Subject: kernel core dump ideas
To: None <mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
From: Gordon W. Ross <gwr@mc.com>
List: port-sun3
Date: 03/13/1996 18:18:22
> Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 17:12:50 -0500
> From: der Mouse <mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>

> What's hard about kernel coredumps?  Perhaps that would be the most
> worthwhile place for me to invest effort....

Leo Weppelman has done some work on a new savecore that supports
multiple segments, including the possibility for machine-specific
segment types.  The Sun3 needs a special segment into which the
kernel will dump a copy of the current MMU state.  The kernel dump
routine can use a small reserved piece of memory as a temporary
holding place for the MMU data that normally lives in special SRAM
inside the MMU, copying one block at a time of MMU data to disk.
The same temporary block could be used to write out a header
before everything else.

Then, savecore needs to identify the new format dump data in swap
and copy it to a file in the new, generic kernel coredump format.

This should all be reasonably easy, but I've been busy chasing
some other things.  If you'd like Leo's stuff let me know.

Gordon