bootchartd(1) collects process information, CPU statistics and disk usage


bootchartd [start|stop] [bootchart_init=INIT]


bootchartd collects process information, CPU statistics and disk usage statistics from the /proc/ file system. The accumulated log file may later be visualized using bootchart(1).

bootchartd is commonly used to profile the boot process for the purpose of speeding it up. In this case, it is started by the kernel as the init process. This is configured by adding the init=/sbin/bootchartd option to the kernel command line -- either interactively or by editing the bootloader's configuration file. Please refer to the documentation of your bootloader for details (e.g. lilo, grub or yaboot).

After bootchartd is initialized during the boot process, it will start the default init process (/sbin/init) to proceed with the regular bootup. If, however, an alternative init process is used (e.g. (/sbin/initng), that process may be specified using the bootchart_init=INIT kernel command line parameter.

Another possibility for using bootchartd is monitoring the resource usage of a specific application or the running system in general. In this case, bootchartd is started interactively by running bootchartd start and stopped using bootchartd stop.


default output file
default configuration file


bootchart was written by Ziga Mahkovec <[email protected]>.

This manual page was written by Jörg Sommer <[email protected]>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).