The Java tool jcmd ("j command") sends diagnostic commands to the JVM, which, at the moment, requires a running JVM, but once candidate JEP 528 is adopted, a lot of the information can be seamlessly extracted from a crashed JVM's core dump, allowing easy post-mortem analysis

nipafx (Nicolai Parlog)

JEP 528 (candidate, not yet targeted to a release) proposes extending jcmd to work on core dumps from crashed JVMs, not just live ones. By recreating the JVM's memory image and executing native code to interpret its data structures, most of jcmd's diagnostic commands (26 listed) can run post-mortem without any changes to the commands themselves. Limitations include: same OS and CPU architecture required, Linux/Windows only for now, and Java-implemented commands (like Thread.dump_to_file) won't work. No JDK version lock-in between the crashed and analyzing JDK, as long as both include JEP 528.

Inside Java Newscast #109 // nipafx