man/man8/killsnoop.8

.TH killsnoop 8  "2015-08-20" "USER COMMANDS"
.SH NAME
killsnoop \- Trace signals issued by the kill() syscall. Uses Linux eBPF/bcc.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B killsnoop [\-h] [\-x] [-p PID]
.SH DESCRIPTION
killsnoop traces the kill() 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 kernel sys_kill() function using dynamic tracing, and
will need updating to match any changes to this function.

This makes use of a Linux 4.5 feature (bpf_perf_event_output());
for kernels older than 4.5, see the version under tools/old,
which uses an older mechanism.

Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.
.SH REQUIREMENTS
CONFIG_BPF and bcc.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\-h
Print usage message.
.TP
\-x
Only print failed kill() syscalls.
.TP
\-p PID
Trace this process ID only (filtered in-kernel).
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Trace all kill() syscalls:
#
.B killsnoop
.TP
Trace only kill() syscalls that failed:
#
.B killsnoop \-x
.TP
Trace PID 181 only:
#
.B killsnoop \-p 181
.SH FIELDS
.TP
TIME
Time of the kill call.
.TP
PID
Source process ID
.TP
COMM
Source process name
.TP
SIG
Signal number. See signal(7).
.TP
TPID
Target process ID
.TP
RES
Result. 0 == success, a negative value (of the error code) for failure.
.SH OVERHEAD
This traces the kernel kill function and prints output for each event. As the
rate of this is generally expected to be low (< 100/s), the overhead is also
expected to be negligible. If you have an application that is calling a very
high rate of kill()s for some reason, then test and understand overhead before
use.
.SH SOURCE
This is from bcc.
.IP
https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
.PP
Also look in the bcc distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing
example usage, output, and commentary for this tool.
.SH OS
Linux
.SH STABILITY
Unstable - in development.
.SH AUTHOR
Brendan Gregg
.SH SEE ALSO
opensnoop(8), funccount(8)