In comp.unix.solaris Joe D. <newbie_from_newbie@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd like to attempt to pull a dump from the device using savecore. In
> reading the man page, I notice that it runs following a reboot, and
> upon startup, if there has been a dump taken, will write it out to the
> directory spec'ed by dumpadm, and then write a reboot message to the
> log. I'm concerned with the verbiage in the -L option of savecore:

> -L Save a crash dump of the live running Solaris
> system, without actually rebooting or altering
> the system in any way. This option forces
> savecore to save a live snapshot of the system to
> the dump device, and then immediately to retrieve
> the data and to write it out to a new set of
> crash dump files in the specified directory. Live
> system crash dumps may only be performed if you
> have configured your system to have a dedicated
> dump device using dumpadm(1M).

You don't want that.

Just do a 'savecore .' to try to read and write the files in the current
directory. It'll work or it won't (if the dump repository has been
overwriten, the signature will be invalid and you'll get no data).

-L dumps the *running* system, overwriting what may be any older dump in
your dump device.

> Call me paranoid, but I want to make sure that the savecrash command
> will not CAUSE the server to reboot, merely pull the dump information
> from the dump device (in my case, swap, which may be overwritten by
> now, anyway). Can someone ease my angst and indicate one way or t'other
> for certain? Is this the proper command, and if not, is there
> another?

You can't do -L on a system unless you have a dedicated dump device (not
shared with swap), otherwise you'd overwrite in-use pages... bad.

But no, it's not supposed to panic the system, just grab the pages while
it's running. As it says above, "without actually rebooting or altering
the system in any way."

> I would simply issue the savecore command with no options, since I wish
> to pull the info from the current dump device. If I run out of space
> in my crash directory, I'd redirect at that time.

Correct.

--
Darren Dunham ddunham@taos.com
Senior Technical Consultant TAOS http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper? San Francisco, CA bay area
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