Netdump cannot work for DF/NMI/MCE contexts

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

It is an existing limitation in design of netdump.

Symptoms:

When PSOD happens in DF/NMI/MCE contexts, netdump cannot work even though it has be configured. The warning message logged on PSOD screen:

"Cannot continue NetDump from DF/NMI/MCE stack."

And then coredump switches to disk/file dump automatically. If no disk/file dump configured, user may see more warning messages:

"No place on disk to dump data."
"No file configured to dump data."

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Cause

This is by design

Resolution

Recommend to implement the workaround for now.

Workaround:

Use local disk dump or file dump.