This topic describes how to create system dumps using the SAN File
System server that is running the Linux operating system.
You can use the Linux operating system process dump capabilities
to help with debugging and problem determination of the SAN File System.
In addition, you may need to force a core dump of the metadata server process
so that you can package the data and send it to IBM
® support personnel for review. Follow
these steps to force a core dump:
- Use the ulimit shell command to set the size
of the allowable core dump file size to be unlimited.
Note: You can use the ulimit shell
command with the –a parameter to verify the current allowable limit.
ulimit
–c unlimited
- On the command line, type cat /usr/tank/server/config/Tank.PID to
view the contents of the file that contains the parent metadata PID that you
need to kill. Use this PID value as the parameter to the kill –6 command.
Note: This
command terminates all SAN File System processes that are currently running
on this engine.
- Enter the command kill –6 which produces a file called core.PID in
the /usr/tank/server directory. The PID portion of the core file name
matches the number of the parent PID that you just killed.
For example,
if the parent pid value is 550, type kill -6 550 and
the core file /usr/tank/server/core.550 is created.
The metadata server runs in user space. Therefore, a problem
with the metadata server should not crash the Linux kernel. You should not
need to analyze kernel dumps on Linux for the metadata server.