Forced Dumps

In some cases, the system may "hang" in a state where it will not accept any input and cannot be interrupted. In this situation, you may be asked to force a panic, in order to generate a system dump for analysis by Technical Support units.

If you think you may need to force a system dump on a SCO UnixWare system, you must carry out the following preparations beforehand:

Preparing for Forced Dumps

Forced Panics - Ctrl-Alt-P

The ability to panic or reboot the system using console keystrokes is configurable using the CONSOLE_SECURITY tunable.

Make sure that CONSOLE_SECURITY is set to 3. The default value for CONSOLE_SECURITY is 1, so if you haven't already done it, you will need to execute:

Then reboot the system

If /usr/sbin/syslogd is running on your system, then you can stop it by executing:

UnixWare 2.1.2 Only: SYSLOGD

This preparatory action is required on UnixWare 2.1.2 only. The deficiency that required syslogd to be stopped on SCO UnixWare 2.1.2 and older is remedied in UnixWare 2.1.3 and UnixWare 7.

If /usr/sbin/syslogd is running on the system, then you can stop it by executing:

If /usr/sbin/syslogd is started up on every reboot of your system, you may want also want to disable this startup temporarily, as follows:

Look for a file in the directory /etc/rc2.d with a name in the form Sxxsyslogd, for example, S01syslogd. (If you haven't got any such file, then syslogd is probably not being started automatically). Disable the startup by renaming the file so that it begins with an X instead of an S, for example

UnixWare 2 Only: LOGALERT

This preparatory action is required on UnixWare 2 only. The logalert software is not supported on UnixWare 7. If /usr/sadm/msgmgmt/bin/logalert is running on your system, then stop it by executing:

As with syslogd above, if logalert is started up on every reboot of your system, you may also want to disable this startup temporarily, with a command such as:

If you are going to save the dump on disk as recommended above, make sure you have enough free space in your ROOT filesystem; if this is a problem, set up an alternative dump site as previously described.

Forcing the Dump

Once all the preparations described above have been carried out, you are in a position to force a dump. This will normally be at a time when the system is hung, or at some other time as requested by your Technical Support contact.

To force a system dump, go to the System console and press the key combination:

You should see a prompt on the screen:

Assuming you want to continue, enter y . You will see a message:

followed by a number of other messages indicating that the system memory image is being saved. When dumping is complete, you will see the final message:

Now reboot the system, and proceed to save the dump as for a "normal" system panic.

System Panics on Reboot

If the system panics every time it is rebooted, it is possible that the /stand/unix file is corrupt in some way.

UnixWare 2

Recovery methods are detailed in The System Administration Guide, System Setup and Configuration, Chapter 2: "Setting up the Work Environment", in the section entitled "What to Do if the System Does Not Boot".

UnixWare 7

Please note that, at the time of writing, UnixWare 7 SCOhelp is also available on the SCO website at URL http://uw7doc.sco.com/. Please note that this URL is outside the control of Fujitsu Technology Solutions.

UnixWare 2

Recovery methods are detailed in The System Administration Guide, System Setup and Configuration, Chapter 2: "Setting up the Work Environment", in the section entitled "What to Do if the System Does Not Boot".

UnixWare 7

Please note that, at the time of writing, UnixWare 7 SCOhelp is also available on the SCO website at URL http://uw7doc.sco.com/. Please note that this URL is outside the control of Fujitsu Technology Solutions.

This is part of a six page document, and continues here.