ULTRIX-32 Guide to System Crash Recovery

This document, the "ULTRIX-32 Guide to System Crash Recovery," is a manual for system managers responsible for maintaining and recovering ULTRIX-32 systems from crashes.

It provides information on:

1. System Crashes and the Dump Process: Explains what happens during a system crash, including the generation of panic messages and the core dump process. It details how to establish crash dumps using the savecore utility, manage dump file locations, and copy or remove them.
2. Maintaining File System Consistency: Describes how to identify and correct file system inconsistencies after a crash, primarily through the fsck command. It covers both automatic invocation of fsck during system reboot and interactive execution for manual correction. It also touches upon restoring pseudoterminals.
3. Forcing a Crash Dump: Outlines procedures for manually forcing a crash dump when the system hangs and does not reboot on its own. It presents three methods in order of preference (least to most impactful on machine state):
   • Starting the crash dump routine manually.
   • Forcing a segmentation fault.
   • Initializing the processor. Each method includes detailed console commands.

The guide assumes the reader is familiar with ULTRIX-32 commands, system configuration, and basic editing, but does not require programming knowledge.