Software: 1. Suse Linux SLES 9 SP1 2. kernel linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm1 + kexec-on-panic with nmi_watchdog fix patch http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=111631994607762&w=2 3. Kexec-tools-1.101 + kdump patch 4. memtest, Bash memory 5. spinlock testmodule to force spinlock deadlock with irq disabled. Test-procedure: o Ran test suite MemTest and Bash Memory, after running the test for some time (< 1hr.), forced system hang by inserting spinlock test module and tried to invoke kernel panic with sysrq-c, but it failed to force panic and hence couldn't initiate kdump. o Booted with nmi_watchdog=2 and ran similar tests and then forced system hang by inserting spinlock module, nmi_watchdog caused kernel panic and the system booted to panic kernel. I was able to take dump. The first kernel was rebuilt after applying Vivek's following patch to fix kexec on panic with nmi watchdog enabled o Ran the same test suite, after running the test for more than 10hours kernel OOps have occured (bugme 4653) but kdump failed to boot to secondary kernel as there was no kernel panic and just an kernel oops. Now I have set kernel sysctl parameter kernel.panic_on_oops=1, testing in progress to capture the oops in kdump o While testing the functionality of kdump, encountered this driver hardening issue (bugme:4631) also.