HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1M System Administration Commands N-Z (vol 4)

s
savecrash(1M) savecrash (1M)
written out to the dump tape. This file is written a second time once all the dump files have been
written. The first copy of the file only contains crash dump header information and its filename on
tape is tmpindex. It does not contain information for the module and image files.
When writing to tape, the tape device must be online otherwise the command will fail with an
error. Additionally, when
savecrash reaches end-of-tape, it will prompt the user for the next
tape. Any tape errors encountered will result in a generic tape error.
-w opt Defines the interaction between
savecrash and swapon. opt can be one of the following
values:
NOSWAP Do not run swapon from savecrash
.
SWAPEACH (default) Call swapon each time savecrash finishes saving the image from each
dump device. This option provides the most efficient use of paging space.
SWAPEND Only call swapon when savecrash finishes saving the image file from all dump
devices. If this option is used, no additional paging space other than the primary pag-
ing space is available until the complete crash dump image is saved. This option pro-
vides a second chance to retrieve the crash image if
savecrash fails on first
attempt.
For compatibility with earlier
savecore syntax, the values of 0, 1 and 2 can be used in place of
NOSWAP, SWAPEACH, and SWAPEND, respectively. This usage is obsolescent.
RETURN VALUE
Upon exit, savecrash returns the following values:
0 A crash dump was found and saved, or savecrash has preserved dump information from the
primary swap device and is continuing to run in the background to complete its tasks.
1 A crash dump could not be saved due to an error.
2 No crash dump was found to save.
3 A partial crash dump was saved, but there was insufficient space to preserve the complete dump.
4 The savecrash process continued in the background, see the INDEX file for actual results.
WARNINGS
savecrash relies on the expectation that device numbers have the same meaning (point to the same dev-
ices) at the time the system dumps and at the time the dump is saved. If, after a crash, the system was
booted from a different boot device in order to run savecrash, it is possible that this expectation will not
be met. If so, savecrash may save an incomplete or incorrect dump or may fail to save a dump at all.
Such cases cannot be reliably detected, so there may be no warning or error message.
If savecrash encounters an error while running in the background (such as running out of space), it will
not be easily detectable by the caller. If the caller must ensure that the savecrash operation was suc-
cessful, for example before writing to a dump device, the caller should specify
-f to force
savecrash to
run in the foreground, and should then examine the exit status of the
savecrash process when it
finishes.
AUTHOR
savecrash was developed by HP and the University of California, Berkeley.
FILES
/etc/shutdownlog shutdown log
/etc/rc.config.d/savecrash savecrash startup configuration file
/sbin/init.d/savecrash savecrash startup file
dirname/bounds crash dump number
/stand/vmunix default kernel image saved by savecrash
SEE ALSO
adb(1), crashutil(1M), crashconf(1M), swapon(1M), tar(1).
Section 1M−−810 Hewlett-Packard Company − 3 − HP-UX 11i Version 1: September 2005