vmkdump - VMkernel dumper

vmkdump

NAME
vmkdump - VMkernel dumper

SYNOPSIS
vmkdump OPTIONS

COPYRIGHT
VMware ESX Server is Copyright 2004-2006 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

DESCRIPTION
vmkdump manages the VMkernel dump partition.

OPTIONS

-d, --devname deviceName

Specify the Linux console device that should be used to read the
VMkernel dump. Note: This option should not be used after the dump
partition has been set with the -p option. If the partition has
been set, you need to stop and reset the VMkernel before using this
option.

-n, --newonly

For each VMkernel dump that is produced, a count is kept of the
number of times the compressed dump file has been read off the dump
partition. When this option is specified, the compressed dump will
only be read off the dump partition if the read count is zero.

-z, --zdumpname compressedFileName

When reading from the dump partition, this option specifies the name
of the file to create with the compressed dump. By default the name
is vmkernel-zdump.#, where # is a unique number.

-s, --slot slotnum

On dump partitions that reside on shared storage, multiple machines
can share the dump partition. Because of this, the dump partition is
split up into multiple slots. Generally, when retrieving a core
dump, the physical machine's UUID is hashed into a slot number based
on the total number of slots, and the compressed dump is
automatically read from that slot. However, there may be situations
where the machine that dumped core is no longer able to retrieve core
dumps. In those cases, this option can be used to override the
normal UUID hash algorithm for determining a slot. Note that the
slot used during a core dump will be displayed on the PSOD.

-l, --log compressedFileName

Extracts the vmkernel log from the specified compressed dump file.

EXAMPLES

vmkdump -d /dev/sda5

Creates a file name vmkernel-zdump.# contained a compressed dump.
# is 1 if no other compressed dumps are in the current
directory, otherwise # is the lowest unused integer (ie, if up to
vmkernel-zdump.5 exist, then it would create vmkernel-zdump.6).