News Group Posts

panic dump analysis

From: tony@aplawrence.com
Subject: Re: SCO OSR5.0.6 System Crashed during LoneTAR Verify
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 19:30:23 +0000 (UTC)
References: <Pine.UW2.4.21.0306131400050.4267-100000@ris7.UniXpress.com> 

Lucky Leavell <scomisc@unixpress.com> wrote:
: On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 tony@aplawrence.com wrote:

:> Lucky Leavell <scomisc@unixpress.com> wrote:
:> :> 
:> :> So what does it show on the screen?  
:> :>
:> : It was asking if they wanted to save the dump; they didn't.  I asked them
:> : to call me next time and I will talk them through saving the dump to tape.
:> 
:> You don't want to save the dump.  
: Oh, then I should set PANICBOOT="NO" in /etc/default/boot? When they see
: the screen, it has already rebooted and is sitting there asking if they
: want to save the dump to tape. Doesn't the dump have the panic info in it?

Do you really want to go through the trouble of saving, extracting, and
analyzing a dump?  Do you even have the tools and knowledge to
do so?

For must of us, a dump is nearly useless.  The trap and cpu information is
enough to tell us the type of problem and whether it is repeating
(which could indicate a specific driver), but dumps can't give
us much more.  I can read assembly language fairly well,
and I know a little bit about hardware and vm and so on, but even if I 
had source code to help me, I wouldn't bother with it, at least 
not initially. You need intimate knowledge and experience to get 
very far.  The trap/cpu registers give enough for my teeny brain
to work with, thank you.

Unless of course you are planning to throw a bunch of cash SCO's
way and have them look at it?

--  
tony@aplawrence.com Unix/Linux resources: http://aplawrence.com
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