The procedure for Teradata crashdumps is as follows:
- An event occurs that triggers a crashdump.
- DMP runs at the time the fault or reset is detected and saves a crashdump to the PDE raw dump directory.
- After Teradata Database restarts, what happens next depends on the setting of the Save Dumps field of Screen Debug in the Ctl utility. If the field is set to:
- On, CSP starts automatically and saves the crashdump from the raw dump directory to a table in the DBC.Crashdumps database. Although Save Dumps is On by default, Teradata recommends that you set this field to Off to conserve system resources and save crashdumps only when you need to.
- Off, you start CSP manually and save the crashdump to the DBC.Crashdumps database. Manually saving crashdumps rather than having the system save them automatically is a best practice (see Manually Saving Teradata Crashdumps). Another choice is to copy the raw crashdump to a second Teradata system running the same version of the operating system and Teradata Database. See Manually Saving Crashdumps to Another Teradata System.
Because Teradata Database is a parallel system, a full crashdump is a system-wide entity in a table format consisting of data from each node. All nodes work in parallel to write their piece of the crashdump into a common table in DBC.Crashdumps: they write the contents of memory to internal disk and save the raw PDE dump into the DBC.Crashdumps database on all nodes of the system at approximately the same time.
In some cases, Teradata Customer Support may choose to debug crashdumps directly from the dump area. For more information, see Debugging Crashdumps. - Copy the crashdump from the table in DBC.Crashdumps and send the crashdump data to Teradata Customer Support either:
- Through FTP services.
- Or, if you cannot upload your crashdumps using standard FTP services, copy the crashdumps onto external media using DUL or DULTAPE utility. Use DUL to write to disk or DULTAPE to write to the node that has the internal tape drive. (See Saving Crashdumps to Disk or Tape.)
For more detailed information on how to handle crashdumps for your specific OS, see Handling Teradata Crashdumps.