xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/gcore/gcore.1 (revision 2008043f386721d58158e37e0d7e50df8095942d)
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28.\"	@(#)gcore.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
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30.Dd April 24, 2021
31.Dt GCORE 1
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm gcore
35.Nd get core images of running process
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Nm
38.Op Fl f
39.Op Fl k
40.Op Fl c Ar core
41.Op Ar executable
42.Ar pid
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Nm
46utility creates a core image of the specified process,
47suitable for use with
48.Xr gdb 1 Pq Pa ports/devel/gdb .
49By default, the core is written to the file
50.Dq Pa core.<pid> .
51The process identifier,
52.Ar pid ,
53must be given on the command line.
54.Pp
55The following options are available:
56.Bl -tag -width indent
57.It Fl c
58Write the core file to the specified file instead of
59.Dq Pa core.<pid> .
60.It Fl f
61Dumps all available segments, excluding only malformed and undumpable
62segments.
63Unlike the default invocation, this flag dumps mappings of devices which
64may invalidate the state of device transactions or trigger other unexpected
65behavior.
66As a result, this flag should only be used when the behavior of the
67application and any devices it has mapped is fully understood and any side
68effects can be controlled or tolerated.
69.It Fl k
70Use the
71.Xr ptrace 2
72.Dv PT_COREDUMP
73kernel facility to write the core dump, instead of reading the process'
74memory and constructing the dump file in
75.Nm
76itself.
77This is faster, and the dump is written by the
78same kernel code that writes core dumps upon fatal signals.
79.El
80.Sh FILES
81.Bl -tag -width /var/log/messages -compact
82.It Pa core.<pid>
83the core image
84.El
85.Sh HISTORY
86A
87.Nm
88utility appeared in
89.Bx 4.2 .
90.Sh BUGS
91Because of the
92.Xr ptrace 2
93usage
94.Nm
95may not work with processes which are actively being investigated with
96.Xr truss 1
97or
98.Xr gdb 1 Pq Pa ports/devel/gdb .
99Additionally, interruptable sleeps may exit with EINTR.
100.Pp
101The
102.Nm
103utility is not compatible with the original
104.Bx 4.2
105version.
106