diff --git a/UPDATING b/UPDATING
index 40b3e5bddce7..517e54bb2bf1 100644
--- a/UPDATING
+++ b/UPDATING
@@ -26,6 +26,13 @@ NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT FreeBSD 10.x IS SLOW:
 	disable the most expensive debugging functionality run
 	"ln -s 'abort:false,junk:false' /etc/malloc.conf".)
 
+20121217:
+	By default, only the 10 most recent kernel dumps will be saved.  To
+	restore the previous behaviour (no limit on the number of kernel dumps
+	stored in the dump directory) add the following line to /etc/rc.conf:
+
+		savecore_flags=""
+
 20121201:
 	With the addition of auditdistd(8), a new auditdistd user is now
 	depended on during installworld.  "mergemaster -p" can be used to add
diff --git a/etc/defaults/rc.conf b/etc/defaults/rc.conf
index cc3e6238b9d0..3760fc064473 100644
--- a/etc/defaults/rc.conf
+++ b/etc/defaults/rc.conf
@@ -605,7 +605,9 @@ chkprintcap_enable="NO"	# Run chkprintcap(8) before running lpd.
 chkprintcap_flags="-d"	# Create missing directories by default.
 dumpdev="AUTO"		# Device to crashdump to (device name, AUTO, or NO).
 dumpdir="/var/crash"	# Directory where crash dumps are to be stored
-savecore_flags=""	# Used if dumpdev is enabled above, and present.
+savecore_flags="-m 10"	# Used if dumpdev is enabled above, and present.
+			# By default, only the 10 most recent kernel dumps
+			# are saved.
 crashinfo_enable="YES"	# Automatically generate crash dump summary.
 crashinfo_program="/usr/sbin/crashinfo"	# Script to generate crash dump summary.
 quota_enable="NO"	# turn on quotas on startup (or NO).