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mikemaccana
Asked: 2010-07-09 07:22:06 +0800 CST

SLES 10 ulimit shows core dumps unlimited, but no dumps occur

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Core dump limits are disabled for a user using the normal /etc/security/limits.conf mechanism:

# ulimit -a  
core file size        (blocks, -c) unlimited

However, running a segfault test shows no core being dumped:

/tmp/a.out  
Segmentation fault

No 'core dumped' message. Hrm. /etc/security/limits.conf looks as follows:

username            -        core            unlimited

Has anyone encountered this before? Is this a bug in SLES? Thanks.

ulimit sles sles10

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Core dumps were enabled, but the core_pattern used for filenames was pointing to a directory that did not exist.

    This causes the core dump to silently fail. 

    # cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
/cores/core.%p

# ls -la /cores
/bin/ls: /cores: No such file or directory

    The fix is simple: create the dir specified, or modify sysctl.conf accordingly:

    # mkdir /cores
# /tmp/a.out                              
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
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