Introduction

Bootchart is a tool for performance analysis and visualization of the GNU/Linux boot process. Resource utilization and process information are collected during the boot process and can later be displayed in a PNG, SVG or EPS-encoded chart.

The boot process is modified to start the boot logger (/sbin/bootchartd) instead of /sbin/init. The boot logger will run in background and collect information from the proc file system (/proc/[PID]/stat, /proc/stat and /proc/diskstats). The statistics are logged to a virtual memory file system (tmpfs). Once the boot process completes (denoted by the existence of specific processes), the log files are packaged to /var/log/bootchart.tgz.

The log package can later be processed using a Java application which builds the process tree and renders a performance chart. The chart may then be analyzed to examine process dependency and overall resource utilization. A renderer web form is also available on the project web site.

Running

1. Install bootchartd and the bootchart renderer. See INSTALL for details.

2. Modify your boot loader (GRUB/LILO) if necessary. Alternatively, change the kernel command line interactively upon reboot. Reboot.

3. Verify that /var/log/bootchart.tgz was created and contains the log files.

4. Render the chart by running:

   $ bootchart

   Note that the bootchart script relies on JPackage functions. If JPackage is not available for your platform, the Java application may also be run using: java -jar bootchart.jar

   Alternatively (if no Java Development Kit is installed to build the JAR package), the web renderer may be used. The web form is available at:

   http://www.bootchart.org

   To use the web renderer from a script, run: curl --form format=svg --form log=@/var/log/bootchart.tgz
   http://render.bootchart.org:8080/bootchart/render > bootchart.svgz

   (optionally replacing the svg/bootchart.svgz pair with png/bootchart.png or eps/bootchart.eps.gz)

5. View the generated image and analyze the chart. SVG images may be viewed using any of the following programs:

   • rsvg-view (librsvg; GNOME)
   • svgdisplay (ksvg; KDE)
   • Gimp (using the gimp-svg plugin)
   • Inkscape
   • Squiggle (Batik; http://xml.apache.org/batik/)

   To get help for additional options, run:

   $ bootchart -h

http://www.bootchart.org Ziga Mahkovec ziga.mahkovec@klika.si