xref: /freebsd/sbin/savecore/savecore.8 (revision 7660b554bc59a07be0431c17e0e33815818baa69)
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32.\"     From: @(#)savecore.8	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd September 23, 1994
36.Dt SAVECORE 8
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm savecore
40.Nd "save a core dump of the operating system"
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Fl c
44.Nm
45.Fl C
46.Op Fl v
47.Op Ar directory device
48.Nm
49.Op Fl fkvz
50.Op Ar directory Op Ar device ...
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52The
53.Nm
54utility
55copies a core dump into
56.Ar directory ,
57or the current working directory if no
58.Ar directory
59argument is given,
60and enters a reboot message and information about the core dump into
61the system log.
62.Pp
63The options are as follows:
64.Bl -tag -width indent
65.It Fl C
66Check to see if a dump exists,
67and display a brief message to indicate the status.
68An exit status of 0 indicates that a dump is there,
691 indicates that none exists.
70This option is compatible only with the
71.Op Fl v
72option.
73.It Fl c
74Clear the dump, so that future invocations of
75.Nm
76will ignore it.
77.It Fl f
78Force a dump to be taken even if the dump was cleared.
79.It Fl k
80Do not clear the dump after saving it.
81.It Fl v
82Print out some additional debugging information.
83.It Fl z
84Compress the core dump and kernel (see
85.Xr gzip 1 ) .
86.El
87.Pp
88The
89.Nm
90utility
91looks for dumps on each device specified by the
92.Ar device
93argument(s), or on each device in
94.Pa /etc/fstab
95marked as
96.Dq dump
97or
98.Dq swap .
99The
100.Nm
101utility
102checks the core dump in various ways to make sure that it is complete.
103If it passes these checks, it saves the core image in
104.Ar directory Ns Pa /vmcore.#
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 file system 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
122file system 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 BUGS
140The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse files.
141.Sh SEE ALSO
142.Xr gzip 1 ,
143.Xr getbootfile 3 ,
144.Xr dumpon 8 ,
145.Xr syslogd 8
146.Sh HISTORY
147The
148.Nm
149utility appeared in
150.Bx 4.1 .
151