Reading System Logs with DLT

Introduction

PELUX uses a component from GENIVI called DLT (for Diagnostic Log and Trace) which enables distant computers to access the system logs of a machine running PELUX.

DLT is split into two parts:

  • dlt-daemon: running on PELUX, collecting logs and distributing them on a network

  • dlt-viewer: running on a developer machine, accessing distant logs from dlt-daemon

Compiling dlt-viewer

Since dlt-daemon is already present on PELUX, you only need to compile dlt-viewer on your development machine. For that, you need to have installed: - git - cmake - the Qt SDK.

Clone the dlt-viewer repository:

git clone https://github.com/GENIVI/dlt-viewer

Compile it with cmake:

cmake -H. -Bbuild
cmake --build build

Running dlt-viewer

You can now run dlt-viewer from its build directory

build/bin/dlt-viewer

Configuring dlt-viewer for your target

dlt-viewer must be configured to point to your PELUX machine. You can do that from "Config -> ECU Add". On the first tab, named "ECU", feel free to use an Id and Description that describe your target but make sure the "Interface Type" is set to TCP. On the second tab, named "IP", use the IP address of your target and and make sure the port is set to 3490. You can then hit the "OK" button and your machine should appear in the "Project" part of the main window.

Note

If you do not know the IP address of your target, the Raspberry Pi documentation describes how to find a new device on the network. This can be used for any target, not just Raspberry Pi

Select your target in the dlt-viewer's main window and connect to it using "Config -> ECU Connect". You should now have DLT logs shown on the right pane of dlt-viewer. Be careful though that the actual payload of those logs might be out of your screen, far at the right of the screen.

Going further

Filtering

System logs are usually long and tedious to read. Fortunately, dlt-viewer comes with a filtering capability that can search patterns in logs.

You can use the line edit in the top action bar to search for words such as "set_default". You can also, enable regular expression search and filter with requests such as "set_.*_trace_status"

Logging data

From a shell

On PELUX, DLT comes with a couple of tools that make life easier. One of those tools is called dlt-adaptor-stdin and it can be used to log data from the command line. It reads strings from its standard input so you can use it with UNIX pipes. For example:

echo "PELUX rocks!" | dlt-adaptor-stdin

Should append "PELUX rocks!" to the system logs you can read from dlt-viewer.

From a service

DLT provides a library to services so that they can log information. You can get started with a simple service example in the dlt-daemon repository.

For a detailed tutorial on how to get started, follow the DLT cheatsheet.