Mechanism for Saving Crash Dump Files of a Virtual Machine on a Designated Disk

• US 20110231710A1
• Filed: 03/18/2010
• Published: 09/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Laor, Dor
• Granted Patent: US 8,365,020 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/38.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0778 Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A mechanism for saving crash dump files of a virtual machine (VM) on a designated disk is disclosed. A method of embodiments of the invention includes configuring an operating system (OS) of a VM managed by a hypervisor of a host machine to store any crash dump files created by the VM to a designated crash dump virtual disk associated with the VM but accessible outside of operations of the VM, determining that the VM experienced a crash event, stopping operations of the VM, and obtaining a crash dump file created by the VM that details the crash event from the designated crash dump virtual disk.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

configuring, by a hypervisor of a host machine, an operating system (OS) of a virtual machine (VM) managed by the hypervisor to store any crash dump files created by the VM to a designated crash dump virtual disk associated with the VM but accessible outside of operations of the VM;

determining, by the hypervisor, that the VM experienced a crash event;

stopping, by the hypervisor, operations of the VM; and

obtaining, by the hypervisor, a crash dump file created by the VM that details the crash event from the designated crash dump virtual disk.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the crash dump file stored in the designated crash dump virtual disk to a controller that manages the host machine.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the providing the crash dump file is in response to a request for the crash dump file from the controller.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) upon determining that the VM experienced a crash event, and sending the NMI to the VM, wherein the NMI causes the VM to create the crash dump file and store the crash dump file in the designated crash dump virtual disk.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the NMI is used to execute an interrupt handler routine at the VM that causes the VM to create the crash dump file and send the crash dump file to the designated crash dump virtual disk.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the designated crash dump virtual disk is specifically associated with the VM to only store crash dump files for the VM.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the VM experienced a crash event includes monitoring the VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the VM.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the VM experienced a crash event includes receiving a notification from the VM that the VM is encountering a situation requiring creation of a crash dump file.

9. A system, comprising:

a processing device;

a memory communicably coupled to the processing device; and

a hypervisor to virtualize the processing device and the memory for use by a virtual machine (VM) hosted by the hypervisor, the hypervisor configured to;

configure an operating system (OS) of the VM to store any crash dump files created by the VM to a designated crash dump virtual disk associated with the VM but accessible outside of operations of the VM;

determine that the VM experienced a crash event;

stop operations of the VM; and

obtain a crash dump file created by the VM that details the crash event from the designated crash dump virtual disk.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the hypervisor further configured to provide the crash dump file stored in the designated crash dump virtual disk to a controller that manages the host machine.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the hypervisor further configured to generate a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) upon determining that the VM experienced a crash event, and send the NMI to the VM, wherein the NMI causes the VM to create the crash dump file and store the crash dump file in the designated crash dump virtual disk.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the NMI is used to execute an interrupt handler routine at the VM that causes the VM to create the crash dump file and send the crash dump file to the designated crash dump virtual disk.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the designated crash dump virtual disk is specifically associated with the VM to only store crash dump files for the VM.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the hypervisor configured to determine that the VM experienced a crash event includes the hypervisor configured to monitor the VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the VM.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the hypervisor configured to determining that the VM experienced a crash event includes the hypervisor configured to receive a notification from the VM that the VM is encountering a situation requiring creation of a crash dump file.

16. An article of manufacture comprising a machine-readable storage medium including data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

configuring an operating system (OS) of a virtual machine (VM) managed by a hypervisor of a host machine to store any crash dump files created by the VM to a designated crash dump virtual disk associated with the VM but accessible outside of operations of the VM;

determining that the VM experienced a crash event;

stopping operations of the VM; and

obtaining a crash dump file created by the VM that details the crash event from the designated crash dump virtual disk.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable storage medium includes data that, when accessed by the machine, causes the machine to perform further operations comprising providing the crash dump file stored in the designated crash dump virtual disk to a controller that manages the host machine.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable storage medium includes data that, when accessed by the machine, causes the machine to perform further operations comprising generating a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) upon determining that the VM experienced a crash event, and sending the NMI to the VM, wherein the NMI causes the VM to create the crash dump file and store the crash dump file in the designated crash dump virtual disk.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein determining that the VM experienced a crash event includes monitoring the VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the VM.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein determining that the VM experienced a crash event includes receiving a notification from the VM that the VM is encountering a situation requiring creation of a crash dump file.