IBM AIX 7.3 – Common Problem 246 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

After a crash, sysdumpdev -L reports DUMP STATUS partial and savecore output is incomplete.

Environment & Reproduction

Happens when the dump device is sized smaller than current memory or paging space dump is used.

Root Cause Analysis

AIX could not write the full memory image to the configured primary dump device.

Quick Triage

Run sysdumpdev -L and sysdumpdev -e to view current and estimated dump sizes.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Check the primary dump LV with lslv lg_dumplv against the estimated size.

Solution – Primary Fix

Grow or recreate the dump LV with extendlv lg_dumplv N then sysdumpdev -P -p /dev/lg_dumplv.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Configure a dedicated dump filesystem with sysdumpdev -d /var/adm/ras/livedump for live dumps.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

sysdumpdev -e shows estimated size <= primary dump device capacity.

Rollback Plan

Restore the previous dump device with sysdumpdev -P -p /dev/hd6 if the new device fails.

Prevention & Hardening

Re-run sysdumpdev -e after major memory changes and after each TL/SP.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Often coupled with paging-space-low on shared dump device LPARs.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.3.

View all aix-7.3 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM AIX 7.3 sysdumpdev command reference.