Why configure the size of the Core File?

Question

I am running Nginx on Ubuntu. I am reading over the configuration directives for the Core Module. One of these directives is called worker_rlimit_core. It says the directive:

Changes the limit on the largest size of a core file (RLIMIT_CORE) for worker processes. Used to increase the limit without restarting the main process.

From my understanding, when they are talking about the core file, they are in effect talking about the core dump file, which contains an image of a process's memory when it crashes so you can inspect what the issue was.

Why would I want to change the size of the core dump file for my Nginx process? What insight would I gain from this?

Answer 1

If the core file is incomplete, you cannot use it for (much) analysis. The limit is made in the first place to avoid running short of disk space due to core files that you don't want to analyze.

What information you can get depends on how memory is organized.

Further reading:

• What use is a truncated coredump?
• If Your Core File Is Truncated
• Can anything useful be done with a truncated core?