The coredumper library can be compiled into applications to create core dumps of the running program, without having to terminate them. It supports both single- and multi-threaded core dumps, even if the kernel does not have native support for multi-threaded core files.

This library is primarily intended to simplify debugging of long-running services. It is often inacceptable to suspend production services by attaching a debugger, nor is it possible to crash the service in order to generate a core file.

By modifying an existing service to take advantage of the coredumper library, it is possible to expose an interface for obtaining snapshots of the running application. The library supports writing of core files to disk (e.g. triggered upon reception of a signal) but it can also generate in-memory core files. This makes it possible for web services to expose remote access to core files.

The "examples" directory shows how to add a core file feature to an existing TFTP server. For an example of how to use on-disk core files, take a look at "src/coredump_unittest.c".

The code has been tested on Linux x86/32, x86/64, and ARM. It is distributed from http://code.google.com/p/google-coredumper. It is available as a tar source archive, and in prebuilt form as Debian and RedHat packages.

For detailed information on how to build and install this library, read the "INSTALL" file.

If you don't have autotools installed, run preconfig to ensure timestamps are set properly in your Git repository, to avoid attempts to recreate autotools output:

./preconfig

Next you will need to configure and build by running:

./configure && make

You can then test whether the code works correctly on your system, by running:

make check

The check requires that you have access to development tools such as "readelf", and "gdb".

If you decide to install from the tar file, you now need to run the following command as "root":

make install

Alternatively, you can build packages for your targeted distribution by running either:

make deb or make rpm

These commands generate installable package files. The packages will be located in the "packages/" directory (e. g. packages/rh9 or packages/woody). The exact path name is printed at the end of the compilation.

Follow your distribution's instructions on how to install new packages.

For more information on how to use the library, read the manual pages for "GetCoreDump" and "WriteCoreDump".

15 February 2007