A collection of commands that are useful when debugging linux systems

linux_debug_commands.txt

# list processes in D or Z state, along with kernel function where the processes are sleeping
ps axo pid,ppid,comm,state,eip,esp,wchan | grep 'D\|Z'

# dump all D state processes incl. kernel stack traces to /var/log/messages
 echo w > /proc/sysrq-trigger

# check process start time
ps -eo pid,comm,lstart,etime,time,args

# view syslog without noise
cat /var/log/syslog | grep -Ev 'audit|Lease|CMD|CRON|DHCP|dhclient|anacron' | less

# see how much memory a process is using
grep VmRSS /proc/PID/status