Many core dump files from pc_server_main

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
We moved to our new ALEPH 18 production server this weekend. After the move I've noticed a bunch of core files from the pc_server_main process.

Already the number of core files have filled up the /var partition, they are being created almost every hour.

I'd like to figure out why they are being created .... and stop it.

Resolution:
From Ex Libris:

The coredumpsize limit is set to 0 by default:
>> limit
.....
coredumpsize 0 kbytes
......

Probably, the system coredump size is set to non zero value.
Each time the pc server's child is refreshed (killed and a new one is submitted) the system creates a coredump.

I viewed the pc server logs at the time the coredump are created and did not find any abnormal activity.

If there is no sign of damaged functionality, you can ignore the coredumps or set its size to 0 on system level.

Also you can try to increase the number of the running pc_server's from 5 to 10, to distribute the load between more servers which might reduce the number of coredumps.

From site:

We increased the number of pc_server_main processes and set up a cron job to purge the core files.