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SAVECORE(8)            DragonFly System Manager's Manual           SAVECORE(8)

NAME
     savecore -- save a core dump of the operating system

SYNOPSIS
     savecore -c
     savecore -C [-v] [directory device]
     savecore [-fkvz] [directory [device ...]]

DESCRIPTION
     The savecore utility copies the currently running kernel and its associ-
     ated core dump into directory, or the current working directory if no
     directory argument is given, and enters a reboot message and information
     about the core dump into the system log.

     The options are as follows:

     -C      Check to see if a dump exists, and display a brief message to
             indicate the status.  An exit status of 0 indicates that a dump
             is there, 1 indicates that none exists.  This option is compati-
             ble only with the [-v] option.

     -c      Clear the dump, so that future invocations of savecore will
             ignore it.

     -f      Force a dump to be taken even if either the dump was cleared or
             if the dump header information is inconsistent.

     -k      Do not clear the dump after saving it.

     -v      Print out some additional debugging information.

     -z      Compress the core dump and kernel (see gzip(1)).

     The savecore utility looks for dumps on each device specified by the
     device argument(s), or on each device in /etc/fstab marked as ``dump'' or
     ``swap''.  The savecore utility checks the core dump in various ways to
     make sure that it is complete.  If it passes these checks, it saves the
     core image in directory/vmcore.# and the system in directory/kernel.# and
     information about the core in directory/info.# The ``#'' is the number
     from the first line of the file directory/bounds, and it is incremented
     and stored back into the file each time savecore successfully runs.

     The savecore utility also checks the available disk space before attempt-
     ing to make the copies.  If there is insufficient disk space in the
     filesystem containing directory, or if the file directory/minfree exists
     and the number of free kilobytes (for non-superusers) in the filesystem
     after the copies were made would be less than the number in the first
     line of this file, the copies are not attempted.

     If savecore successfully copies the kernel and the core dump, the core
     dump is cleared so that future invocations of savecore will ignore it.

     The savecore utility is meant to be called near the end of the initial-
     ization file /etc/rc (see rc(8)).

SEE ALSO
     gzip(1), getbootfile(3), dumpon(8), loader(8), syslogd(8)

HISTORY
     The savecore utility appeared in 4.1BSD.

BUGS
     The minfree code does not consider the effect of compression or sparse
     files.

DragonFly 3.5                  December 15, 2009                 DragonFly 3.5