diff --git a/lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memory.c b/lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memory.c
index cc7d54e0c7..9a797a4fa3 100644
--- a/lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memory.c
+++ b/lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memory.c
@@ -40,6 +40,14 @@
 static void *next_baseaddr;
 static uint64_t system_page_sz;
 
+#ifdef RTE_EXEC_ENV_LINUX
+#define RTE_DONTDUMP MADV_DONTDUMP
+#elif RTE_EXEC_ENV_FREEBSD
+#define RTE_DONTDUMP MADV_NOCORE
+#else
+#error "madvise doesn't support this OS"
+#endif
+
 #define MAX_MMAP_WITH_DEFINED_ADDR_TRIES 5
 void *
 eal_get_virtual_area(void *requested_addr, size_t *size,
@@ -179,6 +187,13 @@ eal_get_virtual_area(void *requested_addr, size_t *size,
 			munmap(aligned_end, after_len);
 	}
 
+	if (!unmap) {
+		/* Exclude these pages from a core dump. */
+		if (madvise(aligned_addr, *size, RTE_DONTDUMP) != 0)
+			RTE_LOG(DEBUG, EAL, "madvise failed: %s\n",
+				strerror(errno));
+	}
+
 	return aligned_addr;
 }
 
diff --git a/lib/librte_eal/linux/eal_memalloc.c b/lib/librte_eal/linux/eal_memalloc.c
index 678094acf9..2c717f8bdd 100644
--- a/lib/librte_eal/linux/eal_memalloc.c
+++ b/lib/librte_eal/linux/eal_memalloc.c
@@ -687,6 +687,9 @@ free_seg(struct rte_memseg *ms, struct hugepage_info *hi,
 		return -1;
 	}
 
+	if (madvise(ms->addr, ms->len, MADV_DONTDUMP) != 0)
+		RTE_LOG(DEBUG, EAL, "madvise failed: %s\n", strerror(errno));
+
 	exit_early = false;
 
 	/* if we're using anonymous hugepages, nothing to be done */