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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?