To display recent messages generated by a system crash or reboot, use the dmesg command.
$ dmesg
For large message logs, use the more command to display only one screen of messages at a time.
$ more /var/adm/messagesExample 6 Viewing System Messages
The following example shows output from the dmesg command on an Oracle Solaris 11 system.
$ dmesg Mon Sep 13 14:33:04 MDT 2010 Sep 13 11:06:16 sr1-ubrm-41 svc.startd[7]: [ID 122153 daemon.warning] ... Sep 13 11:12:55 sr1-ubrm-41 last message repeated 398 times Sep 13 11:12:56 sr1-ubrm-41 svc.startd[7]: [ID 122153 daemon.warning] ... Sep 13 11:15:16 sr1-ubrm-41 last message repeated 139 times Sep 13 11:15:16 sr1-ubrm-41 xscreensaver[25520]: ,,, Sep 13 11:15:16 sr1-ubrm-41 xscreensaver[25520]: ... Sep 13 11:15:17 sr1-ubrm-41 svc.startd[7]: [ID 122153 daemon.warning]... . . .
For more information, see the dmesg(1M) man page.