decryptcore(8)

decryptcore8

Decrypt a core dump of the operating system

Usage

decryptcore [-fLv] -p privatekeyfile -k keyfile -e encryptedcore -c core

decryptcore [-fLv] [-d crashdir] -p privatekeyfile -n dumpnr

Overview

The decryptcore utility first decrypts keyfile using privatekeyfile and then uses the resulting key to decrypt encryptedcore saved by savecore(8). The result is saved in core.

Alternatively a user can decrypt a core dump numbered dumpnr from the crashdir directory. In this case a dump key from the key.# file is used and the result is saved in the vmcore.# file where “#” corresponds to dumpnr.

By default decryptcore does not overwrite an old core dump as a user might want to store the core somewhere else for the future. This behaviour can be changed using the -f flag.

The decryptcore utility can be started with the following command line arguments:

-f

Remove a decryped core dump if it already exists.

-L

Write log messages to syslogd(8).

-v

Print or log verbose/debugging information. This option can be specified multiple times to raise the verbosity level.

-p privatekeyfile

Specify location of a private key file which will be used to decrypt a dump key file.

-k keyfile

Specify location of a dump key file.

-e encryptedcore

Specify location of an encrypted core.

-c core

Specify location of a resulting decrypted core dump.

-d crashdir

Specify an alternative crash dump directory. The default crash dump directory is /var/crash.

-n dumpnr

Specify a number of a crash dump to be decrypted.

Exit status

The decryptcore utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Releases

20 releases since FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE; the text changed 7 times.

  1. 12.0
  2. 12.1
  3. 12.2
  4. 12.3
  5. 12.4
  6. 13.0–13.2
  7. 13.3–13.5
  8. 14.0–16.0

Authors

The decryptcore utility was implemented by Konrad Witaszczyk ⟨[email protected]⟩.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.