Getting logs¶

• Table of contents
• Getting logs
  • Buffers
  • Using ADB
    • Retrieving a buffer from the Android logging subsystem
    • Retrieving the kernel message buffer
  • Using aLogcat
  • Submitting the logs
    • Encrypting logs

When some component misbehaves or stops working on Replicant, it is recommended to:

1. Get logs showing the issue
2. Open a ticket on our tracker to report the issue (New issue tab) or submit the logs to an existing issue that already describes the same misbehavior (Update at the bottom of the issue)

Buffers¶

The Android logging subsystem uses different log buffers: events, main, radio and system.
Generally speaking, when the issue you encountered concerned telephony, including data (3G), the buffer you want is radio. In any other case, that's the main buffer you want.

In some cases, the information provided by the Android log buffers is not sufficient and the message buffer of the Linux kernel is additionally required for investigating the issue.

There are various ways to obtain the logs:

Using ADB¶

First, you need to install ADB.

Retrieving a buffer from the Android logging subsystem¶

Display a buffer from the Android logging subsystem:

adb logcat -b BUFFER

To prepare a new issue report, you need to save the output to a file:

adb logcat -b BUFFER -d > path/to/file

Retrieving the kernel message buffer¶

Display the kernel message buffer:

adb shell dmesg

To prepare a new issue report, you need to save the output to a file:

adb shell dmesg > path/to/file

Using aLogcat¶

aLogcat is a (free) Android app that will collect logs and save them to a file, either regularly or when you press the Save button from the app menu.
You can set the desired buffer from the Preferences.

After saving the log, you can get it from a file stored in the alogcat folder on the root of storage.

Submitting the logs¶

You can simply attach the log file to the issue report.

Logs from the radio buffer can contain privacy-sensitive information. If you don't want to have this information publicly available on the issue tracker, you can encrypt the log, so only Replicant developers can view it. Encrypting the logs has the disadvantage that very likely nobody else will be able to contribute in order to solve the issue.

Encrypting logs¶

First, you need to retrieve the GPG keys of the active Replicant developers. They are listed on the People page. It is recommended to retrieve them using

gpg --recv-keys KEY_ID

and replacing KEY_ID with the listed key IDs. If you have issues retrieving a key of a developer, you can still continue and encrypt the log for the other developers.

Then, you can encrypt the log file:

gpg --recipient KEY_ID_1 --recipient KEY_ID_2 ... --encrypt LOG_FILE

Replace KEY_ID_1 and KEY_ID_2 with the key IDs of the developers and add more --recipient options replacing ... until the key IDs of all active developers are listed. Replace LOG_FILE with the path to the log file you want to encrypt. The command should produce a file with the same name as your log file, but with the file ending gpg. This is the encrypted log file. Attach this file to the issue report.

Replicant developers will not share publicly entire unencrypted logs, but they might include unencrypted snippets of the logs in the issue discussion if it helps to fix the issue. The developers will make sure that these snippets do not contain privacy-sensitive information or that all privacy-sensitive information was removed.