system-threads

Retrieves the stack traces and lock status of all system threads. Requires cluster administrator privileges.

Command properties

Property	Description
Command type	Driver query
Required permission	Cluster administrator
License usage	Not counted
Parallel execution	Not supported
Distributed execution	Not supported

Syntax

system-threads [prettystack=BOOL] [stack=BOOL]

Options

prettystack=BOOL: Formats the stack trace in a human-readable form (default: t).

t: Converts the stack trace to a string in the same format as jstack.
f: Returns the stack trace as an array of maps containing class, file, line number, and method information.

stack=BOOL: Retrieves stack traces (default: t).

t: Uses JMX ThreadMXBean to retrieve thread stack traces and lock information.
f: Returns only thread ID, name, and state without fetching stack traces.

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
tid	long	Thread ID
name	string	Thread name
state	string	Thread state. One of: `NEW`, `RUNNABLE`, `BLOCKED`, `WAITING`, `TIMED_WAITING`, `TERMINATED`
stacktrace	string	Thread stack trace (same format as jstack). Not returned when `stack=f`.

Error codes

Parsing errors

Error code	Message	Description
95040	no-read-permission	The user does not have cluster administrator privileges
92004	access-denied-to-local-filesystem	A non-boolean value was specified for the `prettystack` or `stack` option

Runtime errors

N/A

Description

The system-threads command retrieves stack traces and lock status for all threads in the JVM. Use it to examine thread dumps during incident analysis or performance diagnostics.

When stack=t (the default), thread information and stack traces are retrieved together through JMX ThreadMXBean. When prettystack=t (the default), the result is converted to a jstack-format string that includes lock information. When prettystack=f, the stack trace is returned as an array of maps containing class, file, line number, and method information.

When stack=f, only the thread list is retrieved without stack traces. This is useful when you need to quickly check thread states without collecting stack traces.

Cluster administrator privileges are required to run this command.

Examples

Retrieve a full thread dump
```
system-threads
```
Retrieves the stack traces and lock status of all threads in the system.
Retrieve thread list without stack traces
```
system-threads stack=f
```
Returns only thread ID, name, and state. Runs faster because stack traces are not collected.
Retrieve stack traces as an array
```
system-threads prettystack=f
```
Returns the stack trace as an array of maps containing class, file, line number, and method information.
Filter for BLOCKED threads
```
system-threads | search state == "BLOCKED"
```
Retrieves the thread dump and filters for threads in the BLOCKED state.