xref: /freebsd/share/man/man8/crash.8 (revision e627b39baccd1ec9129690167cf5e6d860509655)
1.\" FreeBSD version Copyright (c) 1996
2.\"	Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Adapted from share/man/man8/man8.hp300/crash.8
5.\"
6.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
7.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
8.\"
9.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
10.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
11.\" are met:
12.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
13.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
14.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
15.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
16.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
17.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
18.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
19.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
20.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
21.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
22.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
23.\"    without specific prior written permission.
24.\"
25.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
26.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
27.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
28.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
29.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
30.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
31.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
32.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
33.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
34.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
35.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
36.\"
37.\"
38.Dd February 2, 1996
39.Dt CRASH 8 i386
40.Os FreeBSD
41.Sh NAME
42.Nm crash
43.Nd FreeBSD system failures
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45This section explains a bit about system crashes
46and (very briefly) how to analyze crash dumps.
47.Pp
48When the system crashes voluntarily it prints a message of the form
49.Bd -ragged -offset indent
50panic: why i gave up the ghost
51.Ed
52.Pp
53on the console, and if dumps have been enabled (see
54.Xr dumpon 8 ) ,
55takes a dump on a mass storage peripheral,
56and then invokes an automatic reboot procedure as
57described in
58.Xr reboot 8 .
59Unless some unexpected inconsistency is encountered in the state
60of the file systems due to hardware or software failure, the system
61will then resume multi-user operations.
62.Pp
63The system has a large number of internal consistency checks; if one
64of these fails, then it will panic with a very short message indicating
65which one failed.
66In many instances, this will be the name of the routine which detected
67the error, or a two-word description of the inconsistency.
68A full understanding of most panic messages requires perusal of the
69source code for the system.
70.Pp
71The most common cause of system failures is hardware failure, which
72can reflect itself in different ways.  Here are the messages which
73are most likely, with some hints as to causes.
74Left unstated in all cases is the possibility that hardware or software
75error produced the message in some unexpected way.
76.Pp
77.Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
78.It Sy "cannot mount root"
79This panic message results from a failure to mount the root filesystem
80during the bootstrap process.
81Either the root filesystem has been corrupted,
82or the system is attempting to use the wrong device as root filesystem.
83Usually, an alternate copy of the system binary or an alternate root
84filesystem can be used to bring up the system to investigate.  Most often
85this is done by the use of the boot floppy you used to install the system,
86and then using the "fixit" floppy.
87.Pp
88.It Sy "init: not found"
89This is not a panic message, as reboots are likely to be futile.
90Late in the bootstrap procedure, the system was unable to locate
91and execute the initialization process,
92.Xr init 8 .
93The root filesystem is incorrect or has been corrupted, or the mode
94or type of
95.Pa /sbin/init
96forbids execution or is totally missing.
97.Pp
98.Pp
99.It Sy "ffs_realloccg: bad optim"
100.It Sy "ffs_valloc: dup alloc"
101.It Sy "ffs_alloccgblk: cyl groups corrupted"
102.It Sy "ffs_alloccg: map corrupted"
103.It Sy "blkfree: freeing free block"
104.It Sy "blkfree: freeing free frag"
105.It Sy "ifree: freeing free inode"
106These panic messages are among those that may be produced
107when filesystem inconsistencies are detected.
108The problem generally results from a failure to repair damaged filesystems
109after a crash, hardware failures, or other condition that should not
110normally occur.
111A filesystem check will normally correct the problem.
112.Pp
113.It Sy "timeout table full"
114This really shouldn't be a panic, but until the data structure
115involved is made to be extensible, running out of entries causes a crash.
116If this happens, make the timeout table bigger.
117.Pp
118.\" .It Sy "trap type %d, code = %x, v = %x"
119.\" An unexpected trap has occurred within the system; the trap types are:
120.\" .Bl -column xxxx -offset indent
121.\" 0	bus error
122.\" 1	address error
123.\" 2	illegal instruction
124.\" 3	divide by zero
125.\" .No 4\t Em chk No instruction
126.\" .No 5\t Em trapv No instruction
127.\" 6	privileged instruction
128.\" 7	trace trap
129.\" 8	MMU fault
130.\" 9	simulated software interrupt
131.\" 10	format error
132.\" 11	FP coprocessor fault
133.\" 12	coprocessor fault
134.\" 13	simulated AST
135.\" .El
136.\" .Pp
137.\" The favorite trap type in system crashes is trap type 8,
138.\" indicating a wild reference.
139.\" ``code'' (hex) is the concatenation of the
140.\" MMU
141.\" status register
142.\" (see <hp300/cpu.h>)
143.\" in the high 16 bits and the 68020 special status word
144.\" (see the 68020 manual, page 6-17)
145.\" in the low 16.
146.\" ``v'' (hex) is the virtual address which caused the fault.
147.\" Additionally, the kernel will dump about a screenful of semi-useful
148.\" information.
149.\" ``pid'' (decimal) is the process id of the process running at the
150.\" time of the exception.
151.\" Note that if we panic in an interrupt routine,
152.\" this process may not be related to the panic.
153.\" ``ps'' (hex) is the 68020 processor status register ``ps''.
154.\" ``pc'' (hex) is the value of the program counter saved
155.\" on the hardware exception frame.
156.\" It may
157.\" .Em not
158.\" be the PC of the instruction causing the fault.
159.\" ``sfc'' and ``dfc'' (hex) are the 68020 source/destination function codes.
160.\" They should always be one.
161.\" ``p0'' and ``p1'' are the
162.\" VAX-like
163.\" region registers.
164.\" They are of the form:
165.\" .Pp
166.\" .Bd -ragged -offset indent
167.\" <length> '@' <kernel VA>
168.\" .Ed
169.\" .Pp
170.\" where both are in hex.
171.\" Following these values are a dump of the processor registers (hex).
172.\" Finally, is a dump of the stack (user/kernel) at the time of the offense.
173.\" .Pp
174.It Sy "init died (signal #, exit #)"
175The system initialization process has exited with the specified signal number and exit code.  This is bad news, as no new
176users will then be able to log in.  Rebooting is the only fix, so the
177system just does it right away.
178.Pp
179That completes the list of panic types you are likely to see.
180.Pp
181If the system has been configured to take crash dumps (see
182.Xr dumpon 8 ) ,
183then when it crashes it will write (or at least attempt to write)
184an image of memory into the back end of the dump device,
185usually the same as the primary swap
186area.  After the system is rebooted, the program
187.Xr savecore 8
188runs and preserves a copy of this core image and the current
189system in a specified directory for later perusal.  See
190.Xr savecore 8
191for details.
192.Pp
193To analyze a dump you should begin by running
194.Xr gdb 1
195with the
196.Fl k
197flag on the system load image and core dump.
198If the core image is the result of a panic,
199the panic message is printed.
200For more details consult the chapter on kernel debugging in
201the FreeBSD handbook (http://www.freebsd.org).
202.Sh SEE ALSO
203.Xr gdb 1 ,
204.Xr dumpon 8 ,
205.Xr savecore 8 ,
206.Xr reboot 8
207.Sh HISTORY
208A
209.Nm crash
210man page first appeared in
211.Fx 2.2 .
212