Re: [exim] Exim drops core size

Eli wrote:
>> Perhaps Exim should have a knob to let people re-enable core-dumps
>> for deliveries, on a per-transport basis. Patches welcome.
>
> Just my two cents on this whole topic... Very few people know what
> to do with a core dump; even fewer even know what a core dump is.
> Out of the few that know what a core dump is AND how to use it for
> debugging purposes, I hope that none of them are 1) running debug
> code on a production machine, 2) debugging programs on a production
> machine, and 3) need a simple "knob" to enable core dumps (or any
> other low-level debugging routines) on a production machine.
>
> Not to say that everyone should have the ability to have a
> development system/environment, but I just believe that the select
> few that encounter problems of a magnitude that require low-level
> program debugging should not require a "program feature" to allow
> them to debug the code (beyond "exim -d" that is). Debugging
> shouldn't need to be done very often, and as such I believe that a
> source code #define switch (for example) should be sufficient for
> those that do require low-level debugging.
>
> I personally strip all my binaries (in fact, some distros may
> auto-strip on install I believe), plus I don't have debugging
> libraries, so I couldn't debug even if I wanted to. Such a set up I
> don't think is too uncommon for a production environment, and having
> a scriptable toggle to try and allow for core dumps would just be
> silly and useless in such a scenario.
>
> To be honest, if Jorg is having a problem that's causing Exim to
> crash and he's that intent on trying to solve the problem,
> re-compiling a debug-able version of Exim to try and reproduce the
> crash with a core dump (and whatever else he could do such as tracing
> the execution) would be the "right" direction. If he would prefer to
> be able to debug/examine core dumps whenever he would like, then he
> should probably just run a debug-enabled Exim binary all the time; I
> don't believe any runtime toggles should be necessary.
>
> Eli.
>
>

Seconded.

Any Exim falling-over I've *ever* had was traced to 'wetware' errors in
configuration fles as much as 3,000 lines long - and rapidly so, with no
more than exim and system logs.

Exim's superb debug CLI calls do the rest.

And all of the above are rare events in any case.

Bill