After Vantage restarts, the CSP utility saves the raw PDE dump of each node as either rows in a crashdump table in the DBC.Crashdumps database or flat files (streams) in compressed binary format. Depending on dump control parameters, CSP may start automatically or you can start it manually. Since Teradata is a parallel system, a full Vantage crashdump is a system-wide entity, consisting of data from each node. Specialized tools exist to examine the crashdump.
The procedure for 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 a restart, 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 to the Crashdumps Database). Another choice is to copy the raw crashdump to a second Teradata system running the same version of the operating system and Vantage. See Manually Saving Crashdumps to Another Teradata System.
You can also save crashdumps to flat files (stream files) on each node. The stream files are in compressed binary FastLoad format and can be either sent directly to the Teradata Support Center or moved to another system and then loaded into the Crashdumps database. For more information about saving to stream files, see Manually Saving Teradata Crashdumps to Stream Files.
Because Vantage 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 Services 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 Services either:
- Through FTP services.
- Or, if you cannot upload your crashdumps using standard FTP services, copy the crashdumps onto external media using the Dump Unload/Load (DUL) utility. (See Saving Crashdumps to Disk.)
For more detailed information on how to handle crashdumps for your specific OS, see Handling Teradata Crashdumps.