Fix – No coredump target has been configured
Once I built my ESXi 5.5 hosts in my test lab and added them to my vCenter environment, they both had a yellow warning prompt stating: “No coredump target has been configured. Host core dumps cannot be saved”
The good news is I was able to fix this, so I thought to document the solution in case anyone else has the same issue. All the details are below…
Situation
In my situation, I was both my hosts have ESXi 5.5 installed on a USB flash drive (each 32GB in size), which may have been the cause of the issue. In any case even though they were install on a USB drive, I was able to solve the problem.
Just so we are all on the same page, the warning message I was seeing on the host was:
Solution
To resolve the “No coredump target has been configured” error, complete the following steps:
-
SSH into the ESXi Host
-
Check the current active diagnostic partition, by running:
esxcli system coredump partition get -
The result should look something similar to the following:
Active: Configured: -
List all of the partitions available, by running:
esxcli system coredump partition listNote: If there are no partitions available, then reboot the ESXi host. This seemed to work for me.
-
Next we need to set and activate one of the partitions. To do this, run the following:
esxcli system coredump partition set --partition="Partition_Name"; esxcli system coredump partition set --enable true -
Alternatively, you can get ESXi to automatically set and activate a partition for you, by running:
esxcli system coredump partition set --enable true --smart -
Now validate that you have successfully activated and configured a coredump partition:
esxcli system coredump partition list -
You can also confirm this by checking the current active diagnostic partition:
esxcli system coredump partition get -
You should now see something similar to the following:
Active: mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0:7 Configured: mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0:7
Error: No coredump target has been configured
The solution above was successful for one of my ESXi hosts, however on the second host when I ran step 2 to find the active diagnostic partition, one was already configured… yet I was still getting the No coredump target has been configured error.
To resolve this, I had to remove the active partition, then reboot the host and then re-configure a new partition to be the coredump diagnostic partition. To remove a diagnostic partition, run the following:
esxcli system coredump partition set --unconfigure
Once I removed the partition and rebooted the host I was able to re-configure the active diagnostic partition and the coredump warning was cleared.
More Info
If you would like to look into this further then VMware have created a KB >> Configuring a diagnostic coredump partition on an ESXi 5.x host (KB2004299).
Any questions let me know if the comments below.
Thanks
Luca
Thanks for this article. It helped me out and was much clearer than the VMware documentation.
Thanks Rick, good to hear positive feedback.
Is there a way to identify ‘smart’ option is already enabled?
Hi Prakash,
The smart option is enabled by default and usually ESXi will automatically set and configure a coredump partition if it can find an available partition to do so. In the event that it can’t, you get this error message and hence running through these steps to make a partition available so that ESXi can select a coredump partition.
Hope this makes it clearer.
Thanks
Luca
Thnak you very much for the article, help me a lot! cheers!
Turns out there is an easier way, without reboots – have just tried this using the commands from this page.
Issue “esxcli system coredump partition set –unconfigure”, then “esxcli system coredump partition set –enable true –smart” and the error clears immediately.
Hope that helps someone and thank you to the author for the commands.
Denis
Thanks Denis, glad to be of help!
Denis, This worked for me too!
Thanks Luca!
Thanks!!!
esxcli system coredump partition set –-unconfigure
esxcli system coredump partition set –-enable true –-smart
To view current settings:
esxcli system coredump partition
Mostly the following command is sufficient to correct the current setting:
esxcli system coredump partition set –partition=”Partition_Name”;
esxcli system coredump partition set –enable true
Thanks for the tip!
Denis,
Your commands worked for me but I need double dashes.
esxcli system coredump partition set –unconfigure
esxcli system coredump partition set –enable true –smart
Bill
This article is a keeper! Thx for posting!
Thanks Sheila!
Thnaks mate,
This solved my issue under ESXI V6.0 u2
Excellent, good to hear!
Hey all – This is what worked for me on the latest code of 6.0 U2 –
esxcli system coredump partition set -u
…sorry entire command string
esxcli system coredump partition set -u
esxcli system coredump partition set –e true –s
straight forward and worked- good stuff -thanks!