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Displaying Trace Files
Author(s) -
EICK STEPHEN G.,
LUCAS PAUL J.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-024x(199604)26:4<399::aid-spe8>3.0.co;2-j
Subject(s) - trace (psycholinguistics) , unix , computer science , operating system , programming language , abstraction , software , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology
Abstract Computers generate trace files containing reports on system performance, status and faults. To analyze these trace files more efficiently, we have developed a graphical technique embodied in an interactive system for displaying large trace files. Our system uses abstraction, color, aggregation, filtering, interaction, and a drill‐down capability to find patterns among the reports. We apply our system and technique to analyze command accounting trace files from a Unix compute server, showing what commands were executed, by which users, when, and how long the commands ran. We identify resource intensive commands, sequences of commands initiated by a compilations, and commands run with super‐user permissions.