the mac_ip line should definately have a $ in front of it, and there also needs
to be an extra equals sign.  Thats fixed in release -6.  As for your other
problems, those sounds like they might be config related.  Please give the
attached patch a try and see if it fixes your problem.  If not, please reply
with your netdump setup, as well as a details description of your network
topology (including mac and ip addresses) between your client and server. 

Thank you!

Created attachment 137580 [details]
initscript fixup

(Aside from this, the fact is that most of the netdump package is obsolete. :) )

[root@apone ~]# grep -v "^#" /etc/sysconfig/netdump
NETLOGADDR=nostromo.devel.redhat.com
NETLOGPORT=6666
[root@apone ~]# service netdump start
netdump: cannot arp  on eth0
inicializuji netconsole FATAL: Error inserting netconsole
(/lib/modules/2.6.18-1.2708.fc6/kernel/drivers/net/netconsole.ko): Unknown
symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
                                                           [SELHALO]

(ignore the czech)

So, looking some more:
- the parameter to the kernel is netconsole; the script has netlog
- the traceroute awk line is:

    trc_output="$(traceroute -i $DEV -n -m 1 $host_ip 2> /dev/null)"
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        trc_output="$(echo $trc_output | grep '^1 ' | awk '{print $2}')"

except that the '1' in the traceroute output has a space preceeding it.
Oh, and the whole sequence is probably better replaced with something like:
ip -o route get to $host_ip dev $DEV | awk '{ print $1 }' :)

Patch attached.

Created attachment 137585 [details]
patch that makes it start and work for me

bill makes a good point in that FC6 will be using kdump moving forward, but I'll
check this in just to make sure we have the fix in place should we need it.

*** Bug 174431 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

netdump-0.7.16-13 has been pushed for fc6, which should resolve this issue.  If these problems are still present in this version, then please make note of it in this bug report.