HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Overview HP-UX 11i v3 (B3921-90011, September 2010)
You can choose to do the following:
C option
[CURRENT] Proceed with the current settings. Use this to immediately proceed
with the current settings, not waiting for the 10-second override period to
automatically expire.
S option
[SELECTIVE] Proceed with a selective dump with both compression and
concurrency turned off, regardless of what was previously configured.
F option
[FULL DUMP] This option is available if enough dump space has been configured
to hold the contents of the entire physical memory. Select this option to dump the
contents of all physical memory. With this option, compression and concurrency
are off.
P option
[PARTIAL DUMP] This option is available instead of the full dump option if there
is not enough dump space configured to hold a full dump. The amount of memory
that will be dumped is displayed on the console. With this option, compression
and concurrency are off.
N option
[NO DUMP] Do not perform a dump. Immediately reboot the system. Use this
option if you know the cause of the panic and do not need a dump.
The Dump
After the operator is given a chance to override the current dump level, or the 10-second override
period expires, HP-UX writes the physical memory contents to the dump devices until one of
the following conditions is true:
• The entire contents of memory are dumped (if a full dump was configured or requested by
the operator)
• The entire contents of selected memory pages are dumped (if a selective dump was configured
or requested by the operator)
• Configured dump device space is exhausted
Depending on the amount of memory being dumped, and a number of other factors, this process
can take from a few seconds to hours.
While the dump is in occurring, status messages on the system console indicate the dump’s
progress.
IMPORTANT: You can interrupt the dump at any time by pressing the ESC (escape) key. It can
take as long as 15 seconds to abort.
If you interrupt a dump, it will be as though a dump never occurred; that is, you will not get a
partial dump.
Following the dump, the system attempts to reboot.
The Reboot
After the dumping of physical memory pages is complete, the system attempts to reboot (if the
AUTOBOOT flag is set). For information on the AUTOBOOT flag, see HP-UX System Administrator’s
Guide: Routine Management Tasks.
The savecrash Processing Option
You can define whether or not you want a process called savecrash to run as your system
boots. This process copies (and optionally compresses) the memory image stored on the dump
devices to the HP-UX file system area. Space permitting, you can store multiple crash dumps in
the file system area in case there is more than one panic event. If you do not run savecrash
during or shortly after boot, you risk only having the latest dump available, on the dump devices.
86 Major Components of HP-UX