Crash Dump ConfigurationObjective: Manage crash dumps and core file behaviors. When a serious error is encountered, the system displays an error message on the console, dumps the entire contents of physical memory to the disk, and then reboots the system. A crash dump is a snapshot of the physical memory, saved on disk, at the time that a fatal system error occurs. Normally, crash dumps are configured to use the swap partition to write the contents of memory. The savecore program runs when the system reboots and saves the image in a predefined location, usually /var/crash/<hostname>, where <hostname> represents the name of the system. You configure crash dump files by using the dumpadm command. Running this command with no options, as follows, displays the current configuration, which is obtained from the file /etc/ dumpadm.conf: # dumpadm The system responds with this: Dump content: kernel pages Dump device: /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 (swap) Savecore directory: /var/crash/ultra5 Savecore enabled: yes The following is the syntax of the dumpadm command: /usr/sbin/dumpadm [-nuy] [-c content-type] [-d dump-device]\ [-m mink | minm | min%] [-s savecore-dir] [-r root-dir] The options for the dumpadm command are described in Table 9.7.
To set up a dedicated disk slice named c0t2d0s2 for crash dumps, you issue the following command: # dumpadm -d /dev/dsk/c0t2d0s2 The system responds with this: Dump content: kernel pages Dump device: /dev/dsk/c0t2d0s2 (dedicated) Savecore directory: /var/crash/ultra5 Savecore enabled: yes The dumpadm process is now configured by the Service Management Facility (SMF) at system boot time. Use the svcs command to check its status. The service name for this process is svc:/system/dumpadm:default. |