OSM(4,F)                    AIX Technical Reference                    OSM(4,F)



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osm



PURPOSE

Provides the interface to AIX messages.

DESCRIPTION

The osm driver collects system messages provided by the AIX kernel and
application programs.  It is found in all AIX systems.  These system messages
are available to a daemon reading this file.  System messages have two sources:

  o The AIX kernel provides messages by calls to the kernel printf routine.

  o Application programs open and write to this file.

Operating system messages are stored in a circular buffer in the system and can
be read or written using the osm* special files.  A read from osm* files
returns some portion of the data in the circular buffer.  A write to the files
adds user data to the current end of the circular buffer.  Any number of users
may use osm* files in the same instance of time.

Read operations from the osm file start at the current end of the circular
buffer and wait for new data to be added.  Read operations from the file
/dev/osm.curr start at the beginning of the circular buffer and return 0 bytes
when the current end of the buffer is reached.  Read operations from the
/dev/osm.all file start at the beginning of the circular buffer, go to the
current end of the circular buffer, and wait for new data to be added.

FILE

/dev/osm*

RELATED INFORMATION

In this book:  "rasconf."
















Processed November 7, 1990         OSM(4,F)                                   1