dbus-monitor

' dbus-monitor 'u dbus-monitor [ --system | --session | --address ADDRESS ][ --profile | --monitor | --pcap | --binary] [ watch expressions ]

The dbus-monitor command is used to monitor messages going through a D -Bus message bus . See http://www.freedesktop .org/software/dbus/ for more information about the big picture .

There are two well -known message buses: the systemwide message bus (installed on many systems as the "messagebus" service) and the per -user -login -session message bus (started each time a user logs in) . The --system and --session options direct dbus-monitor to monitor the system or session buses respectively . If neither is specified, dbus-monitor monitors the session bus .

dbus-monitor has two different text output modes: the (Aqclassic (Aq -style monitoring mode, and profiling mode . The profiling format is a compact format with a single line per message and microsecond -resolution timing information . The --profile and --monitor options select the profiling and monitoring output format respectively .

dbus-monitor also has two binary output modes . The binary mode, selected by --binary, outputs the entire binary message stream (without the initial authentication handshake) . The PCAP mode, selected by --pcap, adds a PCAP file header to the beginning of the output, and prepends a PCAP message header to each message; this produces a binary file that can be read by, for instance, Wireshark .

If no mode is specified, dbus-monitor uses the monitoring output format .

In order to get dbus-monitor to see the messages you are interested in, you should specify a set of watch expressions as you would expect to be passed to the dbus_bus_add_match function .

The message bus configuration may keep dbus-monitor from seeing all messages, especially if you run the monitor as a non -root user .

--system Monitor the system message bus .

--session Monitor the session message bus . (This is the default .)

--address ADDRESS Monitor an arbitrary message bus given at ADDRESS .

--profile Use the profiling output format .

--monitor Use the monitoring output format . (This is the default .)

Here is an example of using dbus -monitor to watch for the gnome typing monitor to say things

---

.RS 4

dbus -monitor "type= (Aqsignal (Aq,sender= (Aqorg .gnome .TypingMonitor (Aq,interface= (Aqorg .gnome .TypingMonitor (Aq"
.RE

Please send bug reports to the D -Bus mailing list or bug tracker, see http://www.freedesktop .org/software/dbus/

dbus -monitor was written by Philip Blundell . The profiling output mode was added by Olli Salli .