News Group Posts

panic core dump debugging

From: jls@sco.com (J. L. Schilling)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
Subject: Re: difference between "core dump" and "panic"
Date: 3 Aug 2000 13:18:39 GMT
Message-ID: <8mbrff$qdb$1@hobbes.sco.com> 
References: <8mbopu$kop$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 

thush2@my-deja.com wrote:
: I need to know the difference (in troubleshooting) between "application
: core dump" (application creates core.<pid> file) and panic(entire
: memory image is copied to /dev/swap) ?

The first is just the failure of an individual process, while the second
is the failure of the whole OS.   

: Need to know a way of seeing the contents of application core dump. ie
: core.<pid> file. Can it be traced thro' "crash" ?

Since it's probably an application-level problem, it's best to use the
application debugger.  That's /usr/ccs/bin/debug with the -c option
to specify the core file name.  You can then debug the program using
all of the regular debugger commands, with symbolic information as
well if your application was compiled with -g.  The first commands
to use within the debugger would be "ps" (see what threads were
running), "stack -p all" (see where they were), and perhaps "map"
(see what's loaded where in memory).

Sometimes when you get a core dump it's not clear what application,
or what program within the application, created it.  (You'll need
to specify the program name to the debugger as well.)  There's
a "proc" utility for UnixWare 7 that will tell you this; I believe
it's available at http://www.sco.com/skunkware/.

--
Jonathan Schilling              SCO, Inc.               jls@sco.com

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