Piping core dumps to a zip program on embedded linux (busybox version) fails

Question

I am working on embedded Linux with busybox version. For generating linux core dumps, I use

ulimit -c unlimited

Then I see that I am getting a huge core file (~1GB). Because my application is huge and allocates that much amount of memory.

Now, I am looking for solutions to optimize this large core file. I found out that (http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/core.5.html) I can pipe core dumps to a program. I am trying to zip the core dump while it is getting generated.

i.e

 cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern

| /tmp/shellscript.sh  /tmp/core.%p.gz

cat  /tmp/shellscript.sh
#!/bin/sh
/bin/gzip > "$1"

Now, I realize that 'piping core dump to a program' works only on normal desktop ubuntu system.

But our target is embedded linux system which use busybox version. I am wondering when I do exactly the same steps 'piping core dump to a program (in this case zipping) ' on busybox then it doesn't produce a core dump at all.

But if I remove the piping option on busybox, then I see a core dump. i.e

root@(none):~ cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
/tmp/core_top

Do you guys here have any inputs why piping core dump to a program doesn't work on embedded linux with busybox version ?

Thanks,

Answer 1

man 5 core

   *  The program must be specified using an absolute pathname (or a
      pathname relative to the root directory, /), and must immediately
      follow the '|' character.

So, there should be no space between | and /.

Also, is your /tmp partition, where the script resides, perhaps mounted with -o noexec?