
- From the Installation Summary window, click Kdump. The Kdump window opens.
- Select the Enable kdump check box.
- Select either the Automatic or Manual memory reservation setting.
- If you select Manual, enter the amount of memory (in megabytes) that you want to reserve in the Memory to be reserved field using the + and - buttons. The Usable System Memory readout below the reservation input field shows how much memory is accessible to your main system after reserving the amount of RAM that you select.
Click to apply the settings and return to graphical installations.
The amount of memory that you reserve is determined by your system architecture (AMD64 and Intel 64 have different requirements than IBM Power) as well as the total amount of system memory. In most cases, automatic reservation is satisfactory.
Additional settings, such as the location where kernel crash dumps will be saved, can only be configured after the installation using either the system-config-kdump graphical interface, or manually in the
/etc/kdump.confconfiguration file.