Estimating the size of a Core Dump file (PSOD) for ESXi 5.0-5.5
If your ESXi host has a PSOD do you know if you have enough room to write the PSOD file to your local disk? Ever need to estimate the size of a core dump?
In this blog, I’m going to show you 2 ways to estimate the size of the core dump file and then from there you can compare this size to the your core partition ensuring it is able to write the file.
For ESXi 5.5:
If you run the following command on vSphere 5.5 (This command only will run on 5.5) it will estimate your core dump for you.
‘localcli –plugin-dir /usr/lib/vmware/esxcli/int systemInternal coredump configuration check’
For ESXi 5.0/.1 – the command above does not exist with 5.0-5.1 but if you follow the steps below it is a slick way to estimate the size.
Couple of options –
- 1st Option — as a possible comparative, you could run the 5.5 core dump command and use the result as your baseline for the similar esxi hosts running 5.0/.1 hosts
- 2nd Option — Force a core dump test
- Follow these instructions to create a core dump and re-direct the dump file to a data store with enough space
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Once completed, note the size of the core dump and then multiply it times the number of core dumps you want to keep.– 250MB core dump file x 4 = 1GB << would be this size you need, my recommendation just make it 2.5GB, as this would align you for ESXi5.5 and beyond
- Use these instructions to increase the size of the core dump partition – Core Dump KB’s 1000328, 2004299
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