About Crash Dumps

Domain 0 and Hypervisor Crashes

On a running system, the hypervisor's memory is completely off-limits to dom0. If the hypervisor crashes, however, the resulting panic dump will generate a core file that provides a unified view of both xVM and dom0. In this core file, xVM appears as a Solaris kernel module named xpv. For example:

 > $c
                xpv`panic+0xbf()
                xpv`do_crashdump_trigger+0x19()
                xpv`keypress_softirq+0x35()
                xpv`do_softirq+0x54()
                xpv`idle_loop+0x55()

The following applies to crash dumps:

• If a dom0 crashes with a standard Solaris panic, the dump will include only the dom0.

• When the hypervisor itself panics, the resulting dump includes the xVM state as well as the dom0 state.

How to Force a Crash Dump of a Guest

You can use the following command to force a crash dump of an OpenSolaris guest in the event of problems within the guest:

# virsh dump domain

The crash dump file created can be analyzed through /bin/mdb. The xvm user must be able to write to the location specified.