Re: writing OOPS/panic info to nvram?

Pavel Machek
2002-09-06T20:52:06Z

Hi!

> > Ah, ther is no way to write raw blocks at a very low level to disk...??
>
> Not reliably; you _know_ your infrastructure has crashed, otherwise you
> wouldn't be inside the crash dump handler ;), so you can't possibly trust the
> normal block layer to write the crash dump (and not write it over your salary
> and customer database).

Floppy seems like safe choice. Verify its special "crash floppy" by checking
signature, then write.

> A network dump is much safer, though I would suggest running it over a
> dedicated card / driver combo and on a special ethernet protocol, because you
> might have lost your IP configuration...

Its enough for it to work 99% cases. Separate ethernet card is overkill,
serial console is easier than that.
Pavel
--
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.