Saving crash dump files of a virtual machine on a designated disk

• US 8,719,642 B2
• Filed: 01/11/2013
• Issued: 05/06/2014
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): MCCARTHY, CHRISTOPHER S
• Application Number:
  US13/739,411
• Publication Number:
  US 20130145218A1
• Time in Patent Office: 480 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 714/45
• 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 method for saving crash dump files of a virtual machine (VM) on a designated disk is disclosed. The method includes associating, by a hypervisor that virtualizes a plurality of virtual machines (VMs), each VM of the plurality of VMs with a crash dump disk that is solely dedicated to the VM, wherein each crash dump disk is located separate from its associated VM. The method further includes configuring, by the hypervisor, an OS of each VM with a crash file path to the crash dump disk associated with the VM, and configuring, by the hypervisor, each VM of the plurality of VMs to generate crash dump files for the VM upon a crash event of the VM and store, via the crash file path, the generated crash dump files to the crash dump disk associated with the VM.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

associating, by a hypervisor executed by a processing device of a host machine to virtualize a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) on the host machine, each VM of the plurality of VMs with a crash dump disk that is solely dedicated to the VM, wherein each crash dump disk is located separate from its associated VM;

configuring, by the hypervisor, an OS of each VM with a crash file path to the crash dump disk associated with the VM; and

configuring, by the hypervisor, each VM of the plurality of VMs to;

generate crash dump files for the VM upon a crash event of the VM; and

store, via the crash file path, the generated crash dump files to the crash dump disk associated with the VM.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the crash dump files to a controller that manages the host machine.

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

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) upon determining that a crashed VM of the plurality of VMs experienced a crash event, and sending the NMI to the crashed VM, wherein the NMI causes the crashed 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 crashed VM that causes the crashed VM to create the crash dump file and send the crash dump file to the crash dump disk associated with the crashed VM.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that a crashed VM of the plurality of VMs experienced a crash event by monitoring the crashed VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the crashed VM.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

stopping operations of the crashed VM; and

obtaining, from the crash dump disk associated with the crashed VM, a crash dump file created by the crashed VM that details the crash event.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the determining that the crashed VM experienced a crash event further comprises receiving a notification from the crashed VM that the crashed 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 further to;

associate the VM with a crash dump disk that is solely dedicated to the VM,

wherein the crash dump disk is located separate from the VM;

configure an OS of the VM with a crash file path to the crash dump disk associated with the VM; and

configure the VM to;

generate crash dump files for the VM upon a crash event of the VM; and

store, via the crash file path, the generated crash dump files to the crash dump disk associated with the VM.

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

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the hypervisor further 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 crash dump disk associated with the VM.

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 crash dump disk.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the crash dump 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 further to determine that the VM experienced a crash event by monitoring the VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the VM.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the hypervisor to determine that the VM experienced the crash event further comprises the hypervisor to receive a notification from the VM that the VM is encountering a situation requiring creation of a crash dump file.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including data that, when accessed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:

associating, by a hypervisor executed by the processing device to virtualize the processing device for a plurality of virtual machines (VMs), each VM of the plurality of VMs with a crash dump disk that is solely dedicated to the VM, wherein each crash dump disk is located separate from its associated VM;

configuring, by the hypervisor, an OS of each VM with a crash file path to the crash dump disk associated with the VM; and

configuring, by the hypervisor, each VM of the plurality of VMs to;

generate crash dump files for the VM upon a crash event of the VM; and

store, via the crash file path, the generated crash dump files to the crash dump disk associated with the VM.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable storage medium includes data that, when accessed by the processing device, causes the processing device to perform further operations comprising providing the crash dump files stored in the crash dump disk to a controller that manages a host machine comprising the processing device.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable storage medium includes data that, when accessed by the processing device, causes the processing device to perform further operations comprising generating a nonmaskable interrupt (NMI) upon determining that a crashed VM of the plurality of VMs experienced a crash event, and sending the NMI to the crashed VM, wherein the NMI causes the crashed VM to create the crash dump file and store the crash dump file in the crash dump disk.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the machine-readable storage medium includes data that, when accessed by the processing device, causes the processing device to perform further operations comprising determining that a crashed VM of the plurality of VMs experienced a crash event by monitoring the crashed VM for one or more predetermined events that indicated a crash of the crashed VM.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the determining that the crashed VM experienced a crash event comprises receiving a notification from the crashed VM that the crashed VM is encountering a situation requiring creation of a crash dump file.