Core File Content Enhancements

The Solaris Express 12/03 release introduced new enhancements to the coreadm, gcore, and mdb utilities. These changes improve management of core files as described in the following three sections. Further enhancements to the coreadm command were made in the Solaris Express 1/04 release.

Specify Core File Content With coreadm

This feature is new in the Solaris Express 12/03 release. The -i and -I options have been further enhanced in the Solaris Express 1/04 release.

In the Solaris Express 12/03 release, the coreadm command lets you specify which parts of a process are present in the core file during a crash. You can see the system's configuration by running coreadm with no arguments.

You can specify the global core file content and the default per-process core file content by using the -G and -I options respectively. Each option requires a set of content specifier tokens. You can also set the core file content for individual processes by using the -P option. Core dumps that correspond to the global settings no longer honor the per-process, core file-size resource control.

In the Solaris Express 1/04 release, the -i and -I options to the coreadm command now apply to all processes whose core file settings are using the system-wide default. Use the -p and -P options to override the default.

For further information, see the coreadm(1M) man page.

gcore Core File Content

This feature is new in the Solaris Express 12/03 release.

The gcore utility creates core files from a running process without damaging that process. The gcore utility now supports variable core file content. Use the -c option to specify the content or the -p or -g options to force gcore to use the coreadm settings.

See the gcore(1) man page for further information.

mdb Supports Text and Symbol Tables in Core Files

This feature is new in the Solaris Express 12/03 release.

Text is now in core files by default. Also, symbol tables can now be in core files by default. The mdb utility has been updated to support this new core file data. This support means you can now debug your old core file without needing the original binary or the libraries that are linked to that file.

See the mdb(1) man page for further information.