[X4U] How to SSH and report a system sample?

[John Baltutis]

On 04/22/06,  Michael Elliott <michaelelliott at mac.com> wrote:
>
> I know that there are some great Terminal jockeys out there, but I'm 
> definitely a GUI kind of guy.
>
> I reported a bug to Apple via http://bugreport.apple.com  and they've 
> asked for more information.  Since this is an intermittent freeze 
> (one app will go Beachball, then multiple others eventually follow, 
> and I'm unable to log out or select menu items), they've asked me if I'm
>
>   "able to SSH into the machine that is hung and capture a sample of 
> the system while it's in the hung state"
>
> I can SSH into my iMac via
>
> SSH imac.local     and run top, etc.
>
> But then I have no idea how to "capture a sample of the system".
>
> Can someone give a neophyte some succinct instructions on how to do
> this?

Try this. While on the machine with the problem, launch Activiity Monitor,
select All Processes from the dropdown menu, select View->Customize Toolbar,
add Sample Process to it, and when the process hangs, usually with a "not
responding" annotation, select it, and click on the Sample Process button.
Another alternative is to install XCode Tools and remotely launch the
Sampler.app in Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/. I don't do ssh, so I
can't say if that'll work. Or, ask Apple's devbugs types how to "capture a
sample of thesystem" using ssh. They should be able to give you the appropriate
steps.