Generating a Liberty profile server dump from the command prompt

From the command prompt you can use the server dumpFix Pack 8501 or server javadump command to capture status information for a Liberty profile server.

About this task

The server dump command is useful for problem diagnosis of a Liberty profile server because the result file contains server configuration, log information, and details of the deployed applications in the workarea directory. The command can be applied to either a running or a stopped server.

For a running server, the following information is also included:
  • State of each OSGi bundle in the server
  • Wiring information for each OSGi bundle in the server
  • Component list managed by the Service Component Runtime (SCR) environment
  • Detailed information of each component from SCR
  • Configuration administration data of each OSGi bundle
  • Information about registered OSGi services
  • Runtime environment settings such as Java™ virtual machine (JVM), heap size, operating system, thread information, and network status
Fix Pack 8501 [Updated in September 2013] The server javadump command is useful for diagnosing problems at the JVM level, such as hung threads, deadlocks, excessive processing, excessive memory consumption, memory leaks, and defects in the virtual machine. The command can be used only on a running server. Each dump type creates a file, but not all dump types are supported by all virtual machines. See Liberty profile: server command options. The default directory for dump files is ${server.output.dir}. To set a different default directory, you must use an IBM® JVM and set the following environment variables:            
  • IBM_HEAPDUMPDIR
  • IBM_COREDIR
  • IBM_JAVACOREDIR
[Updated in September 2013]

Procedure

  1. Open a command prompt, then change directory to the wlp/bin directory.
  2. Fix Pack 8501 Capture the status information by using one of the following command-line tools. If you do not specify a server name, defaultServer is used.
    • To create a snapshot of the server status, use server dump command.
      • server dump server_name --archive=package_file_name.dump.zip Fix Pack 8501 --include=heap
        [Updated in September 2013] where package_file_name.dump.zip is a file name that you choose. This file name can include a full path name. If the full path is omitted, a compressed file called package_file_name.dump.zip is created in default directory ${server.output.dir}. [Updated in September 2013]

      Fix Pack 8501 The --include parameter is optional. You can request additional memory dump types. For example, --include=heap option requests a heap dump; --include=thread,heap,system option requests a thread dump, a heap dump, and a system dump.

    • Fix Pack 8501 To create a snapshot of the JVM status, use server javadump command.
      • server javadump server_name --include=heap

      The --include parameter is optional. You can request additional memory dump types. For example, --include=heap option requests a thread dump and a heap dump; --include=heap,system option requests a thread dump, a heap dump, and a system dump. The output files are created in the default directory ${server.output.dir}. To set a different default directory, you must use an IBM JVM and set the IBM_HEAPDUMPDIR, IBM_COREDIR, and IBM_JAVACOREDIR environment variables.

    Note: The resulting file is created by using UTF-8 encoding for entry names, so the tool that you use to open the file must be able to use UTF-8 encoding for entry names. The jar command in a Java SDK uses this format.

Results

If the specified server does not exist, the command does not succeed. If the specified server exists, a result file is created that contains the status information of the server.

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