Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] memory: add -dont-dump-guest option to reduce core dump size

[Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>]

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 01:53:36PM -0400, Jason Baron wrote:
> On Fri, May 04, 2012 at 05:23:51PM -0400, Jason Baron wrote:
> > Add a command line parameter to not dump guest memory in the core dump, the
> > command line is: -dont-dump-guest. This brought the core dump down from
> > 383MB to 13 MB on a 1GB guest.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Jason Baron <jbaron@redhat.com>
> > ---
> >  exec.c          |   13 +++++++++++++
> >  osdep.h         |    7 +++++++
> >  qemu-options.hx |    5 +++++
> >  sysemu.h        |    1 +
> >  vl.c            |    4 ++++
> >  5 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> > 
> 
> Any thoughts on this? Is the guest memory often helpful in debugging
> when the qemu process segfaults?

For most development related usage, no (with large guests, its 
troublesome).

Please add documentation for the command (patch looks fine otherwise).

> This feature also seems useful if somebody is running a sensitive
> workload, such that the non-sensitive qemu state can be dumped
> independently of the guest state. In that case, perhaps there should
> also be an option that allows the guest to be dumped on a segfault, now
> separately?

Isnt what this option does? (well, disabling it).