Sends a diagnostic interrupt to the specified Amazon EC2 instance to trigger a kernel panic (on Linux instances), or a blue screen/stop error (on Windows instances). For instances based on Intel and AMD processors, the interrupt is received as a non-maskable interrupt (NMI).

In general, the operating system crashes and reboots when a kernel panic or stop error is triggered. The operating system can also be configured to perform diagnostic tasks, such as generating a memory dump file, loading a secondary kernel, or obtaining a call trace.

Before sending a diagnostic interrupt to your instance, ensure that its operating system is configured to perform the required diagnostic tasks.

For more information about configuring your operating system to generate a crash dump when a kernel panic or stop error occurs, see Send a diagnostic interrupt (for advanced users) (Linux instances) or Send a diagnostic interrupt (for advanced users) (Windows instances).