kcore file

[gounix]

hi all,

i have just found a file, /proc/kcore, that is over 27 gigabytes in size and i would like to know if someone can shed some light on what this file is for and can it be safely removed. the time stamp on the file is being updated every minute but not the size.

suse enterprise server 10 sp2

thanks a lot

rick

[reed9]

Files in /proc are sort of virtual files created on the fly by the kernel to give you information about your system. As I understand it, it doesn't take up disk space. /proc/kcore is a window in your RAM, and I believe should be the equal in size to the amount of RAM you have. Are you sure it's 27 GB and not 2.7 GB?

[gounix]

thanks for the quick reply. the actual number i am seeing is 27917291520.
my system has 34gb of ram with 8 xeon quad core processors.

it is a little bit of overkill for the application we use but i didn't order the system.

[reed9]

Holy cow that's a lot of system! Then /proc/kcore is accurately reflecting your RAM. There's some technical reasons it underreports a little bit, I think it only shows memory available to the system or something, but it's fine and normal and nothing to worry about.

[liquidpaper]

I was looking at the size of '/' and it said 128 TB (140737486266368 bytes)... Which seemed a little odd considering the hard drive is only 320 GB... I know that in Linux a file might not actually be a file on a hard drive or disk drive, and so i tracked down the file to be kcore... Mine's 128 TB and this computer's only got a gig of ram...