Troubleshooting ZFS Dump Device Issues

This section describes certain issues and possible resolutions related to dump devices.

  • The size of the dump device is too small.

    When you reset the dump device, the output includes a message similar to the following:

    dumpadm: dump device dump-path is too small to hold a system dump

    To resolve this error, increase the size of the dump device. See Adjusting the Sizes of ZFS Swap and Dump Devices.

  • The dump device is disabled.

    If necessary, create a new dump device and enable it by using the dumpadm -d command. See How to Create a Dump Volume.

  • If the root pool is too small for the dump device, it can be added to a non-root pool as long as the pool is not a RAIDZ pool.

    When you reset the dump device, the output includes a message similar to the following:

    dump is not supported on device 'dump-path':
    'pool' has multiple top level vdevs

    Adding a dump device to pools with multiple top-level devices is not supported. Add the dump device to the root pool instead. Root pools support only a single top-level configuration.

  • A crash dump was not created automatically.

    In this case, use the savecore command to save the crash dump.