OCA Oracle Solaris 11 System Administration Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-821)

Generating Core Files

Creating a core file isn’t a mysterious process either. There are two general ways of going about it: the system creates one, based on an event in the process it deems unsafe; or a user creates one, either by providing bad input known to cause core dumps or just by asking for one. Unless the program itself is in an early stage of development, or it’s not an important one, someone will (or should) want to analyze it, possibly a support technician. It’s usually maintaining developers that want to create these snapshots—without forcing the program to terminate—to better understand the code. Others concerned with troubleshooting or performance analysis may also want these images to help them trace problematic or overly expensive ...