trcdead Command

Purpose

Extracts trace buffers from a system dump image or live dump image.

Syntax

trcdead [ -1 -2 -3 ... -7 ] [ -c ] [ -M ] [  -o Name  ] DumpImage [ UnixFile ]

Description

If the system halts while trace facilities are active, the contents of the internal trace buffers are captured in the system dump. Alternatively, a live dump can also capture partial or complete internal trace buffers if the appropriate pseudo-component. Use the trcdead command to extract the eight active system trace channels, all component trace buffers, and the lightweight memory trace buffers from the system dump or the live dump. The system trace channel 0 is extracted when you do not specify any flag. To trace a channel other than channel 0 is identified through a -channelnum flag. Use a -c flag to identify component trace buffers. Use the -M flag to identify lightweight memory trace buffers. You can extract only one type of trace buffer, or one specific system trace channel at one time.

The -o flag can be used to indicate that the extracted buffers should be written to a nondefault trace log file or directory. System trace channels are extracted to a trace log file. Component Trace buffers and Lightweight Memory Trace buffers are extracted to a directory. If the -o flag is not chosen, the trcdead command writes to the default trace log file or directory. The default log file name and directory names can be viewed and modified using the trcctl command.

Prior to AIX® 5.3, if multi-cpu trace buffering was requested for multiple processors using the trace -C flag, the associated buffers were not in the dump.

Use the trcrpt command to format a report from the trace log file or files.

Flags

Item Description
–1, ..., -7 Retrieves the trace buffer entries for channel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. The default is channel 0.
-c Extracts all buffers of all active Component Trace components.
-M Extracts the Lightweight Memory Trace buffers.
-oName Specifies the file or directory (-c, -M) to which data is written.

Parameter

Item Description
DumpImage Specifies the dump image to operate on.
UNIX File Specifies the UNIX file that is in use when the system dump or live dump is taken. This is not necessary if you are using the trcdead command on the same system that the dump originated from.

Examples

Note: To determine which example is more appropriate for your system, use the sysdumpdev command to display the current dump device assignments.
  1. To extract the system trace buffer to the file named trace_extract from a dump located at /var/adm/ras/dumpfile, enter:
    trcdead -o trace_extract /var/adm/ras/dumpfile
  2. To extract the system trace buffer from a dump image written to a device, enter:
    trcdead /dev/hd7
  3. To extract lightweight memory trace information from dump image vmcore.0 and put it into the /tmp directory, enter:
    trcdead -o /tmp -M vmcore.0
  4. To extract the component trace buffers from the dump image vmcore.3 that is produced by the /tmp/unix_64, enter:
    trcdead -c vmcore.3 /tmp/unix_64

Files

Item Description
/usr/bin/trcdead Contains the trcdead command.
/var/adm/ras/dumpfile Contains the default system dump file.
/var/adm/ras/trcfile Contains the default system trace log.
/var/adm/ras/trc_ct Contains the default component trace logs.
/var/adm/ras/mtrcdir Contains the default lightweight memory trace logs.