I have a Red Hat ES 3 system. I am trying to find out how to use the 'crash' utility to create the dumpfile and then read the dumpfile in the event a system panics.
Can anyone help?

Way too ambiguous.

I'll try to clarify what I think it is you mean. Please let us know if I'm right.

What you want is that whenever a program crashes, it leaves behind a core dump which you can then investigate for yourself, or (more likely) mail to the maintainer.

Correct?

Then the correct term isn't `panic'. Panic is something the kernel does--and that generally means you'll have to power cycle the box.

Incorrect?

Then what do you mean?

hth --Jonas

Hi Jonas - thanks for the reply.

Maybe I should have re-phrased my question. I would like to know what to do in the event my RH system kernel panics (as in kernel mode address panic)? I thought I could use the 'crash' utility to give me some clues on why the box 'paniced', by analyising the core dump, but I do not know how to set this up.

Can you suggest what I should do if I get a kernel panic? I know that rebooting the system would help, but is there anything else I could check to find out why it happened in the first place?

Steve..

1) backtrack everything you did leading to the panic.
2) search google. search forums.

(1) helped me make grub boot my kernel (yes, Linux); it turns out I had just given the kernel a bad `root' parameter.

(2) search on the exact message you get; write it down if you must.

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I don't know `crash'--but with your second explanation, the first has become clear

Sorry I can't be of more help. You may want to read `Smart Questions' for ideas about what more information you can provide, so others can help you better.

hth --Jonas