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Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:09:33 +0000
From: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
To: Lars Marowsky-Bree <lmb@suse.de>
Cc: "J.A. Magallon" <jamagallon@able.es>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: writing OOPS/panic info to nvram?
Message-ID: <20020906100933.E35@toy.ucw.cz>
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Hi!

> > Ah, ther is no way to write raw blocks at a very low level to disk...??
> 
> Not reliably; you _know_ your infrastructure has crashed, otherwise you
> wouldn't be inside the crash dump handler ;), so you can't possibly trust the
> normal block layer to write the crash dump (and not write it over your salary
> and customer database).

Floppy seems like safe choice. Verify its special "crash floppy" by checking
signature, then write.

> A network dump is much safer, though I would suggest running it over a
> dedicated card / driver combo and on a special ethernet protocol, because you
> might have lost your IP configuration...

Its enough for it to work 99% cases. Separate ethernet card is overkill,
serial console is easier than that.
								Pavel
-- 
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.

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