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Author Topic: what is this !? 140737.5GB !???  (Read 2015 times)

Offline xor

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what is this !? 140737.5GB !???
« on: December 02, 2020, 03:11:40 AM »
what is this !?

140737.5GB !???

« Last Edit: March 27, 2023, 11:14:35 PM by Rich »

Offline vinceASPECT

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Re: what is this !? 140737.5GB !???
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2020, 07:48:35 AM »
hello,

well GB can sometimes refer to "giga-bytes" right?......seeming therefor to say there is over 140 thousand "giga bytes"

v

Offline lhaley42

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Re: what is this !? 140737.5GB !???
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2020, 08:37:59 AM »
from : https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/4/html/reference_guide/s2-proc-kcore

This file represents the physical memory of the system and is stored in the core file format. Unlike most /proc/ files, kcore displays a size. This value is given in bytes and is equal to the size of the physical memory (RAM) used plus 4 KB.


in other words - it isn't a physical file of bits on your harddisk.
Lexi

Offline Rich

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Re: what is this !? 140737.5GB !???
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2020, 08:54:19 AM »
Hi xor
This is not a bug.
It is a virtual file.
It is not real.
Ignore it.
Quote
When you look at it, the first thing you will notice is its seemingly gigantic size (as displayed by ls -l), often reaching
into the hundreds of terabytes (and much larger than all installed memory devices combined). In fact it's not occupying any
disk space at all: as with all other files in /proc, its content is generated on the fly by the kernel whenever the file is read.
And it can only be read (writing is neither allowed nor implemented in the kernel), and only with root privileges.

Internally it has the format of an ELF core dump file (ELF Type 4/ET_CORE). That means that it has the same format as a
core file from a crashed process; but instead of capturing the (static) state of a single process at the moment of the crash,
it provides a real time view into the state of the whole system.
Found here:
https://schlafwandler.github.io/posts/dumping-/proc/kcore/