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From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
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To: Jos Backus <jos@catnook.com>
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Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Retrieving info from panics while in X
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On Tue, 29 Aug 2006, Jos Backus wrote:

> I was wondering if anybody has any plans to address the issue of retrieving 
> panic/debugging information about crashes happening while X is running.
>
> For example, -current has been broken for me for several days now; it will 
> reliably crash within an hour or so while the main thing I'm doing is 
> running Opera under KDE. But without X, no crash. How does one obtain panic 
> information in this situation?

The typical approaches are:

(1) Set up a serial console and use that for debugger work; alternatively, use
     a firewire console.

(2) Set up the system not to entre the debugger, but just to panic and dump
     core.

I prefer the first of those options, myself, since I find the DDB debugging 
environment extremely useful, especially since it's quite aware of things like 
the kernel lock environment, etc.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge