coredump.conf(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | CONFIGURATION DIRECTORIES AND PRECEDENCE | OPTIONS | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON

COREDUMP.CONF(5)              coredump.conf              COREDUMP.CONF(5)

NAME         top

       coredump.conf, coredump.conf.d - Core dump storage configuration
       files

SYNOPSIS         top

           /etc/systemd/coredump.conf
           /run/systemd/coredump.conf
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/coredump.conf
           /usr/lib/systemd/coredump.conf
           /etc/systemd/coredump.conf.d/*.conf
           /run/systemd/coredump.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/coredump.conf.d/*.conf
           /usr/lib/systemd/coredump.conf.d/*.conf

DESCRIPTION         top

       These files configure the behavior of systemd-coredump(8), a
       handler for core dumps invoked by the kernel. Whether
       systemd-coredump is used is determined by the kernel's
       kernel.core_pattern sysctl(8) setting. See systemd-coredump(8) and
       core(5) pages for the details.

CONFIGURATION DIRECTORIES AND PRECEDENCE         top

       The default configuration is set during compilation, so
       configuration is only needed when it is necessary to deviate from
       those defaults. The main configuration file is loaded from one of
       the listed directories in order of priority, only the first file
       found is used: /etc/systemd/, /run/systemd/,
       /usr/local/lib/systemd/ [1], /usr/lib/systemd/. The vendor version
       of the file contains commented out entries showing the defaults as
       a guide to the administrator. Local overrides can also be created
       by creating drop-ins, as described below. The main configuration
       file can also be edited for this purpose (or a copy in /etc/ if it
       is shipped under /usr/), however using drop-ins for local
       configuration is recommended over modifications to the main
       configuration file.

       In addition to the main configuration file, drop-in configuration
       snippets are read from /usr/lib/systemd/*.conf.d/,
       /usr/local/lib/systemd/*.conf.d/, and /etc/systemd/*.conf.d/.
       Those drop-ins have higher precedence and override the main
       configuration file. Files in the *.conf.d/ configuration
       subdirectories are sorted by their filename in lexicographic
       order, regardless of in which of the subdirectories they reside.
       When multiple files specify the same option, for options which
       accept just a single value, the entry in the file sorted last
       takes precedence, and for options which accept a list of values,
       entries are collected as they occur in the sorted files.

       When packages need to customize the configuration, they can
       install drop-ins under /usr/. Files in /etc/ are reserved for the
       local administrator, who may use this logic to override the
       configuration files installed by vendor packages. Drop-ins have to
       be used to override package drop-ins, since the main configuration
       file has lower precedence. It is recommended to prefix all
       filenames in those subdirectories with a two-digit number and a
       dash, to simplify the ordering. This also defines a concept of
       drop-in priorities to allow OS vendors to ship drop-ins within a
       specific range lower than the range used by users. This should
       lower the risk of package drop-ins overriding accidentally
       drop-ins defined by users. It is recommended to use the range
       10-40 for drop-ins in /usr/ and the range 60-90 for drop-ins in
       /etc/ and /run/, to make sure that local and transient drop-ins
       take priority over drop-ins shipped by the OS vendor.

       To disable a configuration file supplied by the vendor, the
       recommended way is to place a symlink to /dev/null in the
       configuration directory in /etc/, with the same filename as the
       vendor configuration file.

OPTIONS         top

       All options are configured in the [Coredump] section:

       Storage=
           Controls where to store cores. One of "none", "external", and
           "journal". When "none", the core dumps may be logged
           (including the backtrace if possible), but not stored
           permanently. When "external" (the default), cores will be
           stored in /var/lib/systemd/coredump/. When "journal", cores
           will be stored in the journal and rotated following normal
           journal rotation patterns.

           When cores are stored in the journal, they might be compressed
           following journal compression settings, see journald.conf(5).
           When cores are stored externally, they will be compressed by
           default, see below.

           Note that in order to process a coredump (i.e. extract a stack
           trace) the core must be written to disk first. Thus, unless
           ProcessSizeMax= is set to 0 (see below), the core will be
           written to /var/lib/systemd/coredump/ either way (under a
           temporary filename, or even in an unlinked file), Storage=
           thus only controls whether to leave it there even after it was
           processed.

           Added in version 215.

       Compress=
           Controls compression for external storage. Takes a boolean
           argument, which defaults to "yes".

           Added in version 215.

       ProcessSizeMax=
           The maximum size in bytes of a core which will be processed.
           Core dumps exceeding this size may be stored, but the stack
           trace will not be generated. Like other sizes in this same
           config file, the usual suffixes to the base of 1024 are
           allowed (B, K, M, G, T, P, and E). Defaults to 1G on 32-bit
           systems, 32G on 64-bit systems.

           Setting Storage=none and ProcessSizeMax=0 disables all
           coredump handling except for a log entry.

           Added in version 215.

       EnterNamespace=
           For processes belonging to a PID namespace, controls whether
           systemd-coredump(8) shall attempt to process core dumps on the
           host, using debug information from the file system hierarchy
           (i.e. the mount namespace) of the process that crashed. Access
           to the process' file system hierarchy might be necessary to
           generate a fully symbolized backtrace. If set to "yes",
           systemd-coredump will obtain the tree of mounts from the
           crashing process' mount namespace and will try to generate the
           stack trace in host context using the debug information of
           binaries and libraries contained in the crashing process'
           hierarchy. Defaults to "no", i.e. no attempt is made to
           acquire external debug information from the process' mount
           namespace, in order to maximize security. This option has no
           effect on processes that are part of the host's PID namespace.

           Note that the coredump of the namespaced process is still
           saved in /var/lib/systemd/coredump/ on the host even if
           EnterNamespace= is set to "no" (subject to Storage=).

           Note that EnterNamespace= only has an effect if a core dump is
           generated by a container whose unit does not have
           CoredumpReceive= enabled.

           Note that it's typically preferable to let containers and
           other namespace-based sandboxes process their own coredumps,
           if possible, for best security. This may be enabled on the
           container's unit via the CoredumpReceive= setting, see
           systemd.resource-control(5) for details.

           Added in version 257.

       ExternalSizeMax=, JournalSizeMax=
           The maximum (compressed or uncompressed) size in bytes of a
           coredump to be saved in separate files on disk (default: 1G on
           32-bit systems, 32G on 64-bit systems) or in the journal
           (default: 767M). Note that the journal service enforces a hard
           limit on journal log records of 767M, and will ignore larger
           submitted log records. Hence, JournalSizeMax= may be lowered
           relative to the default, but not increased. Unit suffixes are
           allowed just as in ProcessSizeMax=.

           ExternalSizeMax=infinity sets the core size to unlimited.

           Added in version 215.

       MaxUse=, KeepFree=
           Enforce limits on the disk space, specified in bytes, taken up
           by externally stored core dumps. Unit suffixes are allowed
           just as in ProcessSizeMax=.  MaxUse= makes sure that old core
           dumps are removed as soon as the total disk space taken up by
           core dumps grows beyond this limit (defaults to 10% of the
           total disk size).  KeepFree= controls how much disk space to
           keep free at least (defaults to 15% of the total disk size).
           Note that the disk space used by core dumps might temporarily
           exceed these limits while core dumps are processed. Note that
           old core dumps are also removed based on time via
           systemd-tmpfiles(8). Set either value to 0 to turn off
           size-based cleanup.

           Added in version 215.

       Use

           systemd-analyze cat-config systemd/coredump.conf

       to display the full config.

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd-journald.service(8), coredumpctl(1), systemd-tmpfiles(8)

NOTES         top

        1. 💣💥🧨💥💥💣 Please note that those configuration files must
           be available at all times. If /usr/local/ is a separate
           partition, it may not be available during early boot, and must
           not be used for configuration.

COLOPHON         top

       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
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       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

systemd 258~rc2                                          COREDUMP.CONF(5)

Pages that refer to this page: coredumpctl(1)systemd.directives(7)systemd.index(7)systemd-coredump(8)