crash dumps in /var

[ellison_1]

Hello All,

My /var needs cleaning and there are old crash dumps in /var/adm/crash/crash.3 dating back to 2003. As an example: image.1.1.gz to image.1.6.gz and vmunix.gz files are in this directory. Is it safe to delete all?

[Mel Burslan · Accepted solution]

Unless there is a compelling reason to save them like a pending litigation due to some monetary loss incurred, there is no reason to keep a crash dump older then the last one. Even the last one, after the analysis gets completed (if necessary) can be deleted.

[Fabio Ettore]

Hi ellison,

Mel is right.
You can surely delete it since it is so old and of course it doesn't need anymore to be analyzed.

Crash dumps are useful to know the reason of a panic or TOC and dump should be analyzed as soon as possible after those events.

Best regards,
Fabio

[Bill Hassell]

If your server is crashing a lot, it's time for patches. The crash dumps are only useful for HP to analyze and recommend patches or config changes. Other than that, just remove the dumps.

[S.Rider]

Delete the old crash dumps by all means, but I think it's pretty common on alot of systems to have /var/adm/crash as a seperate filesystem so dumps don't fill up /var.

[Raj D.]

Hi Ellison,

You can delete the old crash dump and can freed up some space on /var.

If you want to analyse any old issue , thoguh it seems to be very old like 2003, then u can probably keep it , else no issue by deleting the years old crash dump.

To analyze crash dump , is a long process and you need q4 uitlity , and to send the file to hp. One more script is there called collection.sh , that also helps analyzing crash dump. just fyi..

Hence you can delete the old crash dumps , and can free up some space in /var.

Cheers,
Raj.

[Steve Andrews_6]

I only use Crash dump files immediately after a crash. Old crash files are probably not valid and of no use. I would delete the files. Keep the directory structure though so if it does crash at any time the system can create the files accordingly.