CRASHINFO(8)

💅 CRASHINFO(8) — the system manager's manual, but make it cute

okay so bestie, you found yourself a crashinfo page from the System Manager's Manual section 8, and honestly? it's giving "your kernel fell over and we're gonna do forensics about it." let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

crashinfo — analyze a core dump of the operating system 💀

like, the OS crashed, it left a little diary entry, and this is the tool that reads it.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

crashinfo [-d crashdir] [-n dumpnr] [-k kernel] [core]

that's it. that's the whole vibe check. four little things you can pass it and one optional positional. slay. ✨

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the crashinfo utility analyzes a core dump saved by savecore(8). it generates a text file containing the analysis, and it drops that text file in the same directory as the core dump. for a given core dump file named vmcore.XX, the generated text file will be named core.txt.XX. iconic naming convention, no notes. 💅

by default, crashinfo analyzes the most recent core dump in the core dump directory. but if you want a specific one, you can point at it with either the core or dumpnr arguments — your choice, main character energy either way. 🌟

once crashinfo has located a core dump, it analyzes the core dump to determine the exact version of the kernel that generated the core. then it looks for a matching kernel file under each of the subdirectories in /boot. you can also just hand it the kernel yourself, explicitly, via the kernel argument. convenient!! 🎁

once crashinfo has located a core dump and kernel, it uses several utilities to analyze the core, including:

• dmesg(8)
• fstat(1)
• iostat(8)
• ipcs(1)
• kgdb(1) (ports/devel/gdb)
• netstat(1)
• nfsstat(1)
• ps(1)
• pstat(8)
• vmstat(8)

a whole ensemble cast, honestly. an avengers situation. 🦸‍♀️

⚠️ note that kgdb must be installed from the devel/gdb port or the gdb package. like, it's not optional, bestie. if it's not there, that part of the analysis is not happening. 💀

the options are as follows:

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

• -b — run in batch mode. write most messages to the core.txt.XX file instead of the terminal. this flag is used when crashinfo is run during boot. iykyk, boot-time doesn't have a human watching the screen. 🤖
• -d crashdir — specify an alternate core dump directory. the default crash dump directory is /var/crash. ✨
• -n dumpnr — use the core dump saved in vmcore.dumpnr instead of the latest core in the core dump directory. so like, if you know exactly which dump you want, this is your girl. 🎯
• -k kernel — specify an explicit kernel file. 🧚

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• textdump(4)
• savecore(8)

go read those too, bestie, they're part of the lore. 📚

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🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

the crashinfo utility appeared in FreeBSD 6.4. vintage. retro. a classic. 🎀

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okay that's the whole page!! and for the cute sign-off: this one's tagged as Debian, dated December 2, 2020 — so yeah, that's the source and the date, mwah 💋 go analyze some cores, you got this 🫶💖✨