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<refentry id='dbusmonitor1'>

<!--  dbus&bsol;-monitor manual page.
 Copyright (C) 2003 Red Hat, Inc. -->

<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>dbus-monitor</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo class="manual">User Commands</refmiscinfo>
<refmiscinfo class="source">D-Bus</refmiscinfo>
<refmiscinfo class="version">1.12.2</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>dbus-monitor</refname>
<refpurpose>debug probe to print message bus messages</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<!-- body begins here -->
<refsynopsisdiv id='synopsis'>
<cmdsynopsis>
  <command>dbus-monitor</command>
    <group choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'>--system </arg><arg choice='plain'>--session </arg><arg choice='plain'>--address <replaceable>ADDRESS</replaceable></arg></group>
    <group choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'>--profile </arg><arg choice='plain'>--monitor </arg><arg choice='plain'>--pcap </arg><arg choice='plain'>--binary </arg></group>
    <arg choice='opt'><arg choice='plain'><replaceable>watch</replaceable></arg><arg choice='plain'><replaceable>expressions</replaceable></arg></arg>
    <sbr/>
</cmdsynopsis>
</refsynopsisdiv>


<refsect1 id='description'><title>DESCRIPTION</title>
<para>The <command>dbus-monitor</command> command is used to monitor messages going
through a D-Bus message bus.  See
<ulink url='http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/'>http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/</ulink> for more information about
the big picture.</para>


<para>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 <command>dbus-monitor</command> to
monitor the system or session buses respectively.  If neither is
specified, <command>dbus-monitor</command> monitors the session bus.</para>


<para><command>dbus-monitor</command> has two different text output
modes: the 'classic'-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.</para>

<para><command>dbus-monitor</command> also has two binary output modes.
  The binary mode, selected by <literal>--binary</literal>, outputs the
  entire binary message stream (without the initial authentication handshake).
  The PCAP mode, selected by <literal>--pcap</literal>, 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.</para>

<para>If no mode is specified,
<command>dbus-monitor</command> uses the monitoring output format.</para>


<para>In order to get <command>dbus-monitor</command> 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 <emphasis remap='I'>dbus_bus_add_match</emphasis> function.</para>


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

</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='options'><title>OPTIONS</title>
<variablelist remap='TP'>
  <varlistentry>
  <term><option>--system</option></term>
  <listitem>
<para>Monitor the system message bus.</para>
  </listitem>
  </varlistentry>
  <varlistentry>
  <term><option>--session</option></term>
  <listitem>
<para>Monitor the session message bus.  (This is the default.)</para>
  </listitem>
  </varlistentry>
  <varlistentry>
  <term><option>--address ADDRESS</option></term>
  <listitem>
<para>Monitor an arbitrary message bus given at ADDRESS.</para>
  </listitem>
  </varlistentry>
  <varlistentry>
  <term><option>--profile</option></term>
  <listitem>
<para>Use the profiling output format.</para>
  </listitem>
  </varlistentry>
  <varlistentry>
  <term><option>--monitor</option></term>
  <listitem>
<para>Use the monitoring output format.  (This is the default.)</para>

  </listitem>
  </varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='example'><title>EXAMPLE</title>
<para>Here is an example of using dbus-monitor to watch for the gnome typing
monitor to say things</para>
<literallayout remap='.nf'>

  dbus-monitor "type='signal',sender='org.gnome.TypingMonitor',interface='org.gnome.TypingMonitor'"

</literallayout> <!-- .fi -->

</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='author'><title>AUTHOR</title>
<para>dbus-monitor was written by Philip Blundell.
The profiling output mode was added by Olli Salli.</para>

</refsect1>

<refsect1 id='bugs'><title>BUGS</title>
<para>Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker,
see <ulink url='http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/'>http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/</ulink></para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>
