NAME¶

exitsnoop - Trace all process termination (exit, fatal signal). Uses Linux eBPF/bcc.

SYNOPSIS¶

exitsnoop [-h] [-t] [--utc] [-x] [-p PID] [--label LABEL] [--per-thread]

DESCRIPTION¶

exitsnoop traces process termination, showing the command name and reason for termination, either an exit or a fatal signal.

It catches processes of all users, processes in containers, as well as processes that become zombie.

This works by tracing the kernel sched_process_exit() function using dynamic tracing, and will need updating to match any changes to this function.

Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.

REQUIREMENTS¶

CONFIG_BPF and bcc.

OPTIONS¶

-h

Print usage message.

-t

Include a timestamp column.

--utc

Include a timestamp column, use UTC timezone.

-x

Exclude successful exits, exit( 0 )

-p PID

Trace this process ID only (filtered in-kernel).

--label LABEL

Label each line with LABEL (default 'exit') in first column (2nd if timestamp is present).

--per-thread

Trace per thread termination

EXAMPLES¶

Trace all process termination

# exitsnoop

Trace all process termination, and include timestamps:

# exitsnoop -t

Exclude successful exits, only include non-zero exit codes and fatal signals:

# exitsnoop -x

Trace PID 181 only:

# exitsnoop -p 181

Label each output line with 'EXIT':

# exitsnoop --label EXIT

Trace per thread termination

# exitsnoop --per-thread

FIELDS¶

TIME-TZ

Time of process termination HH:MM:SS.sss with milliseconds, where TZ is the local time zone, 'UTC' with --utc option.

LABEL

The optional label if --label option is used. This is useful with the -t option for timestamps when the output of several tracing tools is sorted into one combined output.

PCOMM

Process/command name.

PID

Process ID

PPID

The process ID of the process that will be notified of PID termination.

TID

Thread ID.

EXIT_CODE

The exit code for exit() or the signal number for a fatal signal.

OVERHEAD¶

This traces the kernel sched_process_exit() function and prints output for each event. As the rate of this is generally expected to be low (< 1000/s), the overhead is also expected to be negligible. If you have an application that has a high rate of process termination, then test and understand overhead before use.

SOURCE¶

This is from bcc.

https://github.com/iovisor/bcc

Also look in the bcc distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing example usage, output, and commentary for this tool.

OS¶

Linux

AUTHOR¶

Arturo Martin-de-Nicolas

SEE ALSO¶

execsnoop(8)