systemd-bootchart — Boot performance graphing tool
systemd-bootchart is a tool, usually run at
system startup, that collects the CPU load, disk load, memory
usage, as well as per-process information from a running system.
Collected results are output as an SVG graph. Normally,
systemd-bootchart is invoked by the kernel by passing
init=
on the kernel command line. systemd-bootchart will then fork the
real init off to resume normal system startup, while monitoring
and logging startup information in the background.
/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-bootchart
After collecting a certain amount of data (usually 15-30 seconds, default 20 s) the logging stops and a graph is generated from the logged information. This graph contains vital clues as to which resources are being used, in which order, and where possible problems exist in the startup sequence of the system. It is essentially a more detailed version of the systemd-analyze plot function.
Of course, bootchart can also be used at any moment in time to
collect and graph some data for an amount of time. It is
recommended to use the --rel switch in this
case.
Bootchart does not require root privileges, and will happily run as a normal user.
Bootchart graphs are by default written time-stamped in
/run/log and saved to the journal with
MESSAGE_ID=9f26aa562cf440c2b16c773d0479b518.
Journal field BOOTCHART= contains the
bootchart in SVG format.
systemd-bootchart can be invoked in several different ways:
The kernel can invoke systemd-bootchart instead of the init process. In turn, systemd-bootchart will invoke /usr/lib/systemd/systemd.
One can execute
systemd-bootchart as normal application
from the command line. In this mode it is highly recommended
to pass the -r flag in order to not graph the
time elapsed since boot and before systemd-bootchart was
started, as it may result in extremely large graphs. The time
elapsed since boot might also include any time that the system
was suspended.
These options can also be set in the
/etc/systemd/bootchart.conf file. See
bootchart.conf(5).
-h, --help¶-n, --sample N¶Specify the number of samples,
N, to record. Samples will be
recorded at intervals defined with --freq.
-f, --freq f¶Specify the sample log frequency, a positive
real f, in Hz. Most systems can
cope with values up to 25-50 without creating too much
overhead.
-r, --rel¶Use relative times instead of absolute times. This is useful for using bootchart at post-boot time to profile an already booted system. Without this option the graph would become extremely large. If set, the horizontal axis starts at the first recorded sample instead of time 0.0.
-F, --no-filter¶Disable filtering of tasks that did not contribute significantly to the boot. Processes that are too short-lived (only seen in one sample) or that do not consume any significant CPU time (less than 0.001 s) will not be displayed in the output graph.
-C, --cmdline¶Display the full command line with arguments of processes, instead of only the process name.
-g, --control-group¶Display process control group
-o, --output path¶Specify the output directory for the graphs.
By default, bootchart writes the graphs to
/run/log.
-i, --init path¶Use this init binary. Defaults to /usr/lib/systemd/systemd.
-p, --pss¶Enable logging and graphing of processes' PSS
(Proportional Set Size) memory consumption. See
filesystems/proc.txt in the kernel
documentation for an explanation of this field.
-e, --entropy¶Enable logging and graphing of the kernel random entropy pool size.
-x, --scale-x N¶Horizontal scaling factor for all variable graph components.
-y, --scale-y N¶Vertical scaling factor for all variable graph components.
systemd-bootchart generates SVG graphs. In order to render those on a graphical display any SVG capable viewer can be used. It should be noted that the SVG render engines in most browsers (including Chrome and Firefox) are many times faster than dedicated graphical applications like Gimp and Inkscape. Just point your browser at file:///run/log/!
This version of bootchart was implemented from scratch, but is inspired by former bootchart incantations:
The original bash/shell code implemented bootchart. This version created a compressed tarball for processing with external applications. This version did not graph anything, only generated data.
This version replaced the shell version with a fast and efficient data logger, but also did not graph the data.
This was the original graphing application for charting the data, written in java.
pybootchart created a graph from the data collected by either the bash or C version.
The version of bootchart you are using now combines both the data collection and the charting into a single application, making it more efficient and simpler. There are no longer any timing issues with the data collector and the grapher, as the graphing cannot be run until the data has been collected. Also, the data kept in memory is reduced to the absolute minimum needed.
systemd-bootchart does not get the model information for the
hard drive unless the root device is specified with
root=/dev/sdxY. Using UUIDs or PARTUUIDs will boot
fine, but the hard drive model will not be added to the
chart.
For bugs, please contact the author and current maintainer:
Auke Kok <auke-jan.h.kok@intel.com> |