Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for analyzing post-mortem information specifying a state of the remote computer system after the failure of the remote computer system. The system operates by receiving a code module sent from a debugging computer system at the remote computer system. The remote computer system executes the code module, and allows the executing code module to read the post-mortem information from the remote computer system. The remote computer system also allows the executing code module to generate a result, and returns the result to the debugging computer system. In one embodiment of the present invention, the code module includes platform-independent JAVA byte codes that are executed on a JAVA virtual machine located on the remote computer system. In one embodiment of the present invention, the system allows a user of the remote computer system to specify a security policy for the executing code module.