Sharing dump devices between different versions of Linux

Do not share dump devices between Linux® installations with different major releases.

Always use the zgetdump command, makedumpfile command, and the crash utility that are delivered with your latest version of Red Hat® Enterprise Linux.

The latest crash utility and makedumpfile command can process dumps that are created from Linux instances of the same or in earlier versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The latest zgetdump command can process dumps that are created with the zipl (s390utils package) version in the same or in earlier versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2, zipl can prepare disks for dumps of SMT-enabled Linux instances. You can use a dump disk that is prepared with an SMT-enabled zipl version for both Linux instances with and without SMT enablement.