Tools overview
Different tools can be used for obtaining dumps for instances of SUSE Linux® Enterprise Server 15 SP5 running on IBM Z® or IBM® LinuxONE (LinuxONE) servers.
As of IBM z13®, simultaneous multithreading is available for Linux in LPAR mode. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 includes dump tools that can create dumps for both Linux instances with and without SMT enablement.
Dump tools from earlier versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are restricted to Linux instances without SMT enablement. Do not use dump disks that were prepared with stand-alone dump tools of earlier versions to create dumps of SMT-enabled Linux instances.
You can use the dump analysis tool crash to analyze a dump. Depending on your support contract, you might also want to send a dump to IBM support to be analyzed.
Table 1 summarizes the available dump tools:
| Dump aspect | kdump | DASD | Multi-volume DASD | SCSI | NVMe | Tape | virsh dump | VMDUMP | Live-system dump with zgetdump |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environ-ment | KVM, z/VM®, and LPAR | z/VM and LPAR | z/VM and LPAR | z/VM and LPAR | LPAR | z/VM and LPAR | KVM only | z/VM only | z/VM and LPAR |
| System size (see note 2) | Large | Small | Large | Large | Large | Large | Large | Small | Large |
| Speed | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Slow | Fast | Slow | Fast |
| Medium | Any available medium | ECKD or FBA (see note 3) DASD | ECKD DASD | SCSI partition | NVMe disk partition | Tape cartridges | Any available medium | z/VM reader | Any available medium |
| Compres-sion possible | While writing | No | No | No | No | Yes (see note 2) | No | No | No |
| Dump filtering possible | While writing | When copying | When copying | When copying | While writing and when copying | When copying | When copying | When copying | No |
| Disruptive (see note4) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Optional | No | No |
| Stand-alone | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
- Dump tools that are available for an LPAR environment are also available for supported storage types in DPM partitions. For information about IPL-initiated dump types supported in DPM partitions, see the DPM documentation.
- For dump system sizes, see also Maximum dump size by tool.
- SCSI disks can be emulated as FBA DASDs. This dump method can, therefore, be used for SCSI-only z/VM installations.
- In this context, disruptive means that the dump process kills a running operating system.