LTTNG-SNAPSHOT(1)

NAME
lttng-snapshot - Take a snapshot of an LTTng recording session

SYNOPSIS

Take a recording session snapshot:

lttng [GENERAL OPTIONS] snapshot record [--max-size=SIZE]
      [--name=NAME] [--session=SESSION]
      [--ctrl-url=URL --data-url=URL | URL]

Add a snapshot output to a recording session:

lttng [GENERAL OPTIONS] snapshot add-output [--max-size=SIZE]
      [--name=NAME] [--session=SESSION]
      (--ctrl-url=URL --data-url=URL | URL)

Show the snapshot output of a recording session:

lttng [GENERAL OPTIONS] snapshot list-output [--session=SESSION]

Remove the snapshot output from a recording session:

lttng [GENERAL OPTIONS] snapshot del-output [--session=SESSION] 1

DESCRIPTION

The lttng snapshot command can take a snapshot of, add or remove a snapshot output, and show the snapshot output of:

With the --session=SESSION option
    The recording session named SESSION.

Without the --session option
    The current recording session (see lttng-concepts(7) to learn more about the current recording session).

See lttng-concepts(7) to learn more about recording sessions.

A snapshot is a dump of the current sub-buffers of all the channels of the selected recording session.

When LTTng takes a snapshot, it sends the sub-buffer dump of the selected recording session to the local file system or over the network to a listening relay daemon (lttng-relayd(8)). See the “Snapshot output” section below to learn more.

When LTTng takes a snapshot, it does NOT clear the sub-buffers of the selected recording session. In other words, different snapshots of the selected recording session can contain the same event records.

You must have created the selected recording session in snapshot mode (see the --snapshot option of the lttng-create(1) command as well as lttng-concepts(7) to learn more about recording session modes) to use the snapshot command.

A snapshot-session trigger action can also take a recording session snapshot (see lttng-add-trigger(1)).

See the “EXAMPLES” section below for usage examples.

If you want, instead, to keep all the trace data, but divide it into archived chunks which are then, like snapshots, ready to be processed, see the recording session rotation feature in lttng-concepts(7). Trace chunk archives do NOT overlap like snapshots can.

Note

    Before you take a snapshot on a system with a high event throughput, the LTTng project recommends that you first run the lttng-stop(1) command. Otherwise, the snapshot could contain “holes”, the result of the tracers overwriting unconsumed trace packets during the snapshot operation.

    After LTTng writes the snapshot trace data, you can restart the recording session with the lttng-start(1) command.

  Snapshot output

When you take a recording session snapshot with the record action, LTTng writes the snapshot trace files to:

If you specify the URL non-option argument or the --ctrl-url and --data-url options
    The output defined by the URL non-option argument or by the arguments of the options.

    See lttng-create(1) for the format of URL.

Otherwise
    The snapshot output of the selected recording session.

    Add a snapshot output to a recording session with the add-output action. As of LTTng 2.15.0, you may only add one snapshot output to a given recording session.

    When you create a snapshot mode recording session with the --snapshot option of the lttng-create(1) command, and without its --no-output option, the create command automatically adds a snapshot output named snapshot-1 to the created recording session:

    With its --output, --set-url, --ctrl-url, or --data-url options
        Equivalent to using the add-output action with the provided or equivalent URL(s) immediately after creating the recording session.

    Otherwise
        A subdirectory, under the $LTTNG_HOME/lttng-traces ($LTTNG_HOME defaults to $HOME) directory, of which the name contains the recording session name and the date/time.

    Show the current snapshot output of a recording session with the list-output action.

    Remove the snapshot output of a recording session with the del-output action.

For both the record and add-output actions:

    • Assign a name to a snapshot output with the --name=NAME option.

    NAME becomes part of the snapshot trace file names which LTTng sends to this output.

    • By default, the snapshot files can be as big as the sum of the sizes of all the sub-buffers of all the channels of the selected recording session.

    Set the maximum total size of all the snapshot trace files LTTng writes with the --max-size option.

OPTIONS

See lttng(1) for GENERAL OPTIONS.

  Recording target

-s SESSION, --session=SESSION
    Take a snapshot of the sub-buffers of the recording session named SESSION instead of the current recording session.

  Output

See the “Snapshot output” section above.

-C URL, --ctrl-url=URL
    Set the control path URL to URL.

    You must also use the --data-url option.

    See lttng-create(1) for the format of URL.

-D URL, --data-url=URL
    Set the trace data path URL to URL.

    You must also use the --ctrl-url option.

    See lttng-create(1) for the format of URL.

-m SIZE, --max-size=SIZE
    Set the maximum total size of all the snapshot trace files LTTng writes when taking a snapshot to SIZE bytes.

    The k (KiB), M (MiB), and G (GiB) suffixes are supported.

-n NAME, --name=NAME
    Assign the name NAME to the snapshot output.

  Program information

-h, --help
    Show help.

    This option attempts to launch /usr/bin/man to view this manual page. Override the manual pager path with the LTTNG_MAN_BIN_PATH environment variable.

--list-options
    List available command options and quit.

EXIT STATUS

0
    Success

1
    Command error

2
    Undefined command

3
    Fatal error

4
    Command warning (something went wrong during the command)

ENVIRONMENT

LTTNG_ABORT_ON_ERROR
    Set to 1 to abort the process after the first error is encountered.

LTTNG_HOME
    Path to the LTTng home directory.

    Defaults to $HOME.

    Useful when the Unix user running the commands has a non-writable home directory.

LTTNG_LIST_LEGACY
    Set to 1 to use the legacy output format (LTTng 2.14 and earlier) for the lttng-list(1) command instead of the modern output format.

    Note that the legacy output doesn’t show anything related to features introduced after LTTng 2.14.

LTTNG_MAN_BIN_PATH
    Absolute path to the manual pager to use to read the LTTng command-line help (with lttng-help(1) or with the --help option) instead of /usr/bin/man.

LTTNG_NO_UTF_8
    Set to 1 to NOT emit multi-byte UTF-8 sequences, even if the locale claims to support it.

LTTNG_SESSION_CONFIG_XSD_PATH
    Path to the directory containing the session.xsd recording session configuration XML schema.

LTTNG_SESSIOND_PATH
    Absolute path to the LTTng session daemon binary (see lttng-sessiond(8)) to spawn from the lttng-create(1) command.

    The --sessiond-path general option overrides this environment variable.

LTTNG_TERM_COLOR
    Controls when to emit terminal SGR codes in the output.

    The NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this.

    One of:

    auto (default)
        Only emit SGR codes when the standard output is connected to a color-capable terminal.

    always
        Always emit SGR codes.

    never
        Never emit SGR codes.

NO_COLOR
    If set and not empty, then it’s equivalent to setting LTTNG_TERM_COLOR to never.

    See NO_COLOR <https://no-color.org/> to learn more.

FILES

$LTTNG_HOME/.lttngrc
    Unix user’s LTTng runtime configuration.

    This is where LTTng stores the name of the Unix user’s current recording session between executions of lttng(1). lttng-create(1) and lttng-set-session(1) set the current recording session.

$LTTNG_HOME/lttng-traces
    Default output directory of LTTng traces in local and snapshot modes.

    Override this path with the --output option of the lttng-create(1) command.

$LTTNG_HOME/.lttng
    Unix user’s LTTng runtime and configuration directory.

$LTTNG_HOME/.lttng/sessions
    Default directory containing the Unix user’s saved recording session configurations (see lttng-save(1) and lttng-load(1)).

/usr/local/etc/lttng/sessions
    Directory containing the system-wide saved recording session configurations (see lttng-save(1) and lttng-load(1)).

Note

    $LTTNG_HOME defaults to the value of the HOME environment variable.

EXAMPLES

Example 1. Take a snapshot of the current recording session, sending the trace files to its snapshot output.

        $ lttng snapshot record

Example 2. Take a snapshot of a specific recording session, giving it a custom name.

    See the --session and --name options.

        $ lttng snapshot record --session=my-session --name=SNAP

Example 3. Take a snapshot of the current recording session, sending the trace files to a custom location.

    See the “Output directory” section of lttng-relayd(8) to understand where the relay daemon to connect to (3.96.87.215) writes the received traces.

        $ lttng snapshot record net://3.96.87.215

Example 4. Replace the snapshot output of a specific recording session with a local file system path.

    See the --session option.

        $ lttng snapshot del-output --session=monk 1
        $ lttng snapshot add-output --session=monk \
                         file:///path/to/snapshots

Example 5. Take a snapshot of the current recording session, making sure its size is not over 4 MiB.

    See the --max-size option.

        $ lttng snapshot record --max-size=4M

RESOURCES

    • LTTng project website <https://lttng.org>

    • LTTng documentation <https://lttng.org/docs>

    • LTTng bug tracker <https://bugs.lttng.org>

    • Git repositories <https://git.lttng.org>

    • GitHub organization <https://github.com/lttng>

    • Continuous integration <https://ci.lttng.org/>

    • Mailing list <https://lists.lttng.org/> for support and development: lttng-dev@lists.lttng.org

    • IRC channel <irc://irc.oftc.net/lttng>: #lttng on irc.oftc.net

    • Mastodon <https://mastodon.social/@lttng>

COPYRIGHT

This program is part of the LTTng-tools project.

LTTng-tools is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html>. See the LICENSE <https://github.com/lttng/lttng-tools/blob/master/LICENSE> file for details.

THANKS

Special thanks to Michel Dagenais and the DORSAL laboratory <http://www.dorsal.polymtl.ca/> at École Polytechnique de Montréal for the LTTng journey.

Also thanks to the Ericsson teams working on tracing which helped us greatly with detailed bug reports and unusual test cases.

SEE ALSO

lttng(1), lttng-create(1), lttng-concepts(7)