coredumpctl(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | MATCHING | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON

COREDUMPCTL(1)                 coredumpctl                COREDUMPCTL(1)

NAME         top

       coredumpctl - Retrieve and process saved core dumps and metadata

SYNOPSIS         top


       coredumpctl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [PID|COMM|EXE|MATCH...]

DESCRIPTION         top

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

COMMANDS         top

       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 a
           table with the following columns:

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

               Added in version 233.

           PID
               The identifier of the process that crashed.

               Added in version 233.

           UID, GID
               The user and group identifiers of the process that
               crashed.

               Added in version 233.

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

               Added in version 233.

           COREFILE
               Information whether the coredump was stored, and whether
               it is still accessible: "none" means 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.

               Added in version 233.

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

               Added in version 233.

           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.

           Added in version 215.

       info
           Show detailed information about the last core dump or core
           dumps matching specified characteristics captured in the
           journal.

           Added in version 215.

       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=.

           Added in version 215.

       debug
           Invoke a debugger on the last core dump matching specified
           characteristics. By default, gdb(1) will be used. This may be
           changed using the --debugger= option or the $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER
           environment variable. Use the --debugger-arguments= option to
           pass extra command line arguments to the debugger.

           Added in version 239.

OPTIONS         top

       The following options are understood:

       -h, --help
           Print a short help text and exit.

       --version
           Print a short version string and exit.

       --no-pager
           Do not pipe output into a pager.

       --no-legend
           Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer
           with hints.

       --json=MODE
           Shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of "short" (for
           the shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace
           or line breaks), "pretty" (for a pretty version of the same,
           with indentation and line breaks) or "off" (to turn off JSON
           output, the default).

       -1
           Show information of the most recent core dump only, instead
           of listing all known core dumps. Equivalent to --reverse -n
           1.

           Added in version 215.

       -n INT
           Show at most the specified number of entries. The specified
           parameter must be an integer greater or equal to 1.

           Added in version 248.

       -S, --since
           Only print entries which are since the specified date.

           Added in version 233.

       -U, --until
           Only print entries which are until the specified date.

           Added in version 233.

       -r, --reverse
           Reverse output so that the newest entries are displayed
           first.

           Added in version 233.

       -F FIELD, --field=FIELD
           Print all possible data values the specified field takes in
           matching core dump entries of the journal.

           Added in version 215.

       -o FILE, --output=FILE
           Write the core to FILE.

           Added in version 215.

       --debugger=DEBUGGER
           Use the given debugger for the debug command. If not given
           and $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER is unset, then gdb(1) will be used.

           Added in version 239.

       -A ARGS, --debugger-arguments=ARGS
           Pass the given ARGS as extra command line arguments to the
           debugger. Quote as appropriate when ARGS contain whitespace.
           (See Examples.)

           Added in version 248.

       --file=GLOB
           Takes a file glob as an argument. If specified, coredumpctl
           will operate on the specified journal files matching GLOB
           instead of the default runtime and system journal paths. May
           be specified multiple times, in which case files will be
           suitably interleaved.

           Added in version 246.

       -D DIR, --directory=DIR
           Use the journal files in the specified DIR.

           Added in version 225.

       --root=ROOT
           Use root directory ROOT when searching for coredumps.

           Added in version 252.

       --image=image
           Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
           specified, all operations are applied to file system in the
           indicated disk image. This option is similar to --root=, but
           operates on file systems stored in disk images or block
           devices. The disk image should either contain just a file
           system or a set of file systems within a GPT partition table,
           following the Discoverable Partitions Specification[1]. For
           further information on supported disk images, see
           systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.

           Added in version 252.

       --image-policy=policy
           Takes an image policy string as argument, as per
           systemd.image-policy(7). The policy is enforced when
           operating on the disk image specified via --image=, see
           above. If not specified defaults to the "*" policy, i.e. all
           recognized file systems in the image are used.

       -q, --quiet
           Suppresses informational messages about lack of access to
           journal files and possible in-flight coredumps.

           Added in version 233.

       --all
           Look at all available journal files in /var/log/journal/
           (excluding journal namespaces) instead of only local ones.

           Added in version 250.

MATCHING         top

       A match can be:

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

           Added in version 215.

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

           Added in version 215.

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

           Added in version 215.

       MATCH
           General journalctl match filter, must contain an equals sign
           ("="). See journalctl(1).

           Added in version 215.

EXIT STATUS         top

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

ENVIRONMENT         top

       $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER
           Use the given debugger for the debug command. See the
           --debugger= option.

           Added in version 239.

EXAMPLES         top

       Example 1. List all the core dumps of a program

           $ coredumpctl list /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox
           TIME       PID  UID  GID SIG     COREFILE EXE                         SIZE
           Tue ...   8018 1000 1000 SIGSEGV missing  /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox     -
           Wed ... 251609 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing  /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox     -
           Fri ... 552351 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present  /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox 28.7M

       The journal has three entries pertaining to
       /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox, and only the last entry still has an
       available core file (in external storage on disk).

       Note that coredumpctl needs access to the journal files to
       retrieve the relevant entries from the journal. Thus, an
       unprivileged user will normally only see information about
       crashing programs of this user.

       Example 2. Invoke gdb on the last core dump

           $ coredumpctl debug

       Example 3. Use gdb to display full register info from the last
       core dump

           $ coredumpctl debug --debugger-arguments="-batch -ex 'info all-registers'"

       Example 4. Show information about a core dump matched by PID

           $ coredumpctl info 6654
                      PID: 6654 (bash)
                      UID: 1000 (user)
                      GID: 1000 (user)
                   Signal: 11 (SEGV)
                Timestamp: Mon 2021-01-01 00:00:01 CET (20s ago)
             Command Line: bash -c $'kill -SEGV $$'
               Executable: /usr/bin/bash
            Control Group: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/...
                     Unit: user@1000.service
                User Unit: vte-spawn-....scope
                    Slice: user-1000.slice
                Owner UID: 1000 (user)
                  Boot ID: ...
               Machine ID: ...
                 Hostname: ...
                  Storage: /var/lib/systemd/coredump/core.bash.1000.....zst (present)
             Size on Disk: 51.7K
                  Message: Process 130414 (bash) of user 1000 dumped core.

                           Stack trace of thread 130414:
                           #0  0x00007f398142358b kill (libc.so.6 + 0x3d58b)
                           #1  0x0000558c2c7fda09 kill_builtin (bash + 0xb1a09)
                           #2  0x0000558c2c79dc59 execute_builtin.lto_priv.0 (bash + 0x51c59)
                           #3  0x0000558c2c79709c execute_simple_command (bash + 0x4b09c)
                           #4  0x0000558c2c798408 execute_command_internal (bash + 0x4c408)
                           #5  0x0000558c2c7f6bdc parse_and_execute (bash + 0xaabdc)
                           #6  0x0000558c2c85415c run_one_command.isra.0 (bash + 0x10815c)
                           #7  0x0000558c2c77d040 main (bash + 0x31040)
                           #8  0x00007f398140db75 __libc_start_main (libc.so.6 + 0x27b75)
                           #9  0x0000558c2c77dd1e _start (bash + 0x31d1e)

       Example 5. 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         top

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

NOTES         top

        1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
           https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
       manager) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩.  If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
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       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
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       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

systemd 255                                               COREDUMPCTL(1)

Pages that refer to this page: journalctl(1)core(5)coredump.conf(5)systemd.directives(7)systemd.index(7)systemd.journal-fields(7)systemd-coredump(8)