.\"     $NetBSD: panic.9,v 1.2 1996/10/09 17:20:04 explorer Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Michael Graff.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
.\"      This product includes software developed by Michael Graff
.\"      for the NetBSD Project.
.\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
.\"    derived from this software without specific prior written permission
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.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man9/panic.9,v 1.4.2.4 2001/12/17 11:30:18 ru Exp $
.\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man9/panic.9,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:37:01 dillon Exp $
.\"
.Dd August 11, 1995
.Dt PANIC 9
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm panic
.Nd bring down system on fatal error
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/param.h
.Ft void
.Fn panic "const char *fmt" ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn panic
function terminates the running system.  The message
.Fa fmt
is a
.Xr printf 3
style format string.  The message is printed to the console and the location
.Fa panicstr
is set to the address of the message text for retrieval from the OS
core dump.
.Pp
If the kernel debugger is installed control is passed to it, otherwise
an attempt to save a core dump of the OS to a configured dump device
is made.
.Pp
If
.Fn panic
is called twice (from the disk sync routines, for example) the system is
rebooted without syncing the disks.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The
.Fn panic
function does not return.