Change the Default Coredump Configuration

You can change the default core dump configuration used to create core files. These are images of the system’s working memory used to debug crashes or abnormal exits.

About this task

The editable parameters and their defaults are as follows:

ProcessSizeMax

The maximum size of cores that will be processed.

Default: 2G

Minimum: 0

ExternalSizeMax

The maximum size of cores to be saved.

Default: 2G

Minimum: 0

MaxUse

Sets a maximum diskspace usage by cores.

Default: unset

KeepFree

Sets the minimum amount of disk space to keep free when saving cores.

Default: 1G

Minimum: 1G

Maximum values for each configurable coredump parameter depends on system capacity.

The parameters accept integer/float values followed by a letter representing the unit of measurement.

  • B = Bytes

  • K = Kilobytes

  • M = Megabytes

  • G = Gigabytes

  • T = Terabytes

  • P = Petabytes

  • E = Exabytes

The value 0 (zero) is accepted by parameters ProcessSizeMax, ExternalSizeMax and MaxUse.

Note

Other, non-configurable, parameters are:

  • Storage = external

  • Compress = yes

  • JournalSizeMax = 767M

For more information on these values, see https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/coredump.conf.5.html

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have sufficient storage available on the host’s log filesystem. See Resize Filesystems on a Host for more information about adjusting it’s size.

The log (/var/log) filesystem size is defaulted for standard platform operation. If there is an expected usage increase due to the application core dump files, it should be increased proportionally to the core dump size and the expected number of core dumps that need to be retained. The core dump storage limits can be explicitly configured using the system max_use parameter settings that aligns to the core dump storage and retention requirements.

For example:

Filesystem Setting:

8G (default) + 10G (core dump size x retention count - 5G x 2) = 18G

Core Dump Setting:

max_use = 10G (core dump size x retention count - 5G x 2)

Example

When you configure a parameter, it will be replicated to the coredump.conf file of all existing nodes (controllers, workers, storages).

  • To add a coredump service parameter:

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system service-parameter-add platform coredump <parameter>=<value>

  • To modify an existing coredump service parameter:

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system service-parameter-modify platform coredump <parameter>=<value>

  • To delete an existing coredump service parameter:

    ~(keystone_admin)]$ system service-parameter-delete <uuid>

    Note

    When a parameter is deleted, its value will reset to the default.

Where <parameter> can be one of:

  • process_size_max

  • external_size_max

  • max_use

  • keep_free

The following example sets ExternalSizeMax to 3 gigabytes.

~(keystone_admin)]$ system service-parameter-add platform coredump external_size_max=3G

Note

Configuring a parameter raises the 250.001 controller-0 Configuration is out-of-date alarm. A lock/unlock is required to clear it. For more information, see Lock a Host Using the CLI and Unlock a Host Using the CLI.