Managing Systems and Workgroups: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators

Administering a System: Booting and Shutdown
Abnormal System Shutdowns
Chapter 5548
Example 5-37 Add Specific Devices to Active Dump List
To have crashconf add the devices represented by the block device files
/dev/dsk/c0t1d0 and /dev/dsk/c1t4d0 to the dump device list:
/sbin/crashconf /dev/dsk/c0t1d0 /dev/dsk/c1t4d0
Example 5-38 Replace Active Dump List with Specific Devices
To have crashconf replace any existing dump device definitions with the
logical volume /dev/vg00/lvol3 and the device represented by block
device file /dev/dsk/c0t1d0:
/sbin/crashconf -r /dev/vg00/lvol3 /dev/dsk/c0t1d0
Dump Order In some circumstances, such as when you are using the
primary paging device along with other devices as a dump device, you
care about what order they are dumped to following a system crash. In
this way you can minimize the chances that important dump information
will be overwritten by paging activity during the subsequent reboot of
your computer.
The rule is simple to remember:
No matter how the list of currently active dump devices is built (from a
kernel build, from the /etc/fstab file, from use of the crashconf
command, or any combination of these), dump devices are used (dumped
to) in the reverse order from which they were defined. In other words, the
last dump device in the list is the first one used, and the first device in
the list is the last one used.
Therefore, if you have to use a device for both paging and dumping, it is
best to put it early in the list of dump devices so that other dump devices
are used first.
What Happens When the System Crashes
An HP-UX system crash is an unusual event. When a system panic
occurs, it means that HP-UX encountered a condition that it did not
know how to handle (or could not handle). Sometimes you know right
away what caused the crash (for example: a power failure, or a forklift
SYSTEM
CRASH!