savecore(8)

NAME

savecore - save a core dump of the operating system

SYNOPSIS

savecore -c
savecore -C [-v] [directory device]
savecore [-fkvz] [directory [device ...]]

DESCRIPTION

The savecore utility copies a core dump into directory, or

the current
working directory if no directory argument is given, and en

ters a reboot
message and information about the core dump into the system

log.

The options are as follows:

-C Check to see if a dump exists, and display a brief

message to

indicate the status. An exit status of 0 indicates

that a dump
is there, 1 indicates that none exists. This option

is compatible only with the [-v] option.

-c Clear the dump, so that future invocations of

savecore will

ignore it.

-f Force a dump to be taken even if either the dump was

cleared or

if the dump header information is inconsistent.

-k Do not clear the dump after saving it.

-v Print out some additional debugging information.

Specify twice

for more information.

-z Compress the core dump and kernel (see gzip(1)).

The savecore utility looks for dumps on each device speci

fied by the
device argument(s), or on each device in /etc/fstab marked

as ``dump'' or
``swap''. The savecore utility checks the core dump in var

ious ways to
make sure that it is complete. If it passes these checks,

it saves the
core image in directory/vmcore.# and information about the

core in
directory/info.# The ``#'' is the number from the first line

of the file
directory/bounds, and it is incremented and stored back into

the file
each time savecore successfully runs.

The savecore utility also checks the available disk space

before attempting to make the copies. If there is insufficient disk space

in the file
system containing directory, or if the file

directory/minfree exists and
the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the

file system
after the copies were made would be less than the number in

the first
line of this file, the copies are not attempted.

If savecore successfully copies the kernel and the core

dump, the core
dump is cleared so that future invocations of savecore will

ignore it.

The savecore utility is meant to be called near the end of

the initialization file /etc/rc (see rc(8)).

SEE ALSO

gzip(1), getbootfile(3), dumpon(8), syslogd(8)

HISTORY

The savecore utility appeared in 4.1BSD.

BUGS

The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression

or sparse
files.

BSD February 24, 2005

BSD