Convert dmesg timestamp to custom date format

Question

I am trying to understand the dmesg timestamp and find it hard to convert that to change it to java date/custom date format.

any help is much appreciated.

Sample dmesg log:

[14614.647880] airo(eth1): link lost (missed beacons)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Understanding dmesg timestamp is pretty simple: it is time in seconds since the kernel started. So, having time of startup (uptime), you can add up the seconds and show them in whatever format you like.

Or better, you could use the -T option and parse the human readable format.

From the man page:

-T, --ctime
    Print human readable timestamps. The timestamp could be inaccurate!

    The time source used for the logs is not updated after system SUSPEND/RESUME.

Answer 2

you will need to reference the "btime" in /proc/stat, which is the Unix epoch time when the system was latest booted. Then you could base on that system boot time and then add on the elapsed seconds given in dmesg to calculate timestamp for each events.

Answer 3

In recent versions of dmesg, you can just call dmesg -T.

Answer 4

With older Linux distros yet another option is to use wrapping script, e.g. in Perl or Python.

See solutions here:

http://linuxaria.com/article/how-to-make-dmesg-timestamp-human-readable?lang=en http://jmorano.moretrix.com/2012/03/dmesg-human-readable-timestamps/

Answer 5

If you don't have the -T option for dmesg as for example on Andoid, you can use the busybox version. The following solves also some other issues:

1. The [0.0000] format is preceded by something that looks like misplaced color information, prefixes like <6>.
2. Make integers from floats.

It is inspired by this blog post.

#!/bin/sh                                                                                                               
# Translate dmesg timestamps to human readable format                                                                   

# uptime in seconds                                                                                                     
uptime=$(cut -d " " -f 1 /proc/uptime)                                                                                  

# remove fraction                                                                                                       
uptime=$(echo $uptime | cut -d "." -f1)                                                                                 

# run only if timestamps are enabled                                                                                    
if [ "Y" = "$(cat /sys/module/printk/parameters/time)" ]; then                                                          
  dmesg | sed "s/[^\[]*\[/\[/" | sed "s/^\[[ ]*\?\([0-9.]*\)\] \(.*\)/\\1 \\2/" | while read timestamp message; do      
    timestamp=$(echo $timestamp | cut -d "." -f1)                                                                       
    ts1=$(( $(busybox date +%s) - $uptime + $timestamp ))                                                               
    ts2=$(busybox date -d "@${ts1}")                                                                                    
    printf "[%s] %s\n" "$ts2" "$message"                                                                                
  done                                                                                                                  
else                                                                                                                    
  echo "Timestamps are disabled (/sys/module/printk/parameters/time)"                                                   
fi                                                                                                                      

Note, however, that this implementation is quite slow.

Answer 6

With the help of dr answer, I wrote a workaround that makes the conversion to put in your .bashrc. It won't break anything if you don't have any timestamp or already correct timestamps.

dmesg_with_human_timestamps () {
    $(type -P dmesg) "$@" | perl -w -e 'use strict;
        my ($uptime) = do { local @ARGV="/proc/uptime";<>}; ($uptime) = ($uptime =~ /^(\d+)\./);
        foreach my $line (<>) {
            printf( ($line=~/^\[\s*(\d+)\.\d+\](.+)/) ? ( "[%s]%s\n", scalar localtime(time - $uptime + $1), $2 ) : $line )
        }'
}
alias dmesg=dmesg_with_human_timestamps

Also, a good reading on the dmesg timestamp conversion logic & how to enable timestamps when there are none: https://supportcenter.checkpoint.com/supportcenter/portal?eventSubmit_doGoviewsolutiondetails=&solutionid=sk92677