What causes a core dump?

Core Dumps in Linux

Core dumps are created in Linux when a process receives certain signals, like SIGSEGV, due to memory access issues.

Thread Dump and Heap Dump Analysis

A thread dump captures the stack of all live threads, helpful in analyzing application behavior.
A heap dump is a snapshot of all objects in memory, useful for memory leak detection in Java applications.

Debugging Core Dumps

To debug a core dump in Linux:

1. Assume the binary is compiled with debug symbols.
2. Set up the correct core pattern and resource limits.
3. Run the program and use gdb to analyze the core dump.
4. Investigate the issue by examining the backtrace.

Reading Core Dump on Windows

To read a core dump file on Windows:

1. Open the dump file in Debugging Tools for Windows.
2. Use appropriate commands in the command prompt to load the dump file into a debugger.

Using Gcore

To generate pstack and gcore using Gcore:

1. Identify the process ID of the suspect process using ps -eaf | grep -i suspect_process.
2. Generate the gcore using the process ID: gcore.
3. Create a pstack based on the generated gcore file.