Core file

[Hairybloke]

I'm using Redhat 6.2.

I was in X and netscape started messing around, and had been during the whole session as I was viewing java applets. I decided to logout of X and go back hoping to solve the problem.

When X started there was a new file named core on the desktop. It is located in this directory:

/home/hairybloke/.gnome-desktop/core

Can anyone tell me what this file is for? Is it there by default or was it created when I logged back in? I also have noticed that there is also a core file in my home directory. What is the core file for anyway?

Thanks in advance.

[cme]

Search for "core" on htese boards. You'll find lots of info. I have asked about them here before and gotten responses so I know they are there.

I can't give you a good explanation, but a search will turn up a lot. Good luck.

[theoenophile]

Is it the nice bomb with the crossed out eyes? If so its a core dump. You got an error, some program crashed and its letting you know what it did. Sometimes the core dump will give you, or some tech support guy, the ability to see what or at what point it crashed.

[Hairybloke]

Thanks. Yea, it is the little yellow bomb guy icon. As for the search, it brought up mainly stuff about corel linux. I tried a few other things like "core dump" but didn't get anything.

[theoenophile]

You can take the core file and open it in an editor like vi or vim and take a look at it and see if you can learn anything. It will contain a lot of garbage and some readable text. If it continues to happen it may give you a clue of what process caused it. Most likely netscape or some program bombed and caused it to crash. I've had this happen when I tried to startup a daemon that was already running. Like Strike says below, I forgot to tell you, you can delete it.

[This message has been edited by theoenophile (edited 23 December 2000).]

[This message has been edited by theoenophile (edited 23 December 2000).]

[Strike]

Basically, if you don't know what it is, you're best off just deleting it unless it is a persistent problem and you keep getting them. Then you might post here about it. But, basically, some program screwed up and dumped a whole bunch of info about what was going on when it messed up so that programmers could determine the error.

[Hairybloke]

Thanks guys.

[mtf8]

These core files aren't needed on my machine since I don't do development and won't be troubleshooting application problems down to that level. Realizing this, I know it would be a good idea to stop these files from being created (and therefore save on disk space on my /home partition). I've know that this "feature" can be disabled by specifying something in a configuration file but I don't know where. Just thought I'd add to the thread by saying that I KNOW for a fact this can be disabled...

I'll post on this thread again if I can manage to remember how/where this is done.

[Strike]

This one-liner will go through your system and delete every file named core (make sure nothing important is named core):


counter-strike:~# find / -name core -print | xargs rm

[Calvin_1976]

To find out what program made that core type file core. Getting it to stop can be the hard part.

[:strain:]

To stop core dumps all together, set...

limit coredumpsize 0

if you are using csh,tsch, or zsh.

[speck]

-OR-

ulimit -c 0

for bash shell.

Speck