COREDUMPCTL(1)

NAME
coredumpctl - Retrieve and process saved core dumps and metadata

SYNOPSIS

coredumpctl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [PID|COMM|EXE|MATCH...]

DESCRIPTION

coredumpctl is a tool that can be used to retrieve and process core dumps and metadata which were saved by systemd-coredump(8).

COMMANDS

The following commands are understood:

list
    List core dumps captured in the journal matching specified characteristics. If no command is specified, this is the implied default.

    The output is designed to be human readable and contains a table with the following columns:

    TIME
        The timestamp of the crash, as reported by the kernel.

    PID
        The identifier of the process that crashed.

    UID, GID
        The user and group identifiers of the process that crashed.

    SIGNAL
        The signal that caused the process to crash, when applicable.

    COREFILE
        Information whether the coredump was stored, and whether it is still accessible: "none" means the core was not stored, "-" means that it was not available (for example because the process was not terminated by a signal), "present" means that the core file is accessible by the current user, "journal" means that the core was stored in the "journal", "truncated" is the same as one of the previous two, but the core was too large and was not stored in its entirety, "error" means that the core file cannot be accessed, most likely because of insufficient permissions, and "missing" means that the core was stored in a file, but this file has since been removed.

    EXE
        The full path to the executable. For backtraces of scripts this is the name of the interpreter.

    It's worth noting that different restrictions apply to data saved in the journal and core dump files saved in /var/lib/systemd/coredump, see overview in systemd-coredump(8). Thus it may very well happen that a particular core dump is still listed in the journal while its corresponding core dump file has already been removed.

info
    Show detailed information about the last core dump or core dumps matching specified characteristics captured in the journal.

dump
    Extract the last core dump matching specified characteristics. The core dump will be written on standard output, unless an output file is specified with --output=.

debug
    Invoke a debugger on the last core dump matching specified characteristics. By default, gdb(1) will be used. This may be changed using the --debugger= option or the $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER environment variable.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

-h, --help
    Print a short help text and exit.

--version
    Print a short version string and exit.

--no-legend
    Do not print column headers.

--no-pager
    Do not pipe output into a pager.

-1
    Show information of a single core dump only, instead of listing all known core dumps.

-S, --since
    Only print entries which are since the specified date.

-U, --until
    Only print entries which are until the specified date.

-r, --reverse
    Reverse output so that the newest entries are displayed first.

-F FIELD, --field=FIELD
    Print all possible data values the specified field takes in matching core dump entries of the journal.

-o FILE, --output=FILE
    Write the core to FILE.

--debugger=DEBUGGER
    Use the given debugger for the debug command. If not given and $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER is unset, then gdb(1) will be used.

--file=GLOB
    Takes a file glob as an argument. If specified, coredumpctl will operate on the specified journal files matching GLOB instead of the default runtime and system journal paths. May be specified multiple times, in which case files will be suitably interleaved.

-D DIR, --directory=DIR
    Use the journal files in the specified DIR.

-q, --quiet
    Suppresses informational messages about lack of access to journal files and possible in-flight coredumps.

MATCHING

A match can be:

PID
    Process ID of the process that dumped core. An integer.

COMM
    Name of the executable (matches COREDUMP_COMM=). Must not contain slashes.

EXE
    Path to the executable (matches COREDUMP_EXE=). Must contain at least one slash.

MATCH
    General journalctl match filter, must contain an equals sign ("="). See journalctl(1).

EXIT STATUS

On success, 0 is returned; otherwise, a non-zero failure code is returned. Not finding any matching core dumps is treated as failure.

ENVIRONMENT

$SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER
    Use the given debugger for the debug command. See the --debugger= option.

EXAMPLES

Example 1. List all the core dumps of a program named foo

    # coredumpctl list foo

Example 2. Invoke gdb on the last core dump

    # coredumpctl debug

Example 3. Show information about a process that dumped core, matching by its PID 6654

    # coredumpctl info 6654

Example 4. Extract the last core dump of /usr/bin/bar to a file named bar.coredump

    # coredumpctl -o bar.coredump dump /usr/bin/bar

SEE ALSO

systemd-coredump(8), coredump.conf(5), systemd-journald.service(8), gdb(1)