Re: Core dumps & /proc/kcore
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On 13 Nov 1999, Riku Saikkonen wrote:
> >On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, David J. Kanter wrote:
> >> I'm trying to free up some disk space so hunted for core dumps. All I could
> >> find (find / -name "core" -xdev) was /proc/kcore, which is a whopping 131Mb.
> >> Is this a monolithic core dump that can be deleted?
>
> It contains the full contents of the computer's physical memory. This
> basically means that if you try to read it, the kernel gives you a
> part of the contents of memory.
<JOKE>
And if you delete it, the computer will delete all your RAM and you have
to go buy more. ;)
</JOKE>
I've never actually tried, but presumably Permission would be Denied, or
it would make your machine crash. Nothing a good reboot shouldn't fix,
although you might have to fsck. If you decide to give it a shot, syncing
and remounting all drives read-only might be a good idea.
> Once upon a time, a type of memory hardware was called "core memory",
> and the term stuck, so "core" basically means "memory" (and "core
> dump" = "memory dump", but this is talking about the virtual memory of
> one process). I don't know where the "k" in "kcore" comes from,
> probably simply "kernel". (And "proc" comes from "processes", because
> originally the /proc filesystem only contained information about
> processes.)
You can check the Jargon File for details on the origin of the term core,
and many other interesting things. Read linux/Documentation/proc.txt [in
the kernel docs] for information on the proc filesystem.
- --
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