systemd-bootchart - Boot performance graphing tool at Linux.org

Back to main site | Back to man page index

SYSTEMD-BOOTCHART(1) systemd-bootchart SYSTEMD-BOOTCHART(1)

NAME
systemd-bootchart - Boot performance graphing tool

DESCRIPTION
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=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-bootchart 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.

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.

INVOCATION
systemd-bootchart can be invoked in several different ways:

Kernel invocation
The kernel can invoke systemd-bootchart instead of the init process. In turn, systemd-bootchart will
invoke /usr/lib/systemd/systemd.

Started as a standalone program
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.

OPTIONS
These options can also be set in the /etc/systemd/bootchart.conf file. See bootchart.conf(5).

-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.

-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

-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.

OUTPUT
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/!

HISTORY
This version of bootchart was implemented from scratch, but is inspired by former bootchart incantations:

Original bash
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.

Ubuntu C Implementation
This version replaced the shell version with a fast and efficient data logger, but also did not graph the
data.

Java bootchart
This was the original graphing application for charting the data, written in java.

pybootchartgui.py
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.