coredumpctl

systemd
Developer Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek zbyszek@in.waw.pl
coredumpctl 1
coredumpctl Retrieve and process saved core dumps and metadata
`coredumpctl` OPTIONS COMMAND PID|COMM|EXE|MATCH

## Description

`coredumpctl` is a tool that can be used to retrieve and process core dumps and metadata which were saved by systemd-coredump 8.

## Options

The following options are understood:

`--no-legend`

  Do not print column headers.

`-1`

  Show information of a single core dump only, instead of listing all known core dumps.

`-S`
`--since`

  Only print entries which are since the specified date.

`-U`
`--until`

  Only print entries which are until the specified date.

`-r`
`--reverse`

  Reverse output so that the newest entries are displayed first.

`-F` FIELD
`--field=`FIELD

  Print all possible data values the specified field takes in matching core dump entries of the journal.

`-o` FILE
`--output=`FILE

  Write the core to `FILE`.

`-D` DIR
`--directory=`DIR

  Use the journal files in the specified `DIR`.

`-q`
`--quiet`

  Suppresses info messages about lack of access to journal files and possible in-flight coredumps.

## Commands

The following commands are understood:

`list`

  List core dumps captured in the journal matching specified characteristics. If no command is specified, this is the implied default.

  The output is designed to be human readable and contains list contains a table with the following columns:

  TIME

    The timestamp of the crash, as reported by the kernel.

  PID

    The identifier of the process that crashed.

  UID
  GID

    The user and group identifiers of the process that crashed.

  SIGNAL

    The signal that caused the process to crash, when applicable.

  COREFILE

    Information whether the coredump was stored, and whether it is still accessible: `none` means the the core was not stored, `-` means that it was not available (for example because the process was not terminated by a signal), `present` means that the core file is accessible by the current user, `journal` means that the core was stored in the `journal`, `truncated` is the same as one of the previous two, but the core was too large and was not stored in its entirety, `error` means that the core file cannot be accessed, most likely because of insufficient permissions, and `missing` means that the core was stored in a file, but this file has since been removed.

  EXE

    The full path to the executable. For backtraces of scripts this is the name of the interpreter.

  It's worth noting that different restrictions apply to data saved in the journal and core dump files saved in `/var/lib/systemd/coredump`, see overview in systemd-coredump 8. Thus it may very well happen that a particular core dump is still listed in the journal while its corresponding core dump file has already been removed.

`info`

  Show detailed information about core dumps captured in the journal.

`dump`

  Extract the last core dump matching specified characteristics. The core dump will be written on standard output, unless an output file is specified with `--output=`.

`gdb`

  Invoke the GNU debugger on the last core dump matching specified characteristics.

## Matching

A match can be:

PID

  Process ID of the process that dumped core. An integer.

COMM

  Name of the executable (matches `COREDUMP_COMM=`). Must not contain slashes.

EXE

  Path to the executable (matches `COREDUMP_EXE=`). Must contain at least one slash.

MATCH

  General journalctl predicate (see journalctl 1). Must contain an equals sign (`=`).

## Exit status

On success, 0 is returned; otherwise, a non-zero failure code is returned. Not finding any matching core dumps is treated as failure.

## Examples

List all the core dumps of a program named foo

    # coredumpctl list foo

Invoke gdb on the last core dump

    # coredumpctl gdb

Show information about a process that dumped core, matching by its PID 6654

    # coredumpctl info 6654

Extract the last core dump of /usr/bin/bar to a file named `bar.coredump`

    # coredumpctl -o bar.coredump dump /usr/bin/bar

## See Also

systemd-coredump 8, coredump.conf 5, systemd-journald.service 8, gdb 1