Installing the SCSI disk dump tool

You install the SCSI dump tool with the zipl command.

Before you begin

  • The kernel-zfcpdump RPM must be installed on your system. You require the following RPMs:
    • kernel-zfcpdump-<version>.s390x.rpm
    • kernel-zfcpdump-core-<version>.s390x.rpm
    • kernel-zfcpdump-modules-<version>.s390x.rpm
    Additional kernel-zfcpdump RPMs that follow the same naming convention might be present on your system.
  • The dump partition needs enough free space (memory size + 10 MB) to hold the system memory.
The following examples assume that a SCSI dump disk is accessed through the partition device node on a device mapper multipath device /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0-part1 and is IPLed with the following parameters:
  • devno: 0.0.4711
  • wwpn: 0x4712076300ce93a7
  • lun: 0x4712000000000000

About this task

A partition on a SCSI disk is used as dump partition.

This example assumes that /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0 is the dump device, and that you want to dump to the first partition, /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0-part1. Always use multipath devices instead of single path SCSI disk device nodes, if possible.

Procedure

  1. Create a partition with fdisk or parted, using the PC-BIOS or GPT layout.
    For example: 
    # fdisk /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0
  2. Install the dump tool by using the zipl command.
    Specify the dump partition on the command line:
    For example:
    # zipl -d /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0-part1

Results

When you perform an IPL from any of the paths of /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0 by using boot program selector 1 or 0 (default), the memory dump is written directly to partition 1 of /dev/mapper/36005076303ffd40100000000000020c0. For LPAR, the boot program selector is located on the load panel. For z/VM®, the boot program selector is configured with 'CP SET DUMPDEV BOOTPROG', see z/VM guest example.