A Quick Overview of

Linux Kernel Crash Dump Analysis∗

Eugene Teo
eteo@redhat.com

October 1, 2007

The Red Hat Crash Utility is a kernel-specific debugger. It is usually used for performing post-
mortem system analysis when the system panicked, locked up, or appears unresponsive. In this
short article, Eugene Teo will give a quick overview of how you can install crash and how you can
use it to get important information from the crash dump files for debugging and root-cause analysis
purposes.

1 Prerequisites

The crash has the following three prerequisites:

• kernel object file: A vmlinux kernel object file. The vmlinux file associated with the
running kernel is typically found in /boot directory for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and
/usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/ directory for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

• kernel crash dump: This may consist of a kernel crash dump file generated from any of
the three crash dump facilities (Diskdump, Netdump, or Kdump). The filename is called
vmcore or vmcore.incomplete (if it is not generated completely) and is typically found in
/var/crash/ by default. Diskdump will be discussed in the next section.

• linux kernel versions: The crash utility is backwards-compatible to at least Red Hat Linux
6.0, up to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

2 Install crash

Starting with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 release, the crash utility is automatically installed
during the system installation if the Development Tools package set is selected. If the crash utility
is not installed, download and install the binary RPM as follows:
∗
Written for Red Hat Magazine on August 15th, 2007. Republished with permission. http://www.
redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/15/a-quick-overview-of-linux-kernel-crash-dump-analysis/

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# rpm -ivh crash-4.0-2.30.i386.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:crash ########################################### [100%]

The crash executable will be installed in the /usr/bin directory.

Also, before you can invoke crash on a vmcore, you need to install the associated kernel debuginfo
package. The vmlinux kernel debug information is stored in a separate debuginfo file. The debuginfo
package needs to match the kernel version, variant (like ”smp” or ”hugemem”) and architecture.
You can download the packages at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub. See the comments in the following
example:

# file ./vmcore <-- will show you the kernel architecture

./vmcore: ELF 32-bit LSB core file Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), SVR4-style, from ’vmlinux’
# strings vmcore | fgrep -m1 ’Linux ’ <-- will show you the kernel variant
Linux version 2.6.9-22.EL (bhcompile@porky.build.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.4.4
20050721 (Red Hat 3.4.4-2)) #1 Mon Sep 19 18:20:28 EDT 2005
# rpm -qa kernel-debuginfo <-- will show you all the versions that are installed
# rpm -ivh kernel-debuginfo-2.6.9-22.EL.i686.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:kernel-debuginfo ########################################### [100%]
# ls /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/ -l
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 2 10:41 2.6.9-22.EL
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 2 10:41 2.6.9-22.ELhugemem
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 May 2 10:41 2.6.9-22.ELsmp
# ls /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.9-22.EL -l
total 32848
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 May 1 19:50 kernel
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33583473 Sep 20 2005 vmlinux

Take note that:

• You should use -ihv rather than -Uhv when installing the kernel package. This will preserve
the older version of the kernel installed so that you can revert back to a known working version
of the kernel should you encounter any problems with the new version.

• The kernel-debuginfo package for an older kernel can safely remain installed when installing
a newer version. The kernel-debuginfo must match the kernel version, variant, and architecture
that created the vmcore. See the file ./vmcore and strings vmcore | fgrep -m1 ’Linux ’
commands in the above output.

• In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, the vmlinux kernel-debuginfo package is divided into two pack-
ages: kernel-debuginfo-version.arch.rpm and kernel-debuginfo-common-version.arch.rpm.
Both are required in order to perform crash dump analysis on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
kernels.

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3 Run crash

When crash is run on a vmcore, at least two arguments are always required:

• The vmlinux file associated with the running kernel, typically found in /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/
directory.
• The kernel crash dump name, vmcore.

For example:

# crash /usr/lib/debug/lib/module/vmlinux
/var/crash/127.0.0.1-2007-04-30-21\:38/vmcore
...
KERNEL: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.9-22.EL/vmlinux
DUMPFILE: /home/eteo/crash/127.0.0.1-2007-04-30-21:38/vmcore
CPUS: 1
DATE: Mon Apr 30 21:38:40 2007
UPTIME: 00:04:04
LOAD AVERAGE: 0.36, 0.23, 0.08
TASKS: 36
NODENAME: localhost.localdomain
RELEASE: 2.6.9-22.EL
VERSION: #1 Mon Sep 19 18:20:28 EDT 2005
MACHINE: i686 (1862 Mhz)
MEMORY: 1 GB
PANIC: "Oops: 0002 [#1]" (check log for details)
PID: 2857
COMMAND: "bash"
TASK: f7b677f0 [THREAD_INFO: f7191000]
CPU: 0
STATE: TASK_RUNNING (SYSRQ)

crash>

4 Setup Diskdump

Diskdump is one of the two different crash dump facilities that we shipped with Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3 and 4. This article will not cover Netdump or Kdump.
Before you beginning setting up Diskdump on your machine, do read
/usr/share/doc/diskdumputils-version/README to make sure that your machine has a sup-
ported storage adapter before proceeding.
Assign a disk device to dump memory. It may be:

• a full disk device (for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 only), e.g. /dev/sda

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 • a partition of a disk device, e.g. /dev/sda2

• a swap partition (for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 only), e.g. /dev/sda2

Define the disk device in /etc/sysconfig/diskdump. In this example, we will use /dev/sda2:
# vi /etc/sysconfig/diskdump
add the line "DEVICE=/dev/sda2"
Load the kernel module:
# tail -f /var/log/message &
# modprobe diskdump
Apr 30 21:29:20 kerndev kernel: disk_dump: Maximum block size: 16384
Apr 30 21:29:20 kerndev kernel: disk_dump: total blocks required: 261770
(header 3 + bitmap 8 + memory 261759)
See /proc/diskdump after loading diskdump kernel module:
# cat /proc/diskdump
# sample_rate: 8
# block_order: 2
# fallback_on_err: 1
# allow_risky_dumps: 1
# dump_level: 0
# total_blocks: 261770
#
Format the dump device:
# service diskdump initialformat
/dev/sda2: [100.0%]
See /proc/diskdump after formatting:
# tail -n2 /proc/diskdump
sda2 102398310 10233405
Enable Diskdump service:
# chkconfig diskdump on
# service diskdump start
Starting diskdump: [ OK ]
# Apr 30 21:31:19 kerndev diskdump: activating succeeded
Test that Diskdump works. The following commands will crash your machine:
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
# echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger
Make sure that you run the above two commands in console (press Ctrl + Alt + F1), so that we
can see what is happening when your system crashes. You have to perform this so that you can
have a vmcore file to follow the rest of the paper. It will be located at /var/crash.

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5 Commonly Used Crash Commands

There are many commands in crash. It is also possible to extend crash by adding new commands,
by writing new code and compiling it into the crash executable, or creating a shared object library
that can be dynamically loaded by using the extend command. The following are some commonly
used crash commands that you will likely use:

• help - get help

crash has a readily available help information built into the utility, by typing help. Each
command has its own man-like page, which can be viewed by typing help command-name.

crash> help

* files mod runq union

alias foreach mount search vm
ascii fuser net set vtop
bt gdb p sig waitq
btop help ps struct whatis
dev irq pte swap wr
dis kmem ptob sym q
eval list ptov sys
exit log rd task
extend mach repeat timer

crash version: 4.0-3.3 gdb version: 6.1

For help on any command above, enter "help <command>".
For help on input options, enter "help input".
For help on output options, enter "help output".

Tip: all the crash commands can be piped to external programs or redirected to files:

crash> log > log.txt

This will send the in-kernel log to a local file called ”log.txt”.

crash> ps | fgrep bash | wc -l

This will count the number of ”bash” tasks that were running.

• sys - system data

crash> sys
KERNEL: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.9-22.EL/vmlinux
DUMPFILE: /home/eteo/crash/127.0.0.1-2007-04-30-21:38/vmcore
CPUS: 1
DATE: Mon Apr 30 21:38:40 2007
UPTIME: 00:04:04

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 LOAD AVERAGE: 0.36, 0.23, 0.08
TASKS: 36
NODENAME: localhost.localdomain
RELEASE: 2.6.9-22.EL
VERSION: #1 Mon Sep 19 18:20:28 EDT 2005
MACHINE: i686 (1862 Mhz)
MEMORY: 1 GB
PANIC: "Oops: 0002 [#1]" (check log for details)

The sys messages have information of the system (e.g. kernel release, kernel version, number
of CPUs, amount of memory, etc), the time of vmcore taken, the operating period, and the
panic (e.g. Oops type, panic task/PID/command, etc).

• bt - backtrace

crash> bt
PID: 2857 TASK: f7b677f0 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "bash"
#0 [f7191e04] start_disk_dump at f89d7bb3
#1 [f7191e18] die at c010682e
#2 [f7191e48] do_page_fault at c011ab00
...
#9 [f7191fc0] system_call at c030f918
EAX: 00000004 EBX: 00000001 ECX: b7de7000 EDX: 00000002
DS: 007b ESI: 00000002 ES: 007b EDI: b7de7000
SS: 007b ESP: bfe01650 EBP: bfe01670
CS: 0073 EIP: 003297a2 ERR: 00000004 EFLAGS: 00000246

• log - dump system message buffer

crash> log
...
SysRq : Crashing the kernel by request
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000
printing eip:
c0233fa7
*pde = 3e9f3067
Oops: 0002 [#1]
Modules linked in: md5 ipv6 autofs4 i2c_dev i2c_core sunrpc scsi_dump diskdump
dm_mirror dm_mod button battery ac yenta_socket pcmcia_core uhci_hcd ehci_hcd
shpchp snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_timer
snd_page_alloc snd_mpu401_uart snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd soundcore ipw2200
ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt tg3 floppy ext3 jbd ata_piix libata sd_mod scsi_mod
CPU: 0
EIP: 0060:[<c0233fa7>] Not tainted VLI
EFLAGS: 00010246 (2.6.9-22.EL)
EIP is at sysrq_handle_crash+0x0/0x8
eax: 00000063 ebx: c0370db4 ecx: 00000000 edx: 00000000
esi: 00000063 edi: 00000000 ebp: 00000000 esp: f7191f60
ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068

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Process bash (pid: 2857, threadinfo=f7191000 task=f7b677f0)
Stack: c02342d8 c032dc4e c032f105 00000003 00000002 f7b6adc0 00000002 f7191fac
c01a8a13 c0362740 c0168205 f7191fac b7de7000 f7b6adc0 fffffff7 b7de7000
f7191000 c01682cf f7191fac 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00000002
Call Trace:
[<c02342d8>] __handle_sysrq+0x58/0xc6
[<c01a8a13>] write_sysrq_trigger+0x23/0x29
[<c0168205>] vfs_write+0xb6/0xe2
[<c01682cf>] sys_write+0x3c/0x62
[<c030f91f>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Code: 4c 11 42 c0 05 00 00 00 c7 05 50 11 42 c0 2f cc 31 c0 c7 05 54 11 42 c0 00
00 00 00 c7 05 58 11 42 c0 00 00 00 00 e9 e5 0b f0 ff <c6> 05 00 00 00 00 00 c3
e9 e1 59 f3 ff e9 1e bc f3 ff 85 d2 89

The log command dumps the kernel log buffer contents in chronological order. This is similar
to what you would see when you type dmesg on a running machine. This is useful when you
want to look at the panic or oops message. An oops is triggered by some exception. It is a
dump of the CPU register’s state and kernel stack at that instant. From the panic message,
we can find hints as to how the panic was triggered (e.g. the function or process or pid or
command or address that triggered the panic), the register’s information, kernel module list,
whether the kernel is tainted with proprietary kernel modules loaded, and so on. Lets walk
through the panic message to see what we can learn from it. See the comments below each
section within the log:

crash> log
...
SysRq : Crashing the kernel by request <-- this panic is intentional
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000
address to which reference was attempted --> ^^^^^^^^
printing eip:
c0233fa7 <-- address at which the failure occurred
*pde = 3e9f3067
Oops: 0002 [#1] <-- often one oops trigger more, only the first is reliable
Modules linked in: md5 ipv6 autofs4 i2c_dev i2c_core sunrpc scsi_dump diskdump
dm_mirror dm_mod button battery ac yenta_socket pcmcia_core uhci_hcd ehci_hcd
shpchp snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_timer
snd_page_alloc snd_mpu401_uart snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd soundcore ipw2200
ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt tg3 floppy ext3 jbd ata_piix libata sd_mod scsi_mod
CPU: 0
EIP: 0060:[<c0233fa7>] Not tainted VLI
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ <-- P - Proprietary modules loaded
<-- Code segment and F - Module forcibly loaded
Instruction address S - SMP with CPUs not designed for it
R - Forced module unload
M - Machine Check Exception (MCE)
B - System hit a bad page
EFLAGS: 00010246 (2.6.9-22.EL) <-- program status, registers information
EIP is at sysrq_handle_crash+0x0/0x8

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 eax: 00000063 ebx: c0370db4 ecx: 00000000 edx: 00000000
esi: 00000063 edi: 00000000 ebp: 00000000 esp: f7191f60
ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068
Process bash (pid: 2857, threadinfo=f7191000 task=f7b677f0)
Stack: c02342d8 c032dc4e c032f105 00000003 00000002 f7b6adc0 00000002 f7191fac
^^^^^ <-- stack, half-run operations, return addresses
f7191000 c01682cf f7191fac 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00000002
Call Trace: <-- backtrace of function calls
[<c02342d8>] __handle_sysrq+0x58/0xc6
[<c01a8a13>] write_sysrq_trigger+0x23/0x29
[<c0168205>] vfs_write+0xb6/0xe2
[<c01682cf>] sys_write+0x3c/0x62
[<c030f91f>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Code: 4c 11 42 c0 05 00 00 00 c7 05 50 11 42 c0 2f cc 31 c0 c7 05 54 11 42 c0 00
00 00 00 c7 05 58 11 42 c0 00 00 00 00 e9 e5 0b f0 ff <c6> 05 00 00 00 00 00 c3
e9 e1 59 f3 ff e9 1e bc f3 ff 85 d2 89

From the line c0233fa7, we can see that this is the address at which the failure occurred.
Issuing the following command can give us more hints as to which function or source code or
assembly statement in the kernel triggered that:

crash> dis -lr c0233fa7

/usr/src/build/614745-i686/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/char/sysrq.c: 115
0xc0233fa7 <sysrq_handle_crash>: movb $0x0,0x0

• ps - display process status information

crash> ps
PID PPID CPU TASK ST %MEM VSZ RSS COMM
0 0 0 c0358be0 RU 0.0 0 0 [swapper]
1 0 0 f7e01770 IN 0.1 1680 684 init
...
2380 1 0 f7ac2800 IN 0.0 1604 504 mingetty
2769 2371 0 f7ac3970 IN 0.2 5740 1636 bash
2852 1 0 f7b1a880 IN 0.2 4240 2012 sshd
2855 2852 0 f7b66680 IN 0.3 8316 2756 sshd
> 2857 2855 0 f7b677f0 RU 0.2 6260 1628 bash

Sometimes it is useful to know which process belongs to which parent or vice versa. ps has
-c and -p to show the child and parent processes.

crash> ps -p 2857
PID: 0 TASK: c0358be0 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "swapper"
PID: 1 TASK: f7e01770 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "init"
PID: 2852 TASK: f7b1a880 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "sshd"
PID: 2855 TASK: f7b66680 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "sshd"
PID: 2857 TASK: f7b677f0 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "bash"

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 • files - open files

crash> files
PID: 2857 TASK: f7b677f0 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "bash"
ROOT: / CWD: /root
FD FILE DENTRY INODE TYPE PATH
0 f7a6e7c0 f7790198 f7b0fdcc CHR /dev/pts/0
1 f7b6adc0 f7190130 f7b9ca4c REG /proc/sysrq-trigger
2 f7a6e7c0 f7790198 f7b0fdcc CHR /dev/pts/0
10 f7a6e7c0 f7790198 f7b0fdcc CHR /dev/pts/0
255 f7a6e7c0 f7790198 f7b0fdcc CHR /dev/pts/0
crash> files 2852
PID: 2852 TASK: f7b1a880 CPU: 0 COMMAND: "sshd"
ROOT: / CWD: /
FD FILE DENTRY INODE TYPE PATH
0 f7b336c0 f78001d8 f7cb1ba4 CHR /dev/null
1 f7b336c0 f78001d8 f7cb1ba4 CHR /dev/null
2 f7b336c0 f78001d8 f7cb1ba4 CHR /dev/null
3 f7b69600 f7bf5280 f7aadafc SOCK socket:/[6277]

• dev - device data

crash> help dev

...
If no argument is entered, this command dumps the contents of the chrdevs
and blkdevs arrays.
crash> dev
CHRDEV NAME OPERATIONS
1 mem (none)
4 /dev/vc/0 (none)
4 tty (none)
...
BLKDEV NAME OPERATIONS
1 ramdisk c0376d08 <rd_bd_op>
2 fd (unknown)
8 sd f880e070 <sd_fops>

6 Further reading

To learn more about this topic, check out the following reference links:

• White Paper: Red Hat Crash Utility by David Anderson, 2003

http://people.redhat.com/anderson/crash_whitepaper/

• More about Oops

http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/oops-tracing.txt

• To find out more about Diskdump, read /usr/share/doc/diskdumputils-version/README

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 • Red Hat Kbase: How do I configure a Netdump Server and a Netdump Client?
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_43_2467.shtm

• Red Hat Kbase: How do I configure kexec/kdump on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5?
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_105_9036.shtm

7 Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Guy Streeter, Wade Mealing, and Masahiro Matsuya for reviewing
and suggesting improvements for several drafts of this article.

8 About the author

Eugene Teo is Technical Account Manager of Red Hat’s Asia Pacific Global Support Services.
Eugene received his bachelor’s degree in Computing from the National University of Singapore.
In his spare time, Eugene enjoys learning new things, auditing the Linux kernel source code, and
contributing kernel fixes.

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