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Subject:    -4- My SGI crashed and generated a file,
                /usr/adm/crash/vmcore.1. How can I examine this file to
                see what crashed my system?
Date: 28 Apr 2000 11:58:53 PDT

  Under Irix 5.3 and above a system crash will generate a number of 
  files in the /var/adm/crash directory. These files appear in numbered
  sets, with each number (n) corresponding to an event. These files
  include: unix.n (a copy of the kernel), vmcore.n.comp (a compressed 
  dump of the memory), and analysis.n (an analysis file generated by the
  system using the icrash kernel debugger). Note that these files are
  created only is savecore is chkconfig'd on.

  Simply viewing the analysis file can often lead to clues regarding the
  reason behind a system crash. 'icrash' can also be run manually. See the
  icrash(1) manpage for details.

  SGI's 'icrash' utility can generate helpful reports and allow
  experienced administrators and support people to sift through the core
  file.  Get patch 813 for IRIX 5.3 or patch 769 for IRIX 6.1.  icrash
  is part of eoe.sw.unix (and therefore installed by default) on IRIX
  6.2 and above.

  For machines which lack the icrash utility:

    dbx -k /var/adm/crash/{unix,vmcore}.#
    t
    &putbuf/1000s

  Some machines have a special 'dbx' for crash dumps,
  /usr/adm/crash/dbx.  If it exists, use it instead of /usr/bin/dbx.

  The IRIX 5.x Electronic Services package includes a script, 'crpt',
  which does this and more automagically. A copy of the IRIX 5.2
  version lives at ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/software/admin/crpt.

Up: SGI admin Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Next: -5- How can I find out just about everything about my system at once?
Previous: -3- How can I determine my SGI's Ethernet (and/or FDDI) address?