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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | MATCHING | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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COREDUMPCTL(1) coredumpctl COREDUMPCTL(1)
coredumpctl - Retrieve and process saved core dumps and metadata
coredumpctl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [PID|COMM|EXE|MATCH...]
coredumpctl is a tool that can be used to retrieve and process
core dumps and metadata which were saved by systemd-coredump(8).
The following commands are understood:
list
List core dumps captured in the journal matching specified
characteristics. If no command is specified, this is the
implied default.
The output is designed to be human-readable and contains a
table with the following columns:
TIME
The timestamp of the crash, as reported by the kernel.
Added in version 233.
PID
The identifier of the process that crashed.
Added in version 233.
UID, GID
The user and group identifiers of the process that
crashed.
Added in version 233.
SIGNAL
The signal that caused the process to crash, when
applicable.
Added in version 233.
COREFILE
Information whether the coredump was stored, and whether
it is still accessible: "none" means the core was not
stored, "-" means that it was not available (for example
because the process was not terminated by a signal),
"present" means that the core file is accessible by the
current user, "journal" means that the core was stored in
the "journal", "truncated" is the same as one of the
previous two, but the core was too large and was not
stored in its entirety, "error" means that the core file
cannot be accessed, most likely because of insufficient
permissions, and "missing" means that the core was stored
in a file, but this file has since been removed.
Added in version 233.
EXE
The full path to the executable. For backtraces of scripts
this is the name of the interpreter.
Added in version 233.
It's worth noting that different restrictions apply to data
saved in the journal and core dump files saved in
/var/lib/systemd/coredump, see overview in
systemd-coredump(8). Thus it may very well happen that a
particular core dump is still listed in the journal while its
corresponding core dump file has already been removed.
Added in version 215.
info
Show detailed information about the last core dump or core
dumps matching specified characteristics captured in the
journal.
Added in version 215.
dump
Extract the last core dump matching specified characteristics.
The core dump will be written on standard output, unless an
output file is specified with --output=.
Added in version 215.
debug
Invoke a debugger on the last core dump matching specified
characteristics. By default, gdb(1) will be used. This may be
changed using the --debugger= option or the $SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER
environment variable. Use the --debugger-arguments= option to
pass extra command line arguments to the debugger.
Added in version 239.
The following options are understood:
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
--no-legend
Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer
with hints.
--json=MODE
Shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of "short" (for
the shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace
or line breaks), "pretty" (for a pretty version of the same,
with indentation and line breaks) or "off" (to turn off JSON
output, the default).
-1
Show information of the most recent core dump only, instead of
listing all known core dumps. Equivalent to --reverse -n 1.
Added in version 215.
-n INT
Show at most the specified number of entries. The specified
parameter must be an integer greater or equal to 1.
Added in version 248.
-S, --since
Only print entries which are since the specified date.
Added in version 233.
-U, --until
Only print entries which are until the specified date.
Added in version 233.
-r, --reverse
Reverse output so that the newest entries are displayed first.
Added in version 233.
-F FIELD, --field=FIELD
Print all possible data values the specified field takes in
matching core dump entries of the journal.
Added in version 215.
-o FILE, --output=FILE
Write the core to FILE.
Added in version 215.
--debugger=DEBUGGER
Use the given debugger for the debug command. If not given and
$SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER is unset, then gdb(1) will be used.
Added in version 239.
-A ARGS, --debugger-arguments=ARGS
Pass the given ARGS as extra command line arguments to the
debugger. Quote as appropriate when ARGS contain whitespace.
(See Examples.)
Added in version 248.
--file=GLOB
Takes a file glob as an argument. If specified, coredumpctl
will operate on the specified journal files matching GLOB
instead of the default runtime and system journal paths. May
be specified multiple times, in which case files will be
suitably interleaved.
Added in version 246.
-D DIR, --directory=DIR
Use the journal files in the specified DIR.
Added in version 225.
--root=ROOT
Use root directory ROOT when searching for coredumps.
Added in version 252.
--image=image
Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
specified, all operations are applied to file system in the
indicated disk image. This option is similar to --root=, but
operates on file systems stored in disk images or block
devices. The disk image should either contain just a file
system or a set of file systems within a GPT partition table,
following the Discoverable Partitions Specification[1]. For
further information on supported disk images, see
systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.
Added in version 252.
--image-policy=policy
Takes an image policy string as argument, as per
systemd.image-policy(7). The policy is enforced when operating
on the disk image specified via --image=, see above. If not
specified, defaults to the "*" policy, i.e. all recognized
file systems in the image are used.
-q, --quiet
Suppresses informational messages about lack of access to
journal files and possible in-flight coredumps.
Added in version 233.
--all
Look at all available journal files in /var/log/journal/
(excluding journal namespaces) instead of only local ones.
Added in version 250.
A match can be:
PID
Process ID of the process that dumped core. An integer.
Added in version 215.
COMM
Name of the executable (matches COREDUMP_COMM=). Must not
contain slashes.
Added in version 215.
EXE
Path to the executable (matches COREDUMP_EXE=). Must contain
at least one slash.
Added in version 215.
MATCH
General journalctl match filter, must contain an equals sign
("="). See journalctl(1).
Added in version 215.
On success, 0 is returned; otherwise, a non-zero failure code is
returned. Not finding any matching core dumps is treated as
failure.
$SYSTEMD_DEBUGGER
Use the given debugger for the debug command. See the
--debugger= option.
Added in version 239.
Example 1. List all the core dumps of a program
$ coredumpctl list /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox
TIME PID UID GID SIG COREFILE EXE SIZE
Tue ... 8018 1000 1000 SIGSEGV missing /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox -
Wed ... 251609 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox -
Fri ... 552351 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox 28.7M
The journal has three entries pertaining to
/usr/lib64/firefox/firefox, and only the last entry still has an
available core file (in external storage on disk).
Note that coredumpctl needs access to the journal files to
retrieve the relevant entries from the journal. Thus, an
unprivileged user will normally only see information about
crashing programs of this user.
Example 2. Invoke gdb on the last core dump
$ coredumpctl debug
Example 3. Use gdb to display full register info from the last
core dump
$ coredumpctl debug --debugger-arguments="-batch -ex 'info all-registers'"
Example 4. Show information about a core dump matched by PID
$ coredumpctl info 6654
PID: 6654 (bash)
UID: 1000 (user)
GID: 1000 (user)
Signal: 11 (SEGV)
Timestamp: Mon 2021-01-01 00:00:01 CET (20s ago)
Command Line: bash -c $'kill -SEGV $$'
Executable: /usr/bin/bash
Control Group: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/...
Unit: user@1000.service
User Unit: vte-spawn-....scope
Slice: user-1000.slice
Owner UID: 1000 (user)
Boot ID: ...
Machine ID: ...
Hostname: ...
Storage: /var/lib/systemd/coredump/core.bash.1000.....zst (present)
Size on Disk: 51.7K
Message: Process 130414 (bash) of user 1000 dumped core.
Stack trace of thread 130414:
#0 0x00007f398142358b kill (libc.so.6 + 0x3d58b)
#1 0x0000558c2c7fda09 kill_builtin (bash + 0xb1a09)
#2 0x0000558c2c79dc59 execute_builtin.lto_priv.0 (bash + 0x51c59)
#3 0x0000558c2c79709c execute_simple_command (bash + 0x4b09c)
#4 0x0000558c2c798408 execute_command_internal (bash + 0x4c408)
#5 0x0000558c2c7f6bdc parse_and_execute (bash + 0xaabdc)
#6 0x0000558c2c85415c run_one_command.isra.0 (bash + 0x10815c)
#7 0x0000558c2c77d040 main (bash + 0x31040)
#8 0x00007f398140db75 __libc_start_main (libc.so.6 + 0x27b75)
#9 0x0000558c2c77dd1e _start (bash + 0x31d1e)
Example 5. Extract the last core dump of /usr/bin/bar to a file
named bar.coredump
$ coredumpctl -o bar.coredump dump /usr/bin/bar
systemd-coredump(8), coredump.conf(5),
systemd-journald.service(8), gdb(1)
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
manager) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-11.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
systemd 258~rc2 COREDUMPCTL(1)
Pages that refer to this page: journalctl(1), core(5), coredump.conf(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd.journal-fields(7), systemd-coredump(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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