Newbie: system spontaneous reboot

[taxman]

On Monday 07 April 2003 09:17 am, Gary Schenk wrote:
> My new FreeBSD system seems to be working well. When I logoff my user
> account, I leave the machine on to process setiathome. Several times in the
> last week, I return to find a fatal trap message on the screen, at the end
> it states automatic reboot in 15 seconds, press any key to cancel. It has
> not rebooted but it is merely waiting. When I press a key, it reboots. 
>
> I'd like to know if any one knows what the problem is. I'd also like to
> know how to copy or capture the screen  message to a file so as to post it
> to this list. 

I think at this point you can still hit scroll lock, and page up to scroll 
back to the error message screens.  Then you can copy it all down on paper!  
Just kidding.

First you need yo build a custom kernel with debuggin in it, then you need to 
configure saving core files.  here's a few references
http://www.lemis.com/texts/panic.txt
then read  loader.conf(5) to find the syntax error in that paper in how to 
configure the dump device in loader.conf 
the developers handbook will help too:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/kerneldebug.html

This won't turn you into a kernel hacker, but should get you started to at 
least get the right info to get someone to help you out.

have fun

Tim