HP 9000 V2500 SCA, Operator'S Manual

Page: 184 / 206

162 Chapter 7
Recovering from failures
Abnormal system shutdowns
Following the dump, the system attempts to reboot.
The reboot
When dumping of physical memory pages is complete, the system
attempts to reboot (if the Autoboot is set). For information on the
Autoboot flag, see “Enabling Autoboot” on page 67.
savecrash processing
During the boot process, a process called
savecrash
can be used that
copies (and optionally compresses) the memory image stored on the
dump devices to the HP-UX file system area.
Dual-mode devices (dump / swap)
By default,
savecrash
performs its copy during the boot process.
Disable this operation by editing the file:
/etc/rc.config.d/
savecrash
and setting the
SAVECRASH
environment variable to a value
of zero. This is generally safe to do if the dump devices are not also being
used as paging devices.
WARNING
If using devices for both paging and dumping, do not disable
savecrash boot processing. Loss of the dumped memory image to
subsequent system paging activity can occur.
What to do after the system has rebooted?
After the system reboots, make sure that the physical memory image
dumped to the dump devices is copied to the HP-UX file system area
then either package and send it in for analysis or analyze it using a
debugger.
NOTE With HP-UX 11.0, it is possible to analyze a crash dump directly from
dump devices. If, however, it needs to be saved to a tape or sent to
someone, first copy the memory image to the HP-UX file system area.
Unless specifically disabled during reboot, the
savecrash
utility copies
the memory image during the reboot process. The default HP-UX
directory for the memory image in is
/var/adm/crash
. Specify a
different location by editing the file
/etc/rc.config.d/savecrash
and setting the environment variable called
SAVECRASH_DIR
to the
name of the directory the dumps are to be located.