+All of the necessary information about the system kernel's core image is
+encoded in the ELF format, and stored in a reserved area of memory
+before a crash. The physical address of the start of the ELF header is
+passed to the dump-capture kernel through the elfcorehdr= boot
+parameter.
+
+With the dump-capture kernel, you can access the memory image, or "old
+memory," in two ways:
+
+- Through a /dev/oldmem device interface. A capture utility can read the
+ device file and write out the memory in raw format. This is a raw dump
+ of memory. Analysis and capture tools must be intelligent enough to
+ determine where to look for the right information.
+
+- Through /proc/vmcore. This exports the dump as an ELF-format file that
+ you can write out using file copy commands such as cp or scp. Further,
+ you can use analysis tools such as the GNU Debugger (GDB) and the Crash
+ tool to debug the dump file. This method ensures that the dump pages are
+ correctly ordered.
+
+
+Setup and Installation
+======================
+
+Install kexec-tools and the Kdump patch
+---------------------------------------
+
+1) Login as the root user.
+
+2) Download the kexec-tools user-space package from the following URL:
+
+ http://www.xmission.com/~ebiederm/files/kexec/kexec-tools-1.101.tar.gz
+
+3) Unpack the tarball with the tar command, as follows:
+
+ tar xvpzf kexec-tools-1.101.tar.gz
+
+4) Download the latest consolidated Kdump patch from the following URL:
+
+ http://lse.sourceforge.net/kdump/
+
+ (This location is being used until all the user-space Kdump patches
+ are integrated with the kexec-tools package.)
+
+5) Change to the kexec-tools-1.101 directory, as follows:
+
+ cd kexec-tools-1.101
+
+6) Apply the consolidated patch to the kexec-tools-1.101 source tree
+ with the patch command, as follows. (Modify the path to the downloaded
+ patch as necessary.)
+
+ patch -p1 < /path-to-kdump-patch/kexec-tools-1.101-kdump.patch
+
+7) Configure the package, as follows:
+
+ ./configure
+
+8) Compile the package, as follows:
+
+ make
+
+9) Install the package, as follows:
+
+ make install
+
+
+Download and build the system and dump-capture kernels
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+Download the mainline (vanilla) kernel source code (2.6.13-rc1 or newer)
+from http://www.kernel.org. Two kernels must be built: a system kernel
+and a dump-capture kernel. Use the following steps to configure these
+kernels with the necessary kexec and Kdump features:
+
+System kernel
+-------------
+
+1) Enable "kexec system call" in "Processor type and features."
+
+ CONFIG_KEXEC=y
+
+2) Enable "sysfs file system support" in "Filesystem" -> "Pseudo
+ filesystems." This is usually enabled by default.
+
+ CONFIG_SYSFS=y
+
+ Note that "sysfs file system support" might not appear in the "Pseudo
+ filesystems" menu if "Configure standard kernel features (for small
+ systems)" is not enabled in "General Setup." In this case, check the
+ .config file itself to ensure that sysfs is turned on, as follows:
+
+ grep 'CONFIG_SYSFS' .config
+
+3) Enable "Compile the kernel with debug info" in "Kernel hacking."
+
+ CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=Y
+
+ This causes the kernel to be built with debug symbols. The dump
+ analysis tools require a vmlinux with debug symbols in order to read
+ and analyze a dump file.
+
+4) Make and install the kernel and its modules. Update the boot loader
+ (such as grub, yaboot, or lilo) configuration files as necessary.
+
+5) Boot the system kernel with the boot parameter "crashkernel=Y@X",
+ where Y specifies how much memory to reserve for the dump-capture kernel
+ and X specifies the beginning of this reserved memory. For example,
+ "crashkernel=64M@16M" tells the system kernel to reserve 64 MB of memory
+ starting at physical address 0x01000000 for the dump-capture kernel.
+
+ On x86 and x86_64, use "crashkernel=64M@16M".
+
+ On ppc64, use "crashkernel=128M@32M".
+
+
+The dump-capture kernel
+-----------------------