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2 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
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4 <refentry id='dbusmonitor1'>
6 <!-- dbus\-monitor manual page.
7 Copyright (C) 2003 Red Hat, Inc. -->
10 <refentrytitle>dbus-monitor</refentrytitle>
11 <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
12 <refmiscinfo class="manual">User Commands</refmiscinfo>
13 <refmiscinfo class="source">D-Bus</refmiscinfo>
14 <refmiscinfo class="version">@DBUS_VERSION@</refmiscinfo>
17 <refname>dbus-monitor</refname>
18 <refpurpose>debug probe to print message bus messages</refpurpose>
20 <!-- body begins here -->
21 <refsynopsisdiv id='synopsis'>
23 <command>dbus-monitor</command>
24 <group choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'>--system </arg><arg choice='plain'>--session </arg><arg choice='plain'>--address <replaceable>ADDRESS</replaceable></arg></group>
25 <group choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'>--profile </arg><arg choice='plain'>--monitor </arg><arg choice='plain'>--pcap </arg><arg choice='plain'>--binary </arg></group>
26 <arg choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'><replaceable>watch</replaceable></arg><arg choice='plain'><replaceable>expressions</replaceable></arg></arg>
32 <refsect1 id='description'><title>DESCRIPTION</title>
33 <para>The <command>dbus-monitor</command> command is used to monitor messages going
34 through a D-Bus message bus. See
35 <ulink url='http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/'>http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/</ulink> for more information about
36 the big picture.</para>
39 <para>There are two well-known message buses: the systemwide message bus
40 (installed on many systems as the "messagebus" service) and the
41 per-user-login-session message bus (started each time a user logs in).
42 The --system and --session options direct <command>dbus-monitor</command> to
43 monitor the system or session buses respectively. If neither is
44 specified, <command>dbus-monitor</command> monitors the session bus.</para>
47 <para><command>dbus-monitor</command> has two different text output
48 modes: the 'classic'-style
49 monitoring mode, and profiling mode. The profiling format is a compact
50 format with a single line per message and microsecond-resolution timing
51 information. The --profile and --monitor options select the profiling
52 and monitoring output format respectively.</para>
54 <para><command>dbus-monitor</command> also has two binary output modes.
55 The binary mode, selected by <literal>--binary</literal>, outputs the
56 entire binary message stream (without the initial authentication handshake).
57 The PCAP mode, selected by <literal>--pcap</literal>, adds a
58 PCAP file header to the beginning of the output, and prepends a PCAP
59 message header to each message; this produces a binary file that can
60 be read by, for instance, Wireshark.</para>
62 <para>If no mode is specified,
63 <command>dbus-monitor</command> uses the monitoring output format.</para>
66 <para>In order to get <command>dbus-monitor</command> to see the messages you are interested
67 in, you should specify a set of watch expressions as you would expect to
68 be passed to the <emphasis remap='I'>dbus_bus_add_match</emphasis> function.</para>
71 <para>The message bus configuration may keep <command>dbus-monitor</command> from seeing
72 all messages, especially if you run the monitor as a non-root user.</para>
76 <refsect1 id='options'><title>OPTIONS</title>
77 <variablelist remap='TP'>
79 <term><option>--system</option></term>
81 <para>Monitor the system message bus.</para>
85 <term><option>--session</option></term>
87 <para>Monitor the session message bus. (This is the default.)</para>
91 <term><option>--address ADDRESS</option></term>
93 <para>Monitor an arbitrary message bus given at ADDRESS.</para>
97 <term><option>--profile</option></term>
99 <para>Use the profiling output format.</para>
103 <term><option>--monitor</option></term>
105 <para>Use the monitoring output format. (This is the default.)</para>
112 <refsect1 id='example'><title>EXAMPLE</title>
113 <para>Here is an example of using dbus-monitor to watch for the gnome typing
114 monitor to say things</para>
115 <literallayout remap='.nf'>
117 dbus-monitor "type='signal',sender='org.gnome.TypingMonitor',interface='org.gnome.TypingMonitor'"
119 </literallayout> <!-- .fi -->
123 <refsect1 id='author'><title>AUTHOR</title>
124 <para>dbus-monitor was written by Philip Blundell.
125 The profiling output mode was added by Olli Salli.</para>
129 <refsect1 id='bugs'><title>BUGS</title>
130 <para>Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker,
131 see <ulink url='http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/'>http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/</ulink></para>