Manual: killsnoop.bt
killsnoop.bt(8) System Manager's Manual killsnoop.bt(8)
NAME
killsnoop.bt - Trace signals issued by the kill(),tkill(),tgkill() syscall. Uses bpftrace/eBPF.
SYNOPSIS
killsnoop.bt
DESCRIPTION
killsnoop traces the kill(),tkill(),tgkill() syscall, to show signals sent via this method. This may
be useful to troubleshoot failing applications, where an unknown mechanism is sending signals.
This works by tracing the kill(),tkill(),tgkill() syscall tracepoints.
Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.
REQUIREMENTS
CONFIG_BPF and bpftrace.
EXAMPLES
Trace all kill(),tkill(),tgkill() syscalls:
# killsnoop.bt
FIELDS
TIME Time of the kill call.
PID Source process ID
COMM Source process name
SIG Signal number or name. See signal(7).
TPID Target process ID
RESULT Result. 0 == success, a negative value (of the error code) for failure.
OVERHEAD
This traces the kernel kill function and prints output for each event. As the rate of this is gener‐
ally expected to be low (< 100/s), the overhead is also expected to be negligible. If you have an ap‐
plication that is calling a very high rate of kill()|tkill()|tgkill()s for some reason, then test and
understand overhead before use.
SOURCE
This is from bpftrace.
https://github.com/bpftrace/bpftrace
Also look in the bpftrace distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing example usage,
output, and commentary for this tool.
This is a bpftrace version of the bcc tool of the same name. The bcc tool may provide more options
and customizations.
https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
OS
Linux
STABILITY
Unstable - in development.
AUTHOR
Brendan Gregg, Rong Tao
SEE ALSO
opensnoop.bt(8)
USER COMMANDS 2018-09-07 killsnoop.bt(8)