coredumpctl does not show dump information to non-root users

This document (000021326) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5

Situation

The coredumpctl command can be executed by non-root users but on SLE 12 SP5 the command doesn't list any core files.

s12sp5:~ # whoami
root
s12sp5:~ # coredumpctl list
TIME                            PID   UID   GID SIG PRESENT EXE
Mon 2024-01-17 10:57:26 CET   12654     0     0   6 * /usr/bin/sleep
Wed 2024-01-17 10:58:11 CET   12704  1000   100   6 * /usr/bin/top
s12sp5:~ #
s12sp5:~ # su - wtmpx -c "coredumpctl list"
No coredumps found.

However on SLE 15 coredumpctl command can list core files owned by the respective user of the process/ application dumping the core.

s15sp5:~ # whoami
root
s15sp5:~ # coredumpctl list
TIME                          PID  UID GID SIG     COREFILE EXE             SIZE
Wed 2024-01-17 11:06:27 CET 12117 1000 100 SIGABRT present  /usr/bin/sleep 28.2K
Wed 2024-01-17 11:06:50 CET 12170 1001 100 SIGABRT present  /usr/bin/sleep 28.3K
Wed 2024-01-17 11:07:39 CET 12183    0   0 SIGABRT present  /usr/bin/sleep 28.5K
s15sp5:~ #
s15sp5:~ # su - wtmpx -c "coredumpctl list -q"
TIME                          PID  UID GID SIG     COREFILE EXE             SIZE
Wed 2024-01-17 11:06:27 CET 12117 1000 100 SIGABRT present  /usr/bin/sleep 28.2K
s15sp5:~ #
s15sp5:~ # su - rayan -c "coredumpctl list -q"
TIME                          PID  UID GID SIG     COREFILE EXE             SIZE
Wed 2024-01-17 11:06:50 CET 12170 1001 100 SIGABRT present  /usr/bin/sleep 28.3K

Resolution

Non-root user need to ask the server's administrator to collect the needed core files.

Another solution would be by upgrading SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 to a supported SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 (https://www.suse.com/lifecycle) release.

Adding extra permissions to non-root users via sudo to run coredumpctl with root permission is not advisable and will create a major security issue. As core files may contain the complete memory layout of the process at the time it crashed, they may contain sensitive/privileged information (e.g. cached credentials, keys) and should be kept private.

Cause

On SLE 12 the coredumpctl works only with root permission.

Additional Information

From coredumpctl man pages on SLE 15 SP5:

Note that coredumpctl needs access to the journal files to retrieve the relevant entries from the journal. Thus, an unprivileged user will normally only see information about crashing programs of this user.

Disclaimer

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