1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" From: @(#)savecore.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd February 24, 2005 32.Dt SAVECORE 8 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm savecore 36.Nd "save a core dump of the operating system" 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Fl c 40.Nm 41.Fl C 42.Op Fl v 43.Op Ar directory device 44.Nm 45.Op Fl fkvz 46.Op Ar directory Op Ar device ... 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50utility 51copies a core dump into 52.Ar directory , 53or the current working directory if no 54.Ar directory 55argument is given, 56and enters a reboot message and information about the core dump into 57the system log. 58.Pp 59The options are as follows: 60.Bl -tag -width indent 61.It Fl C 62Check to see if a dump exists, 63and display a brief message to indicate the status. 64An exit status of 0 indicates that a dump is there, 651 indicates that none exists. 66This option is compatible only with the 67.Op Fl v 68option. 69.It Fl c 70Clear the dump, so that future invocations of 71.Nm 72will ignore it. 73.It Fl f 74Force a dump to be taken even if either the dump was cleared or if the 75dump header information is inconsistent. 76.It Fl k 77Do not clear the dump after saving it. 78.It Fl v 79Print out some additional debugging information. 80Specify twice for more 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 information about the core in 104.Ar directory Ns Pa /info.# 105The ``#'' is the number from the first line of the file 106.Ar directory Ns Pa /bounds , 107and it is incremented and stored back into the file each time 108.Nm 109successfully runs. 110.Pp 111The 112.Nm 113utility 114also checks the available disk space before attempting to make the copies. 115If there is insufficient disk space in the file system containing 116.Ar directory , 117or if the file 118.Ar directory Ns Pa /minfree 119exists and the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the 120file system after the copies were made would be less than the number 121in the first line of this file, the copies are not attempted. 122.Pp 123If 124.Nm 125successfully copies the kernel and the core dump, the core dump is cleared 126so that future invocations of 127.Nm 128will ignore it. 129.Pp 130The 131.Nm 132utility 133is meant to be called near the end of the initialization file 134.Pa /etc/rc 135(see 136.Xr rc 8 ) . 137.Sh SEE ALSO 138.Xr gzip 1 , 139.Xr getbootfile 3 , 140.Xr dumpon 8 , 141.Xr syslogd 8 142.Sh HISTORY 143The 144.Nm 145utility appeared in 146.Bx 4.1 . 147.Sh BUGS 148The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse files. 149