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ERROR: Could not find a free area of memory of a000 bytes

This document (7014586) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 3 (SLES 11 SP3)
XEN

Situation

KDUMP does not load during the boot process of XEN kernel
  ERROR:  Could not find a free area of memory of a000 bytes...locate_hole failed

KDUMP writes a 0 byte vmcore file
  ERROR:  makedumpfile Failed.
                                                            
 

Resolution

Add the memory that kdump needs to the hypervisor commandline in /boot/grub/menu.lst using @16M

example:

title Xen -- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 - 3.0.101-0.8
     root (hd0,0)
     kernel /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=3096M,max:3096M vga=mode-0x0317
crashkernel=896M@16M

     module /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.101-0.8-xen
root=/dev/disk/by-id/cciss-3600508b1001
030353531383936300f00-part1 ramdisk size=65536
resume=/dev/disk/by-id/cciss-3600
508b1001030353531383936300f00-part2 splash=silent showopts vga=0x0317
     module /boot/initrd-3.0.101-0.8-xen

Verify the following are set in in /etc/sysconfig/kdump if vmcore is zero-byte file:

KDUMP_DUMPFORMAT="ELF"
KDUMP_DUMPLEVEL="0"


Additional Information

Error(s) found in dmesg file if KDUMP_DUMPLEVEL="0"  is not set:

<snip>
xtracting dmesg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Specify '-E' option for Xen.
Commandline parameter is invalid.
Try `makedumpfile --help' for more information.

makedumpfile Failed.
Running makedumpfile --dump-dmesg /proc/vmcore failed (1).
Saving dump using makedumpfile
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excluding unnecessary pages        : [100 %] ptom_xen: Invalid mfn_idx(3691).
readmem: Can't convert a physical address(1cd600000) to machine address.
read_pfn: Can't get the page data.
write_elf_header: Can't get a number of PT_LOAD.

makedumpfile Failed.
Running makedumpfile  -d 31 -E /proc/vmcore failed (1).
Saving makedumpfile-R.pl       Finished.
Generating rearrange script    Finished.
Generating README              Finished.
Copying System.map             Finished.
Copying kernel                 Finished.
Copying kernel.debug           Finished.
Last command failed (1).

</snip>

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.

  • Document ID:7014586
  • Creation Date: 19-Feb-2014
  • Modified Date:28-Sep-2022
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

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