Expert Shell Scripting

CHAPTER 41Core Finder

In a production environment, it is a good idea to know whether your applications are dumping core often. It is also considered good housekeeping to know about your core files so your hard disk won't fill up with unnecessary files. The small script in this chapter tracks down and cleans up core files. The script was intended to be run as an hourly cron job, although you could change the schedule to fit your needs. The job also has its priority lowered using the nice command so that it won't interfere with the performance of regular processes on the machine. The notifications I've received from this script have characterized chronic issues with applications on more than one occasion. Without the script, I would have never ...