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azerafati
Asked: 2016-03-29 06:04:45 +0800 CST

how to trace errors and crashes in Ubuntu itself?

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I'm new in Linux, My Ubuntu has started crashing for some days randomly and closing everything, going back to login screen!!

  • Is this the same as when windows hangs and you kill a program? (but Ubuntu killing all of them)
  • Mainly how do you trace errors and view crash reports of Ubuntu itself?
  • How can I get a log of what went wrong and find the root?
  • Is there a troubleshooting solution like windows?
  • Is there any popular process or set of instructions to follow in such times?
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1 Answers

  1. One possible solution is looking at Ubuntu log files after each crash and examine that whether new logs are added or Not.

    All major logs in Ubuntu are in /var/log path, for example:

    /var/log/auth.log - Authentication logs - including sudo/su activity

    /var/log/boot.log - Logs of booting process

    /var/log/crond.log - Logs for cron daemon

    /var/log/messages - Typical dumping point for messages not regarding the system

    /var/log/user.log - Logs of all userlevels

    /var/log/syslog - Logs from Different softwares and is a "general log"

    /var/log/kern.log - Information being logged from the kernel

    Beside above logs, there is a Troubleshooting guide here.

    Also there are some tracers that may be helpful such as apport-retrace.

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