CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashcrash
lvpx
lvpx

Reputation: 147

How to crash a Linux VM?

I have created a monitoring system which restarts the VM when it becomes unresponsive or has crashed internally. I want to simulate the VM crashing, so I can test my monitoring setup. I tried the fork-bomb but it did not crash it. I also tried calling processes in an infinite loop.

Need a clean way of crashing the VM successfully, without any later consequences.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 8959

Answers (3)

Mukund
Mukund

Reputation: 31

First enable SysRq in your vm, and type the following and system will crash.

 echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Here's link! for details.

When the magic SysRq key combination is pressed with the command "c", it causes a kernel panic.

Upvotes: 3

Sir. Hedgehog
Sir. Hedgehog

Reputation: 1290

  1. This would cause a kernel panic. Linux :

    echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

    More info here

    On Linux, you might have to echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq before you are able to

    echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

  2. I know you already used a fork bomb i just write it again for reference, or maybe you could also try that again:

    :(){ :|:& };:

  3. Compile the following code into a module and insmod it, sure you should get a panic:

`

static int crash_module_init(void){
    printf("crash module starting\n");
    int *p = 0;
    printk("%d\n", *p);return 0;
}
static void crash_module_exit(void){
    printf("crash module exiting\n");
}
module_init(crash_module_init);
module_exit(crash_module_exit);

`

Upvotes: 5

anishsane
anishsane

Reputation: 20980

As OP mentioned, he is using ping $VM_IP to test if the VM has crashed. So, if ping fails, it would be considered as VM crash. So, the least intrusive change to trigger failure recovery would be to disable the network.

service networking stop # Or maybe 
service network stop # or
ifconfig eth0 down # Or whatever your interface's name is... eth1/eno1 etc...

Upvotes: 1

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