DMESG(8)                COMMAND REFERENCE                DMESG(8)



NAME
     dmesg - collect system diagnostic messages to form error log

SYNOPSIS
     /etc/dmesg [ -i ] [ -f kernelfile ] [ -c corefile ]

DESCRIPTION
     Dmesg looks in a system buffer for recently printed
     diagnostic messages and prints them on the standard output.
     The messages are those printed by the system if hardware
     errors occur and occasionally when system tables overflow
     non-fatally.

OPTIONS
     -i             incrementally computes the new messages since
                    the last time it was run with the -i flag and
                    places these on the standard output.  This is
                    typically used with cron(8) to produce the
                    error log /usr/adm/messages by running the
                    command

                         /etc/dmesg -i >> /usr/adm/messages

                    every 10 minutes.

     -f kernelfile  File used to get a pointer to the system
                    message buffer.  Defaults to /dev/cvt.

     -c corefile    File in which the current system message
                    buffer is found.  The pointer obtained from
                    kernelfile is used as an offset into
                    corefile. Defaults to /dev/kmem.

FILES
     /usr/adm/messages   error log (conventional location)
     /usr/adm/msgbuf     scratch file for memory of -i option

CAVEATS
     The -i flag should only be mentioned in crontab since the
     scratch file is global and using it elsewhere may cause
     messages to be lost from /usr/adm/messages.

     The system error message buffer is of small finite size.  As
     dmesg is run only every few minutes, not all error messages
     are guaranteed to be logged.

     Error diagnostics generated immediately before a system
     crash will never get logged.

SEE ALSO
     cron(8).




Printed 10/17/86                                                1

%%index%%
na:72,96;
sy:168,247;
de:415,354;
op:769,1042;
fi:1811,170;
ca:1981,550;
se:2531,76;
%%index%%000000000118