Oracle Core Files

[John_44]

Hello Everyone,

I inherited a server running Oracle 7.3.4. I noticed under /u03 there are a bunch of Oracle core files, each core file has its own directory.

/u03/app/oracle/product/7.3.4/dbs/core_901/core

Is it safe to delete them? Normally I would just delete them but I do not know very much about Oracle and I want to make sure. Any help would be appreciated.

John

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Yes it is safe to delete them but if any are recent it means that you have serious problems and need to investigate. I would at least keep a couple of them so for debugging purposes. You need to examine the alert log to see what is happening.

Clay

[Rob Smith]

Hi, You can delete them but I would also investigate and see why there are so many first. Might want to archive them, some of them anyway, to tape for future troubleshooting. Hope this helps.

Rob

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi John:

You could remove them periodically (e.g. with a cron task) but leave those the are 2-days old for potential further analysis:

# find /u[0-9][0-9] -xdev -type f -mtime +2 -name core

...JRF...

[Lee Tae-kyung]

I also got core dump and I could not find any error message in oracle alert file.
Now I can't find core any more.
My action list:
1. $strings core
I found patch number PHCO_***** at last of core file
2. I upgrade the PHCO_***** patch PHCO_&&&&&
I found core again. then
3. After upgrade patch, I restart oracle.
4. Now no more core

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi John,

Normally, core files are generated when there is problem running a process. These core files are generated for debugging purposes and need to be analyzed. You may consider the newest ones if you have alot of these files.

#strings /u03/app/oracle/product/7.3.4/dbs/core_901/core ? more

The above command can printout in more format the content of that core file.

Anyway you need to do the following :

1. Analyze the core files to see which problem(s) you have.
2. Check the content of the Oracle alert files, which could indicate a complemantary reasons for that core files.
3. Delete these core files once you finish analyzing them.

Magdi

[Bill Hassell]

Missing from the discussion is the best command to analyze a core file:

file core

Not only does it identify the reason the program crashed, it identifies the actual program name that caused the core file.

[Yogeeraj]

Hello experts,

I am "suffering from the core"s too!

Anyone Please advise. Details below.
Thanks for you replies
Regards
Yogeeraj
===============================================
L-oracle8i: d01/app/oracle/admin/cmtdb/cdump>date
Wed Jan 9 13:31:13 MRU 2002
L-oracle8i: d01/app/oracle/admin/cmtdb/cdump>ll -rtl
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:42 core_26667
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:46 core_8929
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:51 core_26595
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:51 core_8931
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:51 core_9825
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:51 core_8927
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 19 11:51 core_9929
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Sep 27 17:11 core_25816
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Oct 22 17:05 core_19652
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 20 16:56 core_3175
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 21 09:17 core_3179
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 22 10:20 core_3037
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 24 10:46 core_13705
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 29 09:01 core_3181
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Dec 31 08:47 core_13076
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 3 15:48 core_2279
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 5 11:59 core_2281
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 7 10:40 core_27248
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 7 11:22 core_17752
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 7 12:43 core_18554
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 7 13:23 core_2283
drwxrwxrwx 2 oracle8i dba 96 Jan 8 11:16 core_20212
L-oracle8i: d01/app/oracle/admin/cmtdb/cdump>
______________________________________________________________

L-oracle8i: d01/app/oracle/admin/cmtdb/cdump>file core*/*
core_13076/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_13705/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_17752/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_18554/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_19652/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_20212/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_2279/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_2281/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_2283/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_25816/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_26595/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_26667/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_27248/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_3037/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_3175/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_3179/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_3181/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_8927/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_8929/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_8931/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_9825/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
core_9929/core: ELF-64 core file - PA-RISC 2.0 from 'oracle' - received SIGABRT
L-oracle8i: d01/app/oracle/admin/cmtdb/cdump>