xref: /freebsd/sbin/dmesg/dmesg.8 (revision 71fe318b852b8dfb3e799cb12ef184750f7f8eac)
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32.\"     @(#)dmesg.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd June 5, 1993
36.Dt DMESG 8
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm dmesg
40.Nd "display the system message buffer"
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl a
44.Op Fl M Ar core
45.Op Fl N Ar system
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Nm
49utility displays the contents of the system message buffer.
50If neither the
51.Fl N
52nor the
53.Fl M
54option is specified, the buffer is read from the currently running kernel
55via the
56.Xr sysctl 3
57interface.
58Otherwise, the buffer is read from the specified core file (or from the
59default one), using the name list from the specified kernel image (or from
60the default image).
61.Pp
62The options are as follows:
63.Bl -tag -width indent
64.It Fl a
65Show all data in the message buffer.
66This includes any syslog records and
67.Pa /dev/console
68output.
69.It Fl M
70Extract values associated with the name list from the specified core
71instead of the default
72.Pa /dev/kmem .
73.It Fl N
74Extract the name list from the specified system instead of the default,
75which is the kernel image the system has booted from.
76.El
77.Sh FILES
78.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /var/run/dmesg.boot" -compact
79.It Pa /var/run/dmesg.boot
80usually a snapshot of the buffer contents
81taken soon after file systems are mounted
82at startup time
83.El
84.Sh SEE ALSO
85.Xr sysctl 3 ,
86.Xr syslogd 8
87.Sh HISTORY
88The
89.Nm
90utility appeared in
91.Bx 4.0 .
92