----- Original Message ----- If you start up crash with the -d<number> "debug" flag, you can see how the embedded gdb is invoked: # crash -d1 crash 5.1.4 Copyright (C) 2002-2011 Red Hat, Inc. Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006 IBM Corporation Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Hewlett-Packard Co Copyright (C) 2005, 2006 Fujitsu Limited ... [ cut ] ... gdb /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/2.6.32-70.el6.x86_64/vmlinux GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"... ... So it's essentially "gdb vmlinux", and therefore it has no concept of the core file (if any) being used. The gdb module is used for data structure deconstruction, text disassembly, data displays, etc., but is not used for anything related to the memory source. It has to be that way -- gdb only handles ELF core files, whereas the crash utility supports live systems and currently 17 different dumpfile formats, most of which are not ELF format. Dave