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28 .\" From: @(#)savecore.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
36 .Nd "save a core dump of the operating system"
55 .Op Ar directory Op Ar device ...
60 copies a core dump into
62 or the current working directory if no
65 and enters a reboot message and information about the core dump into
68 The options are as follows:
69 .Bl -tag -width ".Fl m Ar maxdumps"
73 in a selection of different human and machine readable formats.
76 for details on command line arguments.
78 Check to see if a dump exists,
79 and display a brief message to indicate the status.
80 An exit status of 0 indicates that a dump is there,
81 1 indicates that none exists.
82 This option is compatible only with the
86 Clear the dump, so that future invocations of
90 Force a dump to be taken even if either the dump was cleared or if the
91 dump header information is inconsistent.
93 Do not clear the dump after saving it.
97 to generate and save a kernel dump of the running system, rather than
98 copying one from a dump device.
100 Maximum number of dumps to store.
101 Once the number of stored dumps is equal to
103 the counter will restart from
106 Uncompress the dump in case it was compressed by the kernel.
108 Print out some additional debugging information.
109 Specify twice for more information.
111 Compress the dump (see
113 This option is only supported in conjunction with the
116 Regular dumps can be configured for compression with zstd using
119 Compress the dump (see
121 The dump may already be compressed if the kernel was configured to
124 In this case, the option has no effect.
126 If used in conjunction with the
128 option, the requested live dump will be compressed with gzip.
134 looks for dumps on each device specified by the
136 argument(s), or on each device in
145 checks the core dump in various ways to make sure that it is complete.
146 If it passes these checks, it saves the core image in
147 .Ar directory Ns Pa /vmcore.#
148 and information about the core in
149 .Ar directory Ns Pa /info.# .
150 If the core is encrypted, it saves the dump key in
151 .Ar directory Ns Pa /key.# .
152 The core can be later decrypted using
154 For kernel textdumps generated with the
156 facility, output will be stored in the
159 .Ar directory Ns Pa /textdump.tar.# .
162 is the number from the first line of the file
163 .Ar directory Ns Pa /bounds ,
164 and it is incremented and stored back into the file each time
171 also checks the available disk space before attempting to make the copies.
172 If there is insufficient disk space in the file system containing
175 .Ar directory Ns Pa /minfree
176 exists and the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the
177 file system after the copies were made would be less than the number
178 in the first line of this file, the copies are not attempted.
182 successfully copies the kernel and the core dump, the core dump is cleared
183 so that future invocations of
190 is meant to be called near the end of the initialization file
199 .Xr xo_parse_args 3 ,
213 Support for kernel textdumps appeared in
216 The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse files.