ProcDump

ProcDump is a Linux reimagining of the classic ProcDump tool from the Sysinternals suite of tools for Windows. ProcDump provides a convenient way for Linux developers to create core dumps of their application based on performance triggers.

Installation & Usage

Requirements

• Minimum OS:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 7
  • Fedora 29
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
• gdb >= 7.6.1
• zlib (build-time only)

Install ProcDump

Checkout our install instructions for distribution specific steps to install Procdump.

Build ProcDump from Scratch

To build from scratch you'll need to have a C compiler (supporting C11), zlib, and a make utility installed. Then simply run:

make
make install

Building Procdump Packages

The distribution packages for Procdump for Linux are constructed utilizing debbuild for Debian targets and rpmbuild for Fedora targets.

To build a deb package of Procdump on Ubuntu simply run:

make && make deb

To build a rpm package of Procdump on Fedora simply run:

make && make rpm

Usage

BREAKING CHANGE With the release of ProcDump 1.3 the switches are now aligned with the Windows ProcDump version.

procdump [-n Count]
        [-s Seconds]
        [-c|-cl CPU_Usage]
        [-m|-ml Commit_Usage]
        [-tc Thread_Threshold]
        [-fc FileDescriptor_Threshold]
        [-sig Signal_Number]
        [-pf Polling_Frequency]
        [-o]
        [-log]
        {
          {{[-w] Process_Name | [-pgid] PID} [Dump_File | Dump_Folder]}
        }

Options:
   -n      Number of dumps to write before exiting.
   -s      Consecutive seconds before dump is written (default is 10).
   -c      CPU threshold above which to create a dump of the process.
   -cl     CPU threshold below which to create a dump of the process.
   -m      Memory commit threshold in MB at which to create a dump.
   -ml     Trigger when memory commit drops below specified MB value.
   -tc     Thread count threshold above which to create a dump of the process.
   -fc     File descriptor count threshold above which to create a dump of the process.
   -sig    Signal number to intercept to create a dump of the process.
   -pf     Polling frequency.
   -o      Overwrite existing dump file.
   -log    Writes extended ProcDump tracing to syslog.
   -w      Wait for the specified process to launch if it's not running.
   -pgid   Process ID specified refers to a process group ID.

Examples

The following examples all target a process with pid == 1234

The following will create a core dump immediately.

sudo procdump 1234

The following will create 3 core dumps 10 seconds apart.

sudo procdump -n 3 1234

The following will create 3 core dumps 5 seconds apart.

sudo procdump -n 3 -s 5 1234

The following will create a core dump each time the process has CPU usage >= 65%, up to 3 times, with at least 10 seconds between each dump.

sudo procdump -c 65 -n 3 1234

The following will create a core dump each time the process has CPU usage >= 65%, up to 3 times, with at least 5 seconds between each dump.

sudo procdump -c 65 -n 3 -s 5 1234

The following will create a core dump when CPU usage is outside the range [10,65].

sudo procdump -cl 10 -c 65 1234

The following will create a core dump when CPU usage is >= 65% or memory usage is >= 100 MB.

sudo procdump -c 65 -m 100 1234

The following will create a core dump in the /tmp directory immediately.

sudo procdump 1234 /tmp

The following will create a core dump in the current directory with the name dump_0.1234. If -n is used, the files will be named dump_0.1234, dump_1.1234 and so on.

sudo procdump 1234 dump

The following will create a core dump when a SIGSEGV occurs.

sudo procdump -sig 11 1234

All options can also be used with -w, to wait for any process with the given name.

The following waits for a process named my_application and creates a core dump immediately when it is found.

sudo procdump -w my_application

Current Limitations

• Currently will only run on Linux Kernels version 3.5+
• Does not have full feature parity with Windows version of ProcDump, specifically, stay alive functionality, and custom performance counters

Feedback

• Ask a question on StackOverflow (tag with ProcDumpForLinux)
• Request a new feature on GitHub
• Vote for popular feature requests
• File a bug in GitHub Issues

Contributing

If you are interested in fixing issues and contributing directly to the code base, please see the document How to Contribute, which covers the following:

• How to build and run from source
• The development workflow, including debugging and running tests
• Coding Guidelines
• Submitting pull requests

Please see also our Code of Conduct.

License

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Licensed under the MIT License.