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I've followed instructions from many locations online on how to get a core dump from apache when it is producing a segfault, but it still refuses to generate the dump.

I have:

  1. Added the CoreDumpDirectory directive into the httpd.conf file and set it to /tmp
  2. Executed ulimit -c unlimited
  3. Provided the pattern for dumps using echo '/tmp/core-%e.%p' > /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
  4. Also ran echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/core_uses_pid

Httpd has been restarted, but still no dumps created.

I'm running CentOS 5.8 x64 with httpd-2.2.3-65.el5.centos.3 and php-5.3.20-13.el5.art

Any help would be much appreciated!

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  • Does apache have any permission to write to the file you specified in CoreDumpDirectory directive? It should be owned by apache. Commented Jan 18, 2013 at 15:43
  • I've set it to /tmp which is publicly writable, but I'll try somewhere else and give it ownership to apache Commented Jan 18, 2013 at 15:48
  • Thanks - that did produce a dump, however not in the place I set it! I set the CoreDumpDirectory to /tmp/dumps and it dumped to /tmp... now on with debugging Commented Jan 18, 2013 at 15:53
  • Glad you figured it out! Commented Jan 18, 2013 at 15:54

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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My answer is this:

  1. Set up the directive as follow

    CoreDumpDirectory /tmp/mycoredump

  2. Create the directory:

    mkdir -p /tmp/mycoredump

  3. Assign ownership to the directory www-data or httpd

    chown -R www-data:www-data /tmp/mycoredump

  4. Set permissions to:

    chmod 777 /tmp/mycoredump

  5. Restart Apache:

    service apache2 restart

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  • Yes, I did just about that, but it ended up dumping into /tmp anyway! Commented Jan 18, 2013 at 15:54
  • 6
    It's never a good idea to chmod 777 anything Commented Jan 19, 2013 at 19:54
  • 1
    @sendmoreinfo But what if your use case is making something fully modifiable and executable to the outside world? ;-) Commented Aug 13, 2015 at 13:50
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    You are allowed to shoot yourself in the foot, just don't preach this. Commented Aug 13, 2015 at 21:53
  • If I run these, it kills Apache and makes it unable to start... CoreDumpDirectory does not appear to be a valid Apache directive. Commented Oct 17, 2020 at 2:31
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Note that if you have PrivateTmp=true set in your /usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service (or whatever it's called on your system), meaning Apache actually looks for /tmp inside something like /tmp/systemd-private-c27fc5b152d546159d675e170641529b-apache2.service-IcEt0m/, Apache won't be able to write to that dir and you won't get cores dumped at all (due to the systemd tmp directory having 700 root-only perms).

The solution is to either set PrivateTmp=false or modify the permission of the systemd tmp directory after the server starts.

I wasted hours on this to only just now finally realize what the problem was.

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    Oh you have no idea how many hours I've wasted on this. Thanks for posting your answer! Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 10:35
  • Or don't use a /tmp directory at all and store them elsewhere, like /var/coredumps/. Commented Mar 7, 2023 at 0:30
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Everyone forgot to mention setting the follwing in your /usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service

[Service] LimitCORE=infinity

You'll also need to set PrivateTmp=false there as mentioned in the other comments

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