Kdump fails to capture kernel dump files to remote targets.

This document (7023164) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3

Situation

Systems with multiple Network Interface Cards (NIC) configured to save kernel core files to remote locations e.g. NFS or FTP, fails with (excerpts):

...

dracut-initqueue[299]: Warning: Not assigning <ip_address> to interface <ethernet_interface>, cause it is already assigned!
...
Unable to ioctl(KDSETLED) -- are you not on the console? (Inappropriate ioctl for device)
Deletion of old dump only on local disk.
mount failed: mount.nfs: Connection timed out.
Last command failed (255).

...

Resolution

1.) Pass the network interface configuration details via command-line for the kdump kernel by modifying the "KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND" line in the "/etc/sysconfig/kdump" file.

2.) Set a non-generic interface name, for example using "net#", "keth#" etc. for the relevant network interface before configuring a remote dump target for kdump.

Note:

In case of Firmware Assisted Dump (FADump) configuration on Power, only resolution 2.) Set a non-generic interface name, is applicable.
Currently KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND has no significance when FADump is configured.

Cause

Generic names (eth#) are assigned to network interfaces in the order they are discovered. With the default kernel, these interface names may be adjusted by udev. If udev also uses "eth#" names, the interface names may still be persistent with the default kernel. However for the kdump kernel, if the order in which interfaces are discovered is not in sync with the interface name expected, the kdump kernel fails to configure the network interface for kernel dump capture properly.

Additional Information

For using the first resolution, "KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND" line should typically look like below:

KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND="ifname=kdump0:0c:c4:7a:c8:be:0e ip=192.168.0.78:::255.255.255.0::kdump0:none bootdev=kdump0"

Note: Use "kdump0" as the interface name while trying to pass ip= options via KDUMP_COMMANDLINE_APPEND.

Disclaimer

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