Skip to content
Loris Degioanni edited this page Jul 6, 2014 · 86 revisions

####This is an ever growing list of cool things you can do with sysdig commands.

Got another interesting idea? Anything that you would find useful and that isn't here? Feel free to add to this list, or send a message to the sysdig mailing list to discuss!

Note: the command lines on this page return live data. However, you can use them with trace files too by just adding the -r switch.
Note: if you need a list of basic sysdig commands, for instance to learn how to create a trace file, see the [quick reference guide](sysdig Quick Reference Guide#wiki-basic-command-list)

####Networking

  • See the top processes in terms of network bandwidth usage

sysdig -c topprocs_net

  • Show the network data exchanged with the host 192.168.0.1

as binary:
sysdig -s2000 -X -c echo_fds fd.cip=192.168.0.1
as ASCII:
sysdig -s2000 -A -c echo_fds fd.cip=192.168.0.1

  • See the top local server ports

in terms of established connections:
sysdig -c fdcount_by fd.sport "evt.type=accept"
in terms of total bytes:
sysdig -c fdbytes_by fd.sport

  • See the top client IPs

in terms of established connections
sysdig -c fdcount_by fd.cip "evt.type=accept"
in terms of total bytes
sysdig -c fdbytes_by fd.cip

  • List all the incoming connections that are not served by apache.

sysdig -p"%proc.name %fd.name" "evt.type=accept and proc.name!=httpd"

  • See queries made via apache to an external MySQL server happening in real time

sysdig -A -c echo_fds fd.sip=192.168.30.5 and proc.name=apache2 and evt.buffer contains SELECT

####Disk I/O

  • See the top processes in terms of disk bandwidth usage

sysdig -c topprocs_file

  • List the processes that are using a high number of files

sysdig -c fdcount_by proc.name "fd.type=file"

  • See the top files in terms of read+write bytes

sysdig -c topfiles_bytes

  • Print the top files that apache has been reading from or writing to

sysdig -c topfiles_bytes proc.name=httpd

  • Basic opensnoop: snoop file opens as they occur

sysdig -p "%12user.name %6proc.pid %12proc.name %3fd.num %fd.typechar %fd.name" evt.type=open

  • See the top directories in terms of R+W disk activity

sysdig –c fdbytes_by fd.directory "fd.type=file

  • See the top files in terms of R+W disk activity in the /tmp directory

sysdig –c fdbytes_by fd.filename "fd.directory=/tmp/"

  • Observe the I/O activity on all the files named 'passwd'

sysdig -A –c echo_fds "fd.filename=passwd"

  • Display I/O activity by FD type

sysdig –c fdbytes_by fd.type

####Processes and CPU usage

  • See the top processes in terms of CPU usage

sysdig -c topprocs_cpu

  • See the top processes for CPU 0

sysdig -c topprocs_cpu evt.cpu=0

  • Observe the standard output of a process

sysdig -s4096 -A -c stdout proc.name=cat

####Performance and Errors

  • See all the failed file opens by httpd

sysdig "proc.name=httpd and evt.type=open and evt.failed=true"

  • See the files where most time has been spent

sysdig -c topfiles_time

  • See the files where apache spent most time

sysdig -c topfiles_time proc.name=httpd

  • See the top processes in terms of I/O errors

sysdig -c topprocs_errors

  • See the top files in terms of I/O errors

sysdig -c topfiles_errors

  • See the system calls where most time has been spent

sysdig -c topscalls_time

  • See the top system calls returning errors

sysdig -c topscalls "evt.failed=true"

  • snoop failed file opens as they occur

sysdig -p "%12user.name %6proc.pid %12proc.name %3fd.num %fd.typechar %fd.name" evt.type=open and evt.failed=true

  • Print the file I/O calls that have a latency greater than 1ms:

sysdig -c fileslower 1

####Security

  • Show the directories that the user "root" visits

sysdig -p"%evt.arg.path" "evt.type=chdir and user.name=root"

  • Observe ssh activity

sysdig -A -c echo_fds fd.name=/dev/ptmx and proc.name=sshd

  • Show every file open that happens in /etc

sysdig evt.type=open and fd.name contains /etc

  • Show the ID of all the login shells that have launched the "tar" command

sysdig.exe -r file.scap -c list_login_shells tar

  • Show all the commands executed by the login shell with the given ID

sysdig.exe -r trace.scap.gz -c spy_users proc.loginshellid=5459