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dbus-monitor(1)                                General Commands Manual                                dbus-monitor(1)



NAME
       dbus-monitor - debug probe to print message bus messages

SYNOPSIS
       dbus-monitor [--system | --session | --address ADDRESS] [--profile | --monitor] [watch expressions]


DESCRIPTION
       The   dbus-monitor   command   is   used  to  monitor  messages  going  through  a  D-Bus  message  bus.   See
       http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/ for more information about the big picture.


       There are two well-known message buses: the systemwide message bus (installed on many systems as the "message‐
       bus" service) and the per-user-login-session message bus (started each time a user logs in).  The --system and
       --session options direct dbus-monitor to monitor the system or session  buses  respectively.   If  neither  is
       specified, dbus-monitor monitors the session bus.


       dbus-monitor  has two different output modes, the 'classic'-style monitoring mode and profiling mode. The pro‐
       filing format is a compact format with a single line per message and  microsecond-resolution  timing  informa‐
       tion.  The  --profile and --monitor options select the profiling and monitoring output format respectively. If
       neither is specified, dbus-monitor uses the monitoring output format.


       In order to get dbus-monitor to see the messages you are interested in, you should  specify  a  set  of  watch
       expressions as you would expect to be passed to the dbus_bus_add_match function.


       The  message bus configuration may keep dbus-monitor from seeing all messages, especially if you run the moni‐
       tor as a non-root user.


OPTIONS
       --system
              Monitor the system message bus.

       --session
              Monitor the session message bus.  (This is the default.)

       --address ADDRESS
              Monitor an arbitrary message bus given at ADDRESS.

       --profile
              Use the profiling output format.

       --monitor
              Use the monitoring output format.  (This is the default.)


EXAMPLE
       Here is an example of using dbus-monitor to watch for the gnome typing monitor to say things

         dbus-monitor "type='signal',sender='org.gnome.TypingMonitor',interface='org.gnome.TypingMonitor'"