Kdump process fails due to single user login on HP BL485/685 Hardware

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

Situation

HP Blade server configured to capture kdump to local LVM volume. The server has Qlogic fiber cards with attached SAN storage. When the kdump process is initiated, we observe the server starting up to a single user mode login prompt because the SAN based volumes did not mount. If the password is entered, and you type "mount -a" the SAN based volumes mount fine.

Resolution

There is a timing problem with the initialization of the Qlogic cards and the kdump kernel. When booted normally, the udev timeout value is 180. If we set this to 600, it allows the time needed to initialize the Qlogic cards.

This value is located in /etc/init.d/boot.udev. In testing this specific server, the value was 600. If there are still issues, you can adjust this to a higher number then test kdump again.

Disclaimer

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