SPUG: Core files....

[Karen Storer]

> ...every once in a while it just
> randomly quits and dumps a core.  I don't get any other error message, it
> just says "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"

I've seen this behavior when a Solaris machine has used up all its physical and
virtual memory.  I checked Sun's online documentation and found this:


Segmentation Fault

Cause
Segmentation faults usually result from programming error. This message is usually
accompanied by a core dump, except on read-only filesystems.

Action
To see which program produced a core file, run either the file(1) command or
the adb(1) command. The following examples show the output of the file and adb
commands on a core file from the dtmail program.
        $ file core
        core: ELF 32-bit MSB core file SPARC Version 1, from 'dtmail'
        $ adb core
        core file = core P program'dtmail' SIGSEGV 11: segmentation violation
        ^D (use Control-d to quit the adb rogram)
Ask the vendor or author of this program for a debugged version.

Technical Notes
A process has received a signal indicating that it attempted to access an area of
memory that is protected or that does not exist. The two most common causes of
segmentation faults are attempting to dereference a null pointer or indexing past
the bounds of an array.


(From the "Solaris Common Messages and Troubleshooting Guide" online at
http://docs.sun.com:80, found in the Sys Admin AnswerBook Collection Vol 2
for Solaris 2.6)

Karen Storer

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