A.P. Lawrence

Best of the Newsgroups: panic dump analysis

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From: Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com>
Subject: Re: SCO OSR5.0.6 System Crashed during LoneTAR Verify
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 20:26:53 GMT References: <Pine.UW2.4.21.0306131400050.4267-100000@ris7.UniXpress.com> <bcd8of$sgv$1@pcls4.std.com>

Tony Lawrence wrote:

> 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?

I have to firmly disagree with you on this.  You don't have to analyze a
dump yourself, you are typically going to go ask someone for help on it
-- whether that's the newsgroups, SCO, or a local consultant.  Whoever
it is, one of the first things they're going to ask for is a symbolic
traceback of the panic.  That can be gotten out of a panic dump with
little skill; can't be gotten out of the panic _message_ at all.

The message printed at panic time is full of hexadecimal addresses that
are _meaningless_ without examining the kernel that produced them.

Anyone wanting help with a panic should _at least_ allow a dump to be
saved in /dev/swap, then run:

  # crash -d /dev/swap
  > panic -w /tmp/panic

and post the resulting contents of /tmp/panic.

>Bela<

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