It is intended for use with the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP), where a Linux process has failed with a core dump. Use lxcore to convert the core(4) file from this program into a format that the Linux gdb debugger can use. Without conversion, Linux debuggers such as gdb cannot use UNIX core files.
UNIX_input_corefile must be a valid UNIX core file. If it is not, lxcore will print one of several error messages, depending on the mismatch it finds.
On a system with ulimit(1) restrictions on the size of a core file, a core file written by the kernel may be truncated. If lxcore finds that a core file appears to be truncated, it will print an error message indicating what part of the core image it was trying to read, and the diagnostic:
Truncated core file? Try increasing ulimit -c
Increasing ulimit -c before running the program that fails with a core dump should result in a complete dump.
If the core dump appears to be from a threaded program, lxcore prints the message
WARNING: Core may be from a threaded program Trying the conversion anyway...
In this case, the conversion may complete, but the converted core file may not always be usable by Linux gdb. At present, LKP only supports debugging for Linux single-threaded programs.
Where the conversion completes without errors, lxcore returns a status code of 0. Otherwise, it returns 1.