How to take a Thread Dump from a JVM

A thread dump is a list of all the Java threads that are currently active in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

It is highly recommended to take more than 1 thread dump. A good practice is to take 8 thread dumps at a regular interval (eg. 1 thread dump every 8 seconds).

How to get the PID of your java process

Execute the following to create a heap dump.

jcmd [PID] GC.heap_dump [PATH]

for example:

jcmd 13898 GC.heap_dump /tmp/13898.dump

OR

To get a thread stack dump with the concurrent locks:

$ jcmd PID  Thread.print -l

for example:

$ jcmd 13898  Thread.print -l | tee /tmp/13898.thread.print.txt

(jstack and jmap are unsupported and may or may not be available in future versions of the JDK.)