How to obtain a user dump of the eDirectory process on Windows

  • 7010798
  • 19-Sep-2012
  • 16-Dec-2020

Environment

eDirectory 8.8 SP7
eDirectory 8.8 SP8
eDirectory 9.0
Novell eDirectory 8.8 for Windows 2003
Novell eDirectory 8.8 for Windows 2008
Novell eDirectory 8.8 for Windows 2012
Novell eDirectory 9.0 for Windows 2012

Situation

There are times when Novell Technical Services will request a userdump of the eDirectory service running on the Windows platform. 
 
There are multiple ways to obtain one.  The following steps will use Microsoft's procdump utiltity which requires no installation and works the same on 2003 and 2008 servers.

Resolution

Steps to create a userdump of the dhost process on Windows 2003 and 2008
 
1. Download and extract the latest version of Procdump.  It is recommended to place this file and the userdumps in a directory off the root of the drive.  This will make it easier since the commands have to be run from the command line.  The current version of Procdump, as of this TID's creation date, is 5.0 and can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900
 
2. To generate a manual userdump, run the following command at the command line from where the utility was extracted:
" procdump -ma -accepteula dhost.exe ".
 
NOTE: this utility can also be run in monitor mode.  Examples:
High CPU - Write up to 3 dumps of the dhost service when it exceeds 90% CPU usage for twenty seconds:
" procdump -ma -c 90 -s 20 -n 3 dhost.exe "

Unresponsiveness - Write a dump when service is unresponsive for more than 5 seconds
" procdump -h dhost.exe dhost.dmp "
 
Notes:
- A userdump is first copied to the paging file.  Therefore ensure there is enough free disk space and that the paging file is a bit larger than the total amount of memory eDirectory consumes.
 

Additional Information

To grab a memory dump on demand Process Explorer is usually used.  This utility can be found at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

There is no installation.  Run its executable from a cmd line window as Administrator or via file explorer.  Locate the dhost process.  Right click then select full dump.  The utility will then prompt for the location of the memory dump.