Bootchart - a 'startup' graphing tool

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Bootchart is a tool, usually run at system startup, that collects and graphs

the CPU and disk load of the system as it works. The output of bootchart is

an SVG graph. Normally, bootchart is invoked as `bootchartd` by the kernel

by passing "init=/sbin/bootchartd" to the kernel. Bootchart will then fork

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) the logging

stops and a graph is generated from the logged information. This graph

contains vital clues to which resources are being used, in which order, and

where possible problems exist in the startup sequence of the system.

Of course, bootchart can also be used at any moment in time to collect and

graph some data for an amount of time. Bootchart does not even require root

privileges to do so, and will happily run as a normal user. Bootchart graphs

are by default written time-stamped in /var/log.

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This version of bootchart was implemented from scratch and inspired by former

incantations of bootchart:

- The original bash/shell code implemented bootchart. This version logged all

data into a compressed tarball for later processing, and did not create a graph

on it's own.

- The C-code implementation found in Ubuntu. This version replaced above shell

code version with a faster and efficient data logger, but still did not graph

code itself.

- the original Java-based bootchart, the original graphing program that created

a bootchart graph from logged data.

- the pybootchartgui.py program, which created a graph based on the data logged

by either standalone data logger.

The version you are looking at combines these 2 parts into a single program,

which makes running it and creating graphs a bit more efficient and simple.

You can now run a single program at startup instead of 2. There are no timing

problems (the graphing stage will never run if the logging stage didn't

finish). The logged data isn't being written to disc first, then read again.

Also, the data kept in memory is reduced to the absolute minimum needed to

keep memory use low.

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Requirements: glibc. Your kernel must have procfs support and several

proc output options enabled:

CONFIG_PROC_FS

CONFIG_SCHEDSTATS

CONFIG_SCHED_DEBUG

at a minimum. bootchartd itself does not require any graphics library

to generate the SVG output file.

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Configuration: please see bootchartd --help, as well as /etc/bootchartd.conf

and/or /usr/share/doc/bootchart/bootchartd.conf.example for a list of

configurable options.

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Many thanks to those who contributed ideas and code:

- Ziga Mahkovec - Original bootchart author

- Anders Norgaard - PyBootchartgui

- Michael Meeks - bootchart2

- Scott James Remnant - Ubuntu C-based logger

- Arjan van der Ven - for the idea to merge bootgraph.pl functionality

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For bugs, please contact the author or current maintainer:

Auke Kok <auke-jan.h.kok@intel.com>

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Download bootchart releases here: http://foo-projects.org/~sofar/bootchart/

Source code is hosted here: git://github.com/sofar/bootchart