xref: /freebsd/sbin/savecore/savecore.8 (revision ee2ea5ceafed78a5bd9810beb9e3ca927180c226)
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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.Op Fl fkvz
46.Op Ar directory Op Ar device ...
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48.Nm Savecore
49copies a core dump into
50.Fa directory ,
51or the current working directory if no
52.Fa directory
53argument is given,
54and enters a reboot message and information about the core dump into
55the system log.
56.Pp
57The options are as follows:
58.Bl -tag -width indent
59.It Fl c
60Clear the dump, so that future invocations of
61.Nm
62will ignore it.
63.It Fl f
64Force a dump to be taken even if the dump was cleared.
65.It Fl k
66Do not clear the dump after saving it.
67.It Fl v
68Print out some additional debugging information.
69.It Fl z
70Compress the core dump and kernel (see
71.Xr gzip 1 ) .
72.El
73.Pp
74.Nm Savecore
75looks for dumps on each device specified by the
76.Ar device
77argument(s), or on each device in
78.Pa /etc/fstab
79marked as "dump" or "swap".
80.Nm Savecore
81checks the core dump in various ways to make sure that it is complete.
82If it passes these checks, it saves the core image in
83.Ar directory Ns Pa /vmcore.#
84and information about the core in
85.Ar directory Ns Pa /info.#
86The ``#'' is the number from the first line of the file
87.Ar directory Ns Pa /bounds ,
88and it is incremented and stored back into the file each time
89.Nm
90successfully runs.
91.Pp
92.Nm Savecore
93also checks the available disk space before attempting to make the copies.
94If there is insufficient disk space in the filesystem containing
95.Ar directory ,
96or if the file
97.Ar directory Ns Pa /minfree
98exists and the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the
99filesystem after the copies were made would be less than the number
100in the first line of this file, the copies are not attempted.
101.Pp
102If
103.Nm
104successfully copies the kernel and the core dump, the core dump is cleared
105so that future invocations of
106.Nm
107will ignore it.
108.Pp
109.Nm Savecore
110is meant to be called near the end of the initialization file
111.Pa /etc/rc
112(see
113.Xr rc 8 ) .
114.Sh BUGS
115The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse files.
116.Sh SEE ALSO
117.Xr gzip 1 ,
118.Xr getbootfile 3 ,
119.Xr dumpon 8 ,
120.Xr syslogd 8
121.Sh HISTORY
122The
123.Nm
124command appeared in
125.Bx 4.1 .
126