Retrieve executable from core dump

Question

I want to retrieve the executable from a core dump and the output of any linux package used to get this information should contain execfn in it's output.

Here are the following things which I have tried so far :

$ file kms
kms: ELF 64-bit LSB core file x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), SVR4-style, from '/test', real uid: 1000440000, effective uid: 1000440000, real gid: 0, effective gid: 0, execfn: '/test', platform: 'x86_64'

The file command only works for specific cores and it's not a generic solution because some core dump gives following output.

$ file ss
ss: ELF 64-bit LSB core file x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), too many program header sections (6841)

gdb command doesn't work for all core dumps in the same manner. The output using gdb command is inconsistent. The output received by gdb command for some core dump is not the same as strings command.

$gdb kms
Core was generated by `/test'.

I even tried strings package and I think it gives proper output but the format doesn't contain execfn for it to be used in my solution

$ strings kms | grep ^/ | tail -1
/test

Can anyone please suggest any linux package which will help me in retrieving executable from core dump which contains execfn in it's output.

Answer 1

Try running the file(1) command on your core(5) file. But that requires your core file to be complete. See below and gcore(1) with strace(1) and ptrace(2).

If your ELF executable (see elf(5)) was built with DWARF debugging information then you should have enough information in your core file. See also gdb(1) and this answer.

DWARF debugging information is obtained by compiling and linking your program -if it was compiled with GCC (or with Clang) so using a recent gcc, g++, gfortran, clang, clang++ command - with the -g (or -g2 ....) flag.

Be aware of setrlimit(2). You may need to use the ulimit builtin of GNU bash (see bash(1) and the documentation of GNU bash...), or the limit builtin of zsh to increase the core size file limit.

If your core dump limit size (i.e. RLIMIT_CORE for setrlimit) is too small, it is preferable to raise it and run again your program. A good developer could disable core dumps in an executable. My guess (perhaps wrong) is that a too small core limit size might be consistent with your observations.

If your interactive Unix shell is something else that /bin/bash (e.g. fish) be sure to read its documentation. See also passwd(5), ps(1) -to be used as ps $$, pstree(1), top(1).

See also proc(5). You might try cat /proc/$$/limits or /bin/cat /proc/self/limits in your terminal before running your program there. Perhaps /bin/cat /proc/version could be needed to understand more.

Your Linux kernel can also be configured to avoid core dumps. Ask for details on kernelnewbies and read more about SE Linux. Some Linux kernels accept gzcat /proc/config.gz as root, but other don't, to query their configuration. You could need root access with sudo(8) or su(1). See credentials(7).

On Linux, you might be interested by Ian Taylor libbacktrace. RefPerSys and GCC are using it.

My suggestion is to improve the source code of your application to use syslog(3) to log all the program arguments. If you compile your application with some recent GCC (in 2023), you could pass both -O2 optimization and -g debugging flags to compiler and perhaps even use Ian Lance Taylor libbacktrace. If using the git version control system you can embed version ids in the executable (like RefPerSys is doing).