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Asked: 2024-09-25T00:21:35+05:30 In:

How can I monitor the events occurring during the system startup in Ubuntu?

I’ve been diving into Ubuntu recently, and I stumbled upon a bit of a perplexing situation with system startup events. You know that moment when you fire up your computer, and there’s a flurry of activity happening in the background? Sometimes it feels like there’s a whole conversation going on that I’m not a part of. I get curious about what’s going on but have no clue how to actually keep tabs on it.

I mean, you hear all these tech-savvy folks talking about monitoring system processes and tweaking things under the hood, and I want to understand what’s happening during startup. Sure, I see the splash screen, but what about all the messages that zip by too quickly to read? I would love to be able to capture those events, especially if something goes wrong. It feels critical to know if there’s a timeout happening or if some service is failing to load or if there are any errors right at the start.

I’ve tried looking up various methods and tools, but I keep coming across technical jargon that only makes me more confused. There’s talk about logs, systemd, and console messages, but frankly, I just need a simpler way to monitor these events without getting lost in the weeds.

Can someone share their insights or experiences on this? Maybe there’s a command line tool or a logging system that’s user-friendly? Or perhaps there’s a way to view boot logs after the fact? I’m really keen to understand how everything links together and what I should be looking for!

Any tips, tricks, or recommended readings would be super helpful! I just want to feel a bit more in control and informed when it comes to what goes on when my Ubuntu machine starts up. I appreciate anyone who can shed some light on this. Thanks a ton!

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    2 Answers

    1. Sounds like you’re diving into some interesting territory with Ubuntu! Monitoring system startup events can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but there are definitely some simple ways to get a better grasp on what’s happening when your machine boots up.

      First off, when you’re booting up your system, instead of just staring at that splash screen, you can usually hit Shift during the startup to bring up the GRUB menu. From there, you can select “Advanced options for Ubuntu” and then the recovery mode to see some more detailed boot messages. It doesn’t give you everything, but it might show you some useful stuff.

      If you’re looking to capture more detailed logs, you can check out the logs stored in /var/log/. Specifically, the boot.log and syslog files. You can read these files using commands like cat for a quick peek or less to scroll through them at your own pace. For example, you can run: 

      cat /var/log/boot.log

      Another handy tool in Ubuntu is systemd. You can view boot logs using the journalctl command. If you want to see just the boot messages, you can use: 

      journalctl -b

      This command will show you all the logs from the most recent boot. If something went wrong, you might find error messages in there that can help you troubleshoot.

      Lastly, if you want to go deeper and see detailed service information during boot, you can check out: 

      systemctl --failed

      This will show you if any services failed to start during boot, and give you a clue on what might be going wrong.

      Keep an eye on those logs, and over time, you’ll start identifying patterns or errors that are key to understanding what’s happening behind the scenes. It’s a learning process, but you’re definitely on the right track! Good luck!

    2. To monitor system startup events in Ubuntu and capture those fleeting messages, you can utilize the powerful `systemd` journal, which logs system messages including boot-up information. To view the boot log after startup, you can use the command journalctl -b, which will show you all the messages from the current boot session. If you want to see messages from previous boots, you can add a number to the command, like journalctl -b -1 for the last boot. Additionally, if you want to see only critical messages or errors that may have occurred during boot, you can filter logs with journalctl -b -p err. This way, you can effectively track service failures or timeouts without getting overwhelmed by technical jargon.

      Another option is to modify the bootloader settings to see boot messages in real-time. You can edit the GRUB configuration by opening the file with sudo nano /etc/default/grub and changing the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="". This will display all boot messages on the screen, rather than just a splash screen, allowing you to follow along as your system starts up. After making this change, don’t forget to update GRUB with sudo update-grub. Once you reboot, you’ll see the details unfolding live, giving you insight into what’s happening behind the scenes during startup.

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