xref: /dragonfly/sbin/dmesg/dmesg.8 (revision 6e285212)
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32.\"     @(#)dmesg.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\" $FreeBSD: src/sbin/dmesg/dmesg.8,v 1.5.2.5 2002/08/21 18:58:17 trhodes Exp $
34.\" $DragonFly: src/sbin/dmesg/dmesg.8,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:27:32 dillon Exp $
35.\"
36.Dd June 5, 1993
37.Dt DMESG 8
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm dmesg
41.Nd "display the system message buffer"
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Nm
44.Op Fl a
45.Op Fl M Ar core
46.Op Fl N Ar system
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm
50utility displays the contents of the system message buffer.
51If neither the
52.Fl N
53nor the
54.Fl M
55option is specified, the buffer is read from the currently running kernel
56via the
57.Xr sysctl 3
58interface.
59Otherwise, the buffer is read from the specified core file (or from the
60default one), using the name list from the specified kernel image (or from
61the default image).
62.Pp
63The options are as follows:
64.Bl -tag -width indent
65.It Fl a
66Show all data in the message buffer.
67This includes any syslog records and
68.Pa /dev/console
69output.
70.It Fl M
71Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
72instead of the default
73.Pa /dev/kmem .
74.It Fl N
75Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default,
76which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
77.El
78.Sh FILES
79.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /var/run/dmesg.boot" -compact
80.It Pa /var/run/dmesg.boot
81usually a snapshot of the buffer contents
82taken soon after file systems are mounted
83at startup time
84.El
85.Sh SEE ALSO
86.Xr sysctl 3 ,
87.Xr syslogd 8
88.Sh HISTORY
89The
90.Nm
91utility appeared in
92.Bx 4.0 .
93