xref: /dragonfly/sbin/savecore/savecore.8 (revision 5fb3968e)
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28.\"     From: @(#)savecore.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
29.\" $FreeBSD: src/sbin/savecore/savecore.8 2005/02/24 02:45:10 obrien Exp $
30.\" $DragonFly: src/sbin/savecore/savecore.8,v 1.7 2006/10/20 18:30:12 corecode Exp $
31.\"
32.Dd December 15, 2009
33.Dt SAVECORE 8
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm savecore
37.Nd "save a core dump of the operating system"
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.Nm
40.Fl c
41.Nm
42.Fl C
43.Op Fl v
44.Op Ar directory device
45.Nm
46.Op Fl fkvz
47.Op Ar directory Op Ar device ...
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Nm
51utility
52copies the currently running kernel and its associated core dump into
53.Fa directory ,
54or the current working directory if no
55.Ar directory
56argument is given,
57and enters a reboot message and information about the core dump into
58the system log.
59.Pp
60The options are as follows:
61.Bl -tag -width indent
62.It Fl C
63Check to see if a dump exists,
64and display a brief message to indicate the status.
65An exit status of 0 indicates that a dump is there,
661 indicates that none exists.
67This option is compatible only with the
68.Op Fl v
69option.
70.It Fl c
71Clear the dump, so that future invocations of
72.Nm
73will ignore it.
74.It Fl f
75Force a dump to be taken even if either the dump was cleared or if the
76dump header information is inconsistent.
77.It Fl k
78Do not clear the dump after saving it.
79.It Fl v
80Print out some additional debugging information.
81.It Fl z
82Compress the core dump and kernel (see
83.Xr gzip 1 ) .
84.El
85.Pp
86The
87.Nm
88utility
89looks for dumps on each device specified by the
90.Ar device
91argument(s), or on each device in
92.Pa /etc/fstab
93marked as
94.Dq dump
95or
96.Dq swap .
97The
98.Nm
99utility
100checks the core dump in various ways to make sure that it is complete.
101If it passes these checks, it saves the core image in
102.Ar directory Ns Pa /vmcore.#
103and the system in
104.Ar directory Ns Pa /kernel.#
105and information about the core in
106.Ar directory Ns Pa /info.#
107The ``#'' is the number from the first line of the file
108.Ar directory Ns Pa /bounds ,
109and it is incremented and stored back into the file each time
110.Nm
111successfully runs.
112.Pp
113The
114.Nm
115utility
116also checks the available disk space before attempting to make the copies.
117If there is insufficient disk space in the filesystem containing
118.Ar directory ,
119or if the file
120.Ar directory Ns Pa /minfree
121exists and the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the
122filesystem after the copies were made would be less than the number
123in the first line of this file, the copies are not attempted.
124.Pp
125If
126.Nm
127successfully copies the kernel and the core dump, the core dump is cleared
128so that future invocations of
129.Nm
130will ignore it.
131.Pp
132The
133.Nm
134utility
135is meant to be called near the end of the initialization file
136.Pa /etc/rc
137(see
138.Xr rc 8 ) .
139.Sh SEE ALSO
140.Xr gzip 1 ,
141.Xr getbootfile 3 ,
142.Xr dumpon 8 ,
143.Xr loader 8 ,
144.Xr syslogd 8
145.Sh HISTORY
146The
147.Nm
148utility appeared in
149.Bx 4.1 .
150.Sh BUGS
151The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse files.
152