Production debugging: Is there a less intrusive way than WinDbg?

Question

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a less intrusive way to analyze a running, managed process in production environments.

Less intrusive meaning:

• No delay of execution when attaching the debugger.
• No delay of execution when getting basic stats like running threads.

In the Java world there is a such a tool part of the JDK. I was wondering if there're similar tools in the .NET world.

The tool should answer questions like:

• What are the thread pool parameters? Same as "!threadpool" in Windbg.
• What are the callstacks of my currently running threads (yep, you get it from the Java tool :) ).
• Basic heap analysis e.g. howmany objects of type ABC.

Any ideas?

Alex

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, you don't want to actually debug the program, only get some basic information. In such cases, Process Explorer may be sufficient.

Answer 2

It depends on what you want to debug. WinDbg is the giant hammer of Windows debugging, suitable for debugging anything from kernel extensions on up.

If you just want to debug a program, most people just use visual studio, which will attach to a running processs.

However, @oefe may have the bull by the horns here. When most people say 'debugger' they want backtraces and breakpoints and such. In Java, you need to make prior arrangements to attach that sort of debugger. Either Windbg or visual studio (-debugexe) is more convenient than that.

Answer 3

As Oefe says, you can get a lot of info including the stacks of all threads from Process Explorer. Also, the .NET runtime has a number of useful performance counters, that may give you some insight. If you have special needs, your application can publish its own counters.

Answer 4

Here is production debugging in a non-intrusive manner using ETW and another one