Logging

Source

Logging on webOS is handled by the PmLogDaemon service. It is similar to most other system logging daemons. Most log messages are dumped into /var/log/messages or /var/log/legacy-log, though some are routed into different paths—see configuration in /etc/pmlog.d/.

By default on production webOS, only messages of certain types from specific sources may be logged to a file. Allowed messages are configured in /etc/PmLogDaemon/whitelist.txt.

You can disable log whitelisting by executing certain luna calls:

# webOS 4.x+
luna-send -n 1 -f luna://com.webos.service.config/setConfigs '{"configs":{"system.collectDevLogs":true}}'

# webOS 3.x and older
luna-send -n 1 -f 'luna://com.webos.pmlogd/setdevlogstatus' '{"recordDevLogs":true}'

Then log levels can be adjusted using PmLogCtl:

# List all contexts. These only show up after a first message on a specific
# context.
PmLogCtl show

# Adjust log level
PmLogCtl set WAM debug

# Bulk adjust
PmLogCtl set '*' none

Logs can be viewed by running:

tail -F /var/log/messages

Keep in mind that most log files (including /var/log/messages) are rotated, and therefore setting too high of a logging level may cause you to miss messages (even when using the -F flag).

PmLogLib stub

Alternatively (on non-rooted devices) a PmLogLib library stub can be used that will print out logs to standard output.

Crash logs

Crash logs are dumped into /var/log/reports/librdx/ or /tmp/faultmanager/crash/. These are gzipped text files containing process information, memory maps, backtraces, and some memory dumps. These are automatically reported to LG unless rdxd is blocked (as Homebrew Channel does on startup).

Crashes may also cause alert popups on screen if the system is running in DEBUG mode.

Crash log dumping can be disabled by setting the SEGFAULT_SIGNALS environment variable to an empty string before launch, like so:

SEGFAULT_SIGNALS= ./buggy-binary

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