As of LTTng v2.4, we can now process traces while they are being recorded (called live-tracing). LTTngtop can read live traces either in the ncurses GUI or in text mode. In order to use this feature, start by creating a live session with at least the events and contexts required for LTTngtop (see the manpage for that). A simple script to do the basic setup is available in utils/create-live-session.sh Once the session is created, you can list the sessions established on the relay with : $ lttngtop -r net://relaydhostname And attach to a session with $ lttngtop -r net://relaydhostname/host/ A few seconds later, you should begin to see your live trace being displayed in lttngtop gui. To use the textdump feature, use the -t (and see --help for more options). You can also use the new lttngtrace provided by lttngtop which does all the setup for a live trace in textdump on localhost. EXPERIMENTAL : In order to use the (beta) MMAP live tracing features of LttngTop, you need these branches : git clone -b lttngtop-live git://git.dorsal.polymtl.ca/~jdesfossez/lttng-tools git clone -b lttngtop-live git://git.dorsal.polymtl.ca/~jdesfossez/babeltrace The only difference between these branches and the master branch is that they export an additional library that is used by lttngtop to do live tracing. You have to compile and install lttng-tools before babeltrace since there are dependencies on the library exposed by this special lttng-tools in babeltrace for live mmap buffer consuming. Then you can compile and use the live branch of LttngTop : git clone -b live git://git.lttng.org/lttngtop.git Once everything is installed, you can start as root lttng-sessiond and use lttngtop (as root or from a user part of the "tracing" group). Note: if lttng-sessiond has been used to record a trace before starting lttngtop (normal lttng use-case), you need to restart it because it automatically spawned a consumer that prevents lttngtop from registering its own consumer. The same applies when you finish using lttngtop, you need to restart the lttng-sessiond daemon to allow others to record traces again. This is a know problem of integration that will be fixed.