crash is a Linux kernel crash analysis utility for examining live systems and kernel dump files.
It gives administrators and kernel developers an interactive environment for inspecting the state of a running or crashed kernel, helping trace failures, inspect task state, and understand low-level kernel behaviour across a wide range of Linux platforms.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Investigates live systems and Linux kernel dump files created by facilities such as kdump, kvmdump, xendump, netdump, diskdump, LKCD, and mcore.
- Provides an interactive command set for kernel debugging tasks including backtraces, process inspection, memory reads, kernel log analysis, and structure display.
- Supports many architectures including x86, x86_64, ia64, ppc, ppc64, arm, arm64, alpha, mips, mips64, loongarch64, riscv64, s390, and s390x.
- Allows relevant GDB commands to be entered directly from within the utility for deeper analysis.
- Can be extended with new built-in commands or runtime-loaded shared object modules for specialised analysis workflows.
- Offers optional build support for LZO, Snappy, and Zstandard-compressed vmcore files.
Website: github.com/crash-utility/crash
Support:
Developer: crash-utility developers
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
crash is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Debuggers | |
|---|---|
| LLDB | Next generation, high-performance debugger |
| Ghidra | Software reverse engineering framework |
| Delve | Source level debugger for the Go programming language |
| GDB | The GNU Debugger |
| Valgrind | A memory debugger and profiler |
| Radare2 | Portable reversing framework |
| Xdebug | Extension for PHP to aid debugging and development |
| iaito | Graphical interface for radare2 |
| React Native Debugger | Standalone app for debugging React Native apps |
| KDbg | Graphical user interface to GDB |
| strace | Diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility |
| cgdb | Lightweight console frontend to the GNU debugger |
| PuDB | Console-based visual debugger for Python |
| bashdb | Source-code debugger for bash; follows the GDB command syntax |
| Sysprof | Profile an application or entire system |
| Nemiver | Standalone graphical debugger for GNOME |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |