So I realized I really need a better way to collect information from
problematic machines, so I spent today rewriting the old memdump tool
into a new "sysdump" tool. sysdump can write its output either to a
serial port using ymodem[1] or over the network using TFTP *if* it was
booted from the network, using PXELINUX.
John R.: I would obviously like you to try this on the machine that was
having problems doing local boot.
To use it, you need a TFTP server which is set up to have an area in
which files can be *uploaded*. For tftp-hpa, this usually involves the
-c and sometimes -p options.
Once that is done, boot to the pxelinux command line and enter:
sysdump tftp /path/on/server servername.domain
... where "/path/on/server" is the filename you want the data written
to
on the TFTP server, and servername.domain is the TFTP server itself
(either a DNS name or an IP address).
The resulting data file is a gzipped cpio archive with information about
the system.
-hpa
[1] not actually tested yet.
[2] or possibly involving some gPXE hacking.
--
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.
