System Administration

ProcDump for Linux – A Linux version of the ProcDump Sysinternals tool

December 13, 2017
3 Min Read
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: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Desktop or Server)
    • We are actively testing against other Linux distributions. If you have requests for specific distros, please let us know (or create a pull request with the necessary changes).
  • gdb (>=7.7.1)

Install ProcDump

Via Package Manager [prefered method]

1. Add the Microsoft Product feed

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg
sudo mv microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/microsoft.gpg

Register the Microsoft Product feed

Ubuntu 16.04

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/microsoft-ubuntu-xenial-prod xenial main" > etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft.list'

Ubuntu 14.04

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/microsoft-ubuntu-trusty-prod trusty main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft.list'

2. Install Procdump

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install procdump

Via .deb Package

Pre-Depends: dpkg(>=1.17.5)

1. Download .deb Package

Ubuntu 16.04

Ubuntu 14.04

2. Install Procdump

sudo dpkg -i procdump_1.0_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get -f install

Uninstall

Ubuntu 14.04+

sudo apt-get purge procdump

Usage

Usage: procdump [OPTIONS...] TARGET
   OPTIONS
      -C          CPU threshold at which to create a dump of the process from 0 to 200
      -c          CPU threshold below which to create a dump of the process from 0 to 200
      -M          Memory commit threshold in MB at which to create a dump
      -m          Trigger when memory commit drops below specified MB value.
      -n          Number of dumps to write before exiting
      -s          Consecutive seconds before dump is written (default is 10)
   TARGET must be exactly one of these:
      -p          pid of the process

Examples

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

The following will create a core dump immediately.

sudo procdump -p 1234

The following will create 3 core dumps 10 seconds apart.

sudo procdump -n 3 -p 1234

The following will create 3 core dumps 5 seconds apart.

sudo procdump -n -s 5 -p 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 -p 1234

The following with 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 -p 1234

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

sudo procdump -c 10 -C 65 -p 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 -p 1234
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