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In
computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
, a core dump, memory dump, crash dump, storage dump, system dump, or ABEND dump consists of the recorded state of the working
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
of a
computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...
at a specific time, generally when the program has
crashed "Crashed" is the third U.S. rock Single (music), single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry (band), Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stat ...
or otherwise terminated abnormally. In practice, other key pieces of
program state In information technology and computer science, a system is described as stateful if it is designed to remember preceding events or user interactions; the remembered information is called the state of the system. The set of states a system can oc ...
are usually dumped at the same time, including the
processor register A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage, although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. ...
s, which may include the
program counter The program counter (PC), commonly called the instruction pointer (IP) in Intel x86 and Itanium microprocessors, and sometimes called the instruction address register (IAR), the instruction counter, or just part of the instruction sequencer, is ...
and
stack pointer In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or mach ...
, memory management information, and other processor and operating system flags and information. A snapshot dump (or snap dump) is a memory dump requested by the
computer operator A computer operator is a role in IT which oversees the running of computer systems, ensuring that the machines, and computers are running properly. The job of a computer operator as defined by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics is to ...
or by the running program, after which the program is able to continue. Core dumps are often used to assist in diagnosing and
debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve in ...
errors in computer programs. On many operating systems, a
fatal exception In computing, a fatal exception error or fatal error is an error that causes a program to abort and may therefore return the user to the operating system. When this happens, data that the program was processing may be lost. A fatal error is usual ...
in a program automatically triggers a core dump. By extension, the phrase "to dump core" has come to mean in many cases, any fatal error, regardless of whether a record of the program memory exists. The term "core dump", "memory dump", or just "dump" has also become jargon to indicate any output of a large amount of raw data for further examination or other purposes.


Background

The name comes from
magnetic-core memory Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random access, random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or, informally, core. Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a ...
, the principal form of
random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A Random access, random-access memory device allows data items to b ...
from the 1950s to the 1970s. The name has remained long after magnetic-core technology became obsolete. Earliest core dumps were paper printouts of the contents of memory, typically arranged in columns of
octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...
or
hexadecimal In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, hexa ...
numbers (a "
hex dump In computing, a hex dump is a hexadecimal view (on screen or paper) of computer data, from memory or from a computer file or storage device. Looking at a hex dump of data is usually done in the context of either debugging, reverse engineering or ...
"), sometimes accompanied by their interpretations as
machine language In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
instructions, text strings, or decimal or floating-point numbers (''cf.''
disassembler A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. A disassembler differs from a decompiler, which targets a high-level language rather than an assembly lan ...
). As memory sizes increased and post-mortem analysis utilities were developed, dumps were written to magnetic media like tape or disk. Instead of only displaying the contents of the applicable memory, modern operating systems typically generate a file containing an image of the memory belonging to the crashed process, or the memory images of parts of the
address space In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, peripheral device, disk sector, a memory cell or other logical or physical entity. For software programs to save and retrieve st ...
related to that process, along with other information such as the values of processor registers, program counter, system flags, and other information useful in determining the root cause of the crash. These files can be viewed as text, printed, or analysed with specialised tools such as elfdump on
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
and
Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems,
objdump objdump is a command-line program for displaying various information about object files on Unix-like operating systems. For instance, it can be used as a disassembler to view an executable in assembly form. It is part of the GNU Binutils for fine- ...
and kdump on
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, IPCS (Interactive Problem Control System) on IBM
z/OS z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes, introduced by IBM in October 2000. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn was preceded by a string of MVS versions.Starting with the earliest: * O ...
, DVF (Dump Viewing Facility) on IBM
z/VM z/VM is the current version in IBM's VM family of virtual machine operating systems. z/VM was first released in October 2000 and remains in active use and development . It is directly based on technology and concepts dating back to the 1960s, wi ...
,
WinDbg WinDbg is a multipurpose debugger for the Microsoft Windows computer operating system, distributed by Microsoft. Debugging is the process of finding and resolving errors in a system; in computing it also includes exploring the internal operation ...
on Microsoft Windows,
Valgrind Valgrind () is a programming tool for memory debugging, memory leak detection, and profiling. Valgrind was originally designed to be a free memory debugging tool for Linux on x86, but has since evolved to become a generic framework for creati ...
, or other debuggers. In some operating systems an application or operator may request a snapshot of selected storage blocks, rather than all of the storage used by the application or operating system.


Uses

Core dumps can serve as useful debugging aids in several situations. On early standalone or batch-processing systems, core dumps allowed a user to debug a program without monopolizing the (very expensive) computing facility for debugging; a printout could also be more convenient than debugging using
front panel A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, digit and symbol displays, to ...
switches and lights. On shared computers, whether time-sharing, batch processing, or server systems, core dumps allow off-line debugging of the
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
, so that the system can go back into operation immediately. Core dumps allow a user to save a crash for later or off-site analysis, or comparison with other crashes. For
embedded computers An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...
, it may be impractical to support debugging on the computer itself, so analysis of a dump may take place on a different computer. Some operating systems such as early versions of
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
did not support attaching
debugger A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to software testing, test and debugging, debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the pr ...
s to running processes, so core dumps were necessary to run a debugger on a process's memory contents. Core dumps can be used to capture data freed during
dynamic memory allocation Memory management is a form of resource management applied to computer memory. The essential requirement of memory management is to provide ways to dynamically allocate portions of memory to programs at their request, and free it for reuse when ...
and may thus be used to retrieve information from a program that is no longer running. In the absence of an interactive debugger, the core dump may be used by an assiduous programmer to determine the error from direct examination. Snap dumps are sometimes a convenient way for applications to record quick and dirty debugging output.


Analysis

A core dump generally represents the complete contents of the dumped regions of the address space of the dumped process. Depending on the operating system, the dump may contain few or no data structures to aid interpretation of the memory regions. In these systems, successful interpretation requires that the program or user trying to interpret the dump understands the structure of the program's memory use. A debugger can use a
symbol table In computer science, a symbol table is a data structure used by a language translator such as a compiler or interpreter, where each identifier (or symbols), constants, procedures and functions in a program's source code is associated with info ...
, if one exists, to help the programmer interpret dumps, identifying variables symbolically and displaying source code; if the symbol table is not available, less interpretation of the dump is possible, but there might still be enough possible to determine the cause of the problem. There are also special-purpose tools called
dump analyzer A dump analyzer is a programming tool which is used for understanding a machine readable core dump. The GNU utils , , , and the powerful can all be used to look inside core file File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * ...
s to analyze dumps. One popular tool, available on many operating systems, is the GNU binutils'
objdump objdump is a command-line program for displaying various information about object files on Unix-like operating systems. For instance, it can be used as a disassembler to view an executable in assembly form. It is part of the GNU Binutils for fine- ...
. On modern
Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating systems, administrators and programmers can read core dump files using the GNU Binutils
Binary File Descriptor library The Binary File Descriptor library (BFD) is the GNU Project's main mechanism for the portable manipulation of object files in a variety of formats. , it supports approximately 50 file formats for some 25 instruction set architectures. History Wh ...
(BFD), and the
GNU Debugger The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Go, and partially others. History GDB was first written by ...
(gdb) and objdump that use this library. This library will supply the raw data for a given address in a memory region from a core dump; it does not know anything about variables or data structures in that memory region, so the application using the library to read the core dump will have to determine the addresses of variables and determine the layout of data structures itself, for example by using the symbol table for the program undergoing debugging. Analysts of crash dumps from
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
systems can use kdump or the Linux Kernel Crash Dump (LKCD). Core dumps can save the context (state) of a process at a given state for returning to it later. Systems can be made highly available by transferring core between processors, sometimes via core dump files themselves. Core can also be dumped onto a remote host over a network (which is a security risk).


Core-dump files


Format

In older and simpler operating systems, each process had a contiguous address-space, so a dump file was sometimes simply a file with the sequence of bytes, digits, characters or words. On other early machines a dump file contained discrete records, each containing a storage address and the associated contents. On early machines, the dump was often written by a stand-alone dump program rather than by the application or the operating system. On the
IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
, the standard operating systems wrote formatted ABEND and SNAP dumps, with the addresses, registers, storage contents, etc., all converted into printable forms. Later releases added the ability to write unformatted dumps, called at that time core image dumps. In modern operating systems, a process address space may contain gaps, and it may share pages with other processes or files, so more elaborate representations are used; they may also include other information about the state of the program at the time of the dump. In
Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems, core dumps generally use the standard
executable In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructi ...
image-
format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...
: *
a.out a.out is a file format used in older versions of Unix-like computer operating systems for executables, object code, and, in later systems, shared libraries. This is an abbreviated form of "assembler output", the filename of the output of Ken Th ...
in older versions of
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
, *
ELF An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
in modern
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
System V Unix System V (pronounced: "System Five") is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, an ...
,
Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...
, and
BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...
systems, *
Mach-O Mach-O, short for Mach object file format, is a file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, dynamically-loaded code, and core dumps. It was developed to replace the a.out format. Mach-O is used by some systems based on the M ...
in
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
, ''etc.''


Naming


OS/360 and successors

* In
OS/360 and successors OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, is a discontinued batch processing operating system developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964; it was influenced by the earlier IBSYS/IBJOB ...
, a job may assign arbitrary data set names (DSNs) to the ddnames SYSABEND and SYSUDUMP for a formatted ABEND dump and to arbitrary ddnames for SNAP dumps, or define those ddnames as SYSOUT. * The Damage Assessment and Repair (DAR) facility added an automatic unformatted dump to the dataset SYS1.DUMP at the time of failure as well as a console dump requested by the operator. * The newer transaction dump is very similar to older forms of dumps.


Unix-like

* Since Solaris 8, system utility coreadm allows the name and location of core files to be configured. * Dumps of user processes are traditionally created as core. On Linux (since versions 2.4.21 and 2.6 of the
Linux kernel mainline The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU oper ...
), a different name can be specified via
procfs The proc filesystem (procfs) is a special filesystem in Unix-like operating systems that presents information about processes and other system information in a hierarchical file-like structure, providing a more convenient and standardized metho ...
using the /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern configuration file; the specified name can also be a template that contains tags substituted by, for example, the executable filename, the process ID, or the reason for the dump. * System-wide dumps on modern Unix-like systems often appear as vmcore or vmcore.incomplete.


Others

* Systems such as
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, which use
filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...
s, may use extension .dmp; for example, core dumps may be named memory.dmp or \Minidump\Mini051509-01.dmp.


Windows memory dumps

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
supports two memory dump formats, described below.


Kernel-mode dumps

There are five types of kernel-mode dumps: * Complete memory dump contains full physical memory for the target system. * Kernel memory dump contains all the memory in use by the kernel at the time of the crash. * Small memory dump contains various info such as the stop code, parameters, list of loaded device drivers, etc. * Automatic Memory Dump (Windows 8 and later) same as Kernel memory dump, but if the
paging file In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from Computer data storage#Secondary storage, secondary storage for use in Computer data storage#Primary storage, main mem ...
is both System Managed and too small to capture the Kernel memory dump, it will automatically increase the paging file to at least the size of RAM for four weeks, then reduce it to the smaller size. * Active memory dump (Windows 10 and later) contains most of the memory in use by the kernel and user mode applications. To analyze the Windows kernel-mode dumps
Debugging Tools for Windows In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve int ...
are used.


User-mode memory dumps

User-mode memory dump, also known as ''minidump'', is a memory dump of a single process. It contains selected data records: full or partial (filtered) process memory; list of the threads with their
call stack In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or ma ...
s and state (such as registers or TEB); information about
handles A handle is a part of, or attachment to, an object that allows it to be grasped and manipulated by hand. The design of each type of handle involves substantial ergonomic issues, even where these are dealt with intuitively or by following tra ...
to the kernel objects; list of loaded and unloaded
libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
. Full list of options available in MINIDUMP_TYPE enum.


Space missions

The
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
Voyager program The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two robotic interstellar probes, ''Voyager 1'' and ''Voyager 2''. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, to Flyby (spacef ...
was probably the first craft to routinely utilize the core dump feature in the Deep Space segment. The core dump feature is a mandatory telemetry feature for the Deep Space segment as it has been proven to minimize system diagnostic costs. The Voyager craft uses routine core dumps to spot memory damage from
cosmic ray Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...
events. Space Mission core dump systems are mostly based on existing toolkits for the target CPU or subsystem. However, over the duration of a mission the core dump subsystem may be substantially modified or enhanced for the specific needs of the mission.


See also

*
Database dump A database dump contains a record of the table structure and/or the data from a database and is usually in the form of a list of SQL statements ("SQL dump"). A database dump is most often used for backing up a database so that its contents can be ...
*
Hex dump In computing, a hex dump is a hexadecimal view (on screen or paper) of computer data, from memory or from a computer file or storage device. Looking at a hex dump of data is usually done in the context of either debugging, reverse engineering or ...
*
File copying In digital file management, copying is a file operation that creates a new file which has the same content as an existing file. Computer operating systems include file copying methods to users, with operating systems with graphical user interface ...


References


Notes


External links

Descriptions of the file format * * * * * * *
Minidump files
Kernel core dumps: * {{man, 1m, savecore, Solaris * Appl

Debugging Computer errors