How useful can a 'coredump' be?

Well, we can create our own coredumps to find the answers....

One can obtain a 'dumper' library here:

http://code.google.com/p/google-coredumper/

Then write some Nasm code:

coretest.asm
--------8<--------
extern exit
extern WriteCoreDump

global main

section .data

corefile	db	"corefile.dat", 0

section .text

main:

	mov eax, corefile
	push eax
	call WriteCoreDump
	add esp, 4

	push 0
	call exit
-------->8--------

Then, we can cribb a make file:

Makefile.n
--------8<--------
LIBTOOL = ../libtool
CC = gcc
PTHREAD = -lpthread

coretest:  coretest.o

	@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [ -r ../src/coredumper.c ]; then
\
		( cd .. && { [ -r Makefile ] || ./configure; } && $(MAKE) ) &&\
		echo $(CC) -o $@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -g -Wall -O2 -lcoredumper $(PTHREAD)         \
		     coretest.o &&                                               \
		$(LIBTOOL) --mode=link $(CC) -o $@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -g -Wall -O2 -I../src -L.. \
	        	   -lcoredumper $(PTHREAD) $^ ../libcoredumper.la;    \
	else
\
		echo $(CC) -o $@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -g -Wall -O2 -lcoredumper $(PTHREAD) coretest.o;\
		$(CC) -o $@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -g -Wall -O2 -lcoredumper $(PTHREAD) coretest.o;     \
	fi

coretest.o:	coretest.asm

	nasm -f elf -o coretest.o coretest.asm
-------->8--------

Throw these to files into "coredumper-1.1/examples/" and do:

$ make -f Makefile.n
$ ./coretest
$ readelf -a corefile.dat
$ objdump -d corefile.dat
$ gdb coretest corefile.dat

Conclusions??

Nathan.