how to set up netconsole on 3.8.13? (trying to diagnose occasional system freeze)

Hi,

I’m having an issue where my BeagleBoneBlack (running Debian Wheezy) freezes overnight every couple of weeks. User leds 1+2 are on (not sure about the heart beat as I disabled the led 0). I can’t even get in via SSH, let alone ping the Beagle and I have to power cycle it completely. The issue usually occurs during my overnight backupninja run and has been happening for the different 3.8.13 kernel updates I’ve been using throughout the year.

Since the logs haven’t been of much use to me, I was looking into these instructions on using netconsole and have it log to my router, which comes with netcat, but no syslog server.

The trouble is, the 3.8.13 bone66 kernel I currently use is lacking the netconsole kernel module. Is there a pre-built kernel available with netconsole enabled? If not, is there any other option to get the netconsole module set up or is my only option to compile the kernel from sources?

In regards to building a kernel for the BBB, I’ve found this page, but I’m not sure if that’s still current. I’m also not sure on how to transfer / install the compiled kernel and how I could revert it if something went wrong with the install.

This is the current repository for 3.8.13, correct?

I’m really hoping there’s a way to get netconsole without me having to compile the kernel myself.

Thanks for any suggestions you can offer.

Sebastian