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armcoredumpnetbsd

Coredump logging tricks


What are the techniques generally people follow to dump full core dump if the size of core dump is more than the RAM and flash. Say, kernel core is of 2GB size but we have exactly 2GB of RAM and 1GB of disk space.

I am aware external USB and tftp options. But, reliability and stability matters when we choose these options. How do embedded people handle these type of issues? and what are the techniques available?

Platform: NetBSD, ARM7

Thanks,

Paavaanan


Solution

  • Process core dumps are usually disabled on embedded systems, and when needed they are directed (as you mentioned) at some additional storage mounted specially for debugging.

    It may also possible to run a crashing process in a debugger context, either with a local debugger (e.g. gdb); or perhaps using a debug server for remote debugging, e.g. gdbserver, however note that gdbserver in particular is currently not well supported on NetBSD, though someone has made it work for powerpc.