[DOCS-7485] Do not recomend disabling core dumps on production systems Created: 21/Mar/16  Updated: 11/Jan/17  Resolved: 23/Mar/16

Status: Closed
Project: Documentation
Component/s: manual
Affects Version/s: None
Fix Version/s: 01112017-cleanup

Type: Improvement Priority: Major - P3
Reporter: Kevin Pulo Assignee: Unassigned
Resolution: Done Votes: 0
Labels: None
Remaining Estimate: Not Specified
Time Spent: Not Specified
Original Estimate: Not Specified

Issue Links:
Related
related to DOCS-6018 Document SERVER-18474 (provide core d... Closed
Participants:
Days since reply: 7 years, 47 weeks ago

 Description   

The 3.2 release notes upgrade procedure recommends disabling core dumps in production:

For production environments, you may prefer to turn off core dumps for the operating system, if not already.

Core dumps provide information which can be invaluable in situations where a mongod/mongos has experienced a hard crash. In cases where the crash happens very infrequently, with unknown cause/triggers, and so cannot be reproduced, having a core dump from an unexpected event may be the difference between fixing the bug (preventing the possibility of recurrences) and not. Keeping core dumps on production systems is a useful practice in much the same way that logs of prod systems are useful.

DOCS-6018 alludes that "[core dumps] may cause problems in production environments", but does not explain what those perceived problems are seen to be. ramon.fernandez, can you please elaborate on this point?



 Comments   
Comment by Ramon Fernandez Marina [ 23/Mar/16 ]

IIUC, core dumps in production have a couple of main problems:

  • while the system is doing a core dump the process can't be killed, so enabling core dumps in production means that one can't quickly restart nodes; depending on the size and the speed of the underlying storage, the dump can take days
  • they may require a very large amount of storage, which may cause assorted other problems

I therefore think the recommendation should stay, so I'm resolving this ticket.

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