How can I dump the contents of a crash/dump part'n onto floppy?

[ashutosh]

In article <1990Dec29.010247.22411 at informix.com>,
aland at infmx.informix.com (Colonel Panic) writes:
|> System:  386 running AT&T System V/386 Release 3.2.2
|>          Dedicated crash/dump partition on disk 0
|> 
|> This system is configured with a dedicated crash/dump slice, which is
|> used to store the dump file in the event of a panic.  Works just fine
|> with crash(1).
|> 
|> If I *didn't* have a dedicated slice and a panic occured, I guess I
|> would be prompted upon next boot if I wanted to save the dump file
|> onto floppy or tape.  I'm assuming that the routine is smart enough
|> to split the dump over multiple floppies and reassemble it later somehow?
|> 
|> Anyway, my problem: I need to give a dump to the network vendor to help
|> diagnose the network problem causing the panic.  How do I copy the
|> contents of that slice onto floppies in such a way that they can turn
|> around and upload it at their end?  dd(1) doesn't do multi-volume.
|> cpio doesn't copy the contents character special devices (right?).
|> So, how do I unload it to floppy????  Am I missing something simple?
|> I guess I could write something in C to do it, but it seems that there
|> should be an easier way.  I RTFM'd all through the sections on panics
|> and crash(1) and such.
|> 
|> Any help appreciated.  Followups to comp.unix.admin.
|> 
|> --
|> Alan Denney  #  aland at informix.com  #  {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland
|> 
|>  "Out on the highway doing 98... radio's blastin', and he's tempting fate
|>   He swears he saw an angel in a black Corvette
|>   She was blowing him kisses through her cigarette
|>   Boy's gone crazy;  it's not just a phase, he's one step over the line..."
|>                                 "Boy's Gone Crazy", Was (Not Was)

 How about this :

	1. Use dd(1) to copy from the device file ( the swap partition ) to a 
           regular file. Use the 'bs' and 'count' parameters of the
dd(1) to  copy
 	   the size equal to your memory dump size. For example, for a 16 meg
	   machine you would have something like :

	   dd if=/dev/swap of=tmp/foo bs=200b count=164


	   This would copy a little more than 16 meg from the swap space to a 
	    regular file.


	2. Now use your favourite utility to copy this regular file to a floppy.

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Ashutosh
uunet!ingr!b11!ashutosh!ashutosh