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What are core files by Node.js?


Node Public Directory Listing

As shown above, my newly installed Node.js application directory has a lot of core.* files. What are these, and what is their purpose? Can I delete these files?

I installed Node.js behind Apache with mod_proxy that can use one of my domains on port 80. Then I installed forever. Sometimes I have problems stopping Node.js with:

forever stop server.js

Maybe that is causing those dumps? Why are these appearing?

After all the problems found their answer, my VM's processes are limited to a given number. Node.js used with Apache seems to be the background.

-bash: fork: Cannot allocate memory

Solution

  • core.<number> files are typically memory dumps created on Linux systems. The <number> is the Process ID of the process that crashed.

    I guess your Node.JS application has crashed a number of times and these are the memory dumps left there for you to debug.