freebsd-dev/usr.bin/gcore/gcore.1

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.\"	@(#)gcore.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd July 14, 2010
.Dt GCORE 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm gcore
.Nd get core images of running process
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl f
.Op Fl s
.Op Fl c Ar core
.Op Ar executable
.Ar pid
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility creates a core image of the specified process,
suitable for use with
.Xr gdb 1 .
By default, the core is written to the file
.Dq Pa core.<pid> .
The process identifier,
.Ar pid ,
must be given on the command line.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl c
Write the core file to the specified file instead of
.Dq Pa core.<pid> .
.It Fl f
Dumps all the available segments, excluding only the malformed ones and
un-dumpable ones. Unlike the default invocation, it also dumps
device- and sglist-mapped areas that may invalidate the state of
some transactions. This flag must be used very carefully, when the
behavior of the application is fully understood and the fallouts can
be easily controlled.
.It Fl s
Stop the process while gathering the core image, and resume it
when done.
This guarantees that the resulting core dump will
be in a consistent state.
The process is resumed even if it was
already stopped.
The same effect can be achieved manually with
.Xr kill 1 .
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /var/log/messages -compact
.It Pa core.<pid>
the core image
.El
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
utility appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .
.Sh BUGS
Because of the
.Xr ptrace 2
usage
.Nm
may not work with processes which are actively investigated with
.Xr truss 1
or
.Xr gdb 1 .
Additionally, interruptable sleeps may exit with EINTR.
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility is not compatible with the original
.Bx 4.2
version.