dynamically loaded, the runtime environment and the JIT are always
present, even if code is compiled ahead of time.
.PP
-The runtime loads ths specified
+The runtime loads the specified
.I file
and optionally passes
the
is an ECMA assembly. They typically have a .exe or .dll extension.
.PP
The runtime provides a number of configuration options for running
-applications, for developping and debugging, and for testing and
+applications, for developing and debugging, and for testing and
debugging the runtime itself.
+.SH PORTABILITY
+On Unix-based systems, Mono provides a mechanism to emulate the
+Windows-style file access, this includes providing a case insensitive
+view of the file system, directory separator mapping (from \\ to /) and
+stripping the drive letters.
+.PP
+This functionality is enabled by setting the
+.B MONO_IOMAP
+environment variable to one of
+.B all, drive
+and
+.B case.
+.PP
+See the description for
+.B MONO_IOMAP
+in the environment variables section for more details.
.SH RUNTIME OPTIONS
The following options are available:
.TP
.Sp
This pre-compiles the methods, but the original assembly is still
required to execute as this one contains the metadata and exception
-information which is not availble on the generated file. When
+information which is not available on the generated file. When
precompiling code, you might want to compile with all optimizations
(-O=all). Pre-compiled code is position independent code.
.Sp
-Pre compilation is just a mechanism to reduce startup time, and avoid
-just-in-time compilation costs. The original assembly must still be
-present, as the metadata is contained there.
+Pre compilation is just a mechanism to reduce startup time, increase
+code sharing across multiple mono processes and avoid just-in-time
+compilation program startup costs. The original assembly must still
+be present, as the metadata is contained there.
+.Sp
+AOT code typically can not be moved from one computer to another
+(CPU-specific optimizations that are detected at runtime) so you
+should not try to move the pre-generated assemblies or package the
+pre-generated assemblies for deployment.
+.Sp
+For more information about AOT, see: http://www.mono-project.com/AOT
.TP
.I "--config filename"
Load the specified configuration file instead of the default one(s).
specified in the MONO_CONFIG environment variable, if set. See the
mono-config(5) man page for details on the format of this file.
.TP
+.I "--desktop"
+Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for desktop
+applications. Currently this sets the GC system to avoid expanding
+the heap as much as possible at the expense of slowing down garbage
+collection a bit.
+.TP
.I "--help", "-h"
Displays usage instructions.
.TP
-.I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=mode"
+.I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=MODE"
MODE is a comma separated list of optimizations. They also allow
optimizations to be turned off by prefixing the optimization name with
a minus sign.
.Sp
+In general, Mono has been tuned to use the default set of flags,
+before using these flags for a deployment setting, you might want to
+actually measure the benefits of using them.
+.Sp
The following optimizations are implemented:
.nf
all Turn on all optimizations
copyprop Copy propagation
deadce Dead code elimination
linears Linear scan global reg allocation
- cmov Conditional moves
+ cmov Conditional moves [arch-dependency]
shared Emit per-domain code
sched Instruction scheduling
intrins Intrinsic method implementations
tailc Tail recursion and tail calls
loop Loop related optimizations
- fcmov Fast x86 FP compares
+ fcmov Fast x86 FP compares [arch-dependency]
leaf Leaf procedures optimizations
aot Usage of Ahead Of Time compiled code
precomp Precompile all methods before executing Main
abcrem Array bound checks removal
ssapre SSA based Partial Redundancy Elimination
+ sse2 SSE2 instructions on x86 [arch-dependency]
.fi
.Sp
For example, to enable all the optimization but dead code
.nf
-O=all,-deadce,-inline
.fi
+.Sp
+The flags that are flagged with [arch-dependency] indicate that the
+given option if used in combination with Ahead of Time compilation
+(--aot flag) would produce pre-compiled code that will depend on the
+current CPU and might not be safely moved to another computer.
+.TP
+.I "--runtime=VERSION"
+Mono supports different runtime versions. The version used depends on the program
+that is being run or on its configuration file (named program.exe.config). This option
+can be used to override such autodetection, by forcing a different runtime version
+to be used. Note that this should only be used to select a later compatible runtime
+version than the one the program was compiled against. A typical usage is for
+running a 1.1 program on a 2.0 version:
+.nf
+ mono --runtime=v2.0.50727 program.exe
+.fi
+.TP
+.I "--security", "--security=mode"
+Activate the security manager, a currently experimental feature in
+Mono and it is OFF by default. The new code verifier can be enabled
+with this option as well.
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.PP
+Using security without parameters is equivalent as calling it with the
+"cas" parameter.
+.PP
+The following modes are supported:
+.TP
+.I cas
+This allows mono to support declarative security attributes,
+e.g. execution of Code Access Security (CAS) or non-CAS demands.
+.TP
+.I core-clr
+Enables the core-clr security system, typically used for
+Moonlight/Silverlight applications. It provides a much simpler
+security system than CAS, see http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
+for more details and links to the descriptions of this new system.
+.TP
+.I validil
+Enables the new verifier and performs basic verification for code
+validity. In this mode, unsafe code and P/Invoke are allowed. This
+mode provides a better safety guarantee but it is still possible
+for managed code to crash Mono.
+.TP
+.I verifiable
+Enables the new verifier and performs full verification of the code
+being executed. It only allows verifiable code to be executed.
+Unsafe code is not allowed but P/Invoke is. This mode should
+not allow managed code to crash mono. The verification is not as
+strict as ECMA 335 standard in order to stay compatible with the MS
+runtime.
+.ne
+.RE
.TP
-.I "--security"
-Activate the security manager (experimental feature in 1.1). This allows
-mono to support declarative security attributes (e.g. execution of, CAS
-or non-CAS, security demands). The security manager is OFF by default
-(experimental).
+.I "--server"
+Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for server
+operations (currently, a no-op).
.TP
.I "-V", "--version"
-Prints JIT version information.
+Prints JIT version information (system configuration, release number
+and branch names if available).
.SH DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
The following options are used to help when developing a JITed application.
.TP
-.I "--debug"
+.I "--debug", "--debug=OPTIONS"
Turns on the debugging mode in the runtime. If an assembly was
compiled with debugging information, it will produce line number
information for stack traces.
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.PP
+The optional OPTIONS argument is a comma separated list of debugging
+options. These options are turned off by default since they generate
+much larger and slower code at runtime.
+.TP
+The following options are supported:
+.TP
+.I casts
+Produces a detailed error when throwing a InvalidCastException.
+.TP
+.I mdb-optimizations
+Disable some JIT optimizations which are usually only disabled when
+running inside the debugger. This can be helpful if you want to attach
+to the running process with mdb.
+.ne
+.RE
.TP
.I "--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]"
-Instructs the runtime to collect profiling information about execution
-times and memory allocation, and dump it at the end of the execution.
-If a profiler is not specified, the default profiler is used.
-.Sp
-Mono has a built-in profiler called `default' (and is also the default
-if no arguments are specified), but developers can write custom
-profilers as shared libraries. The shared library must be called
-`mono-profiler-NAME.so' where `NAME' is the name of your profiler.
-.Sp
-For a sample of the custom profilers look in the Mono source tree for
-in the samples/profiler.c.
+Turns on profiling. For more information about profiling applications
+and code coverage see the sections "PROFILING" and "CODE COVERAGE"
+below.
+.TP
+.I "--trace[=expression]"
+Shows method names as they are invoked. By default all methods are
+traced.
.Sp
-The
-.I profiler_args
-is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself.
+The trace can be customized to include or exclude methods, classes or
+assemblies. A trace expression is a comma separated list of targets,
+each target can be prefixed with a minus sign to turn off a particular
+target. The words `program', `all' and `disabled' have special
+meaning. `program' refers to the main program being executed, and
+`all' means all the method calls.
.Sp
-The default profiler is called `default' and it accepts `alloc' to
-profile memory consumption by the application; `time' to profile the
-time spent on each routine and `stat' to perform sample statistical
-profiling. If no options are provided the default is `alloc,time'.
+The `disabled' option is used to start up with tracing disabled. It
+can be enabled at a later point in time in the program by sending the
+SIGUSR2 signal to the runtime.
.Sp
-For example:
+Assemblies are specified by their name, for example, to trace all
+calls in the System assembly, use:
.nf
- mono --profile program.exe
+
+ mono --trace=System app.exe
+
.fi
-.Sp
-That will run the program with the default profiler and will do time
-and allocation profiling.
-.Sp
+Classes are specified with the T: prefix. For example, to trace all
+calls to the System.String class, use:
.nf
- mono --profile=default:stat,alloc program.exe
+
+ mono --trace=T:System.String app.exe
+
.fi
-Will do sample statistical profiling and allocation profiling on
-program.exe.
-.TP
+And individual methods are referenced with the M: prefix, and the
+standard method notation:
.nf
- mono --profile=custom program.exe
+
+ mono --trace=M:System.Console:WriteLine app.exe
+
+.fi
+As previously noted, various rules can be specified at once:
+.nf
+
+ mono --trace=T:System.String,T:System.Random app.exe
+
+.fi
+You can exclude pieces, the next example traces calls to
+System.String except for the System.String:Concat method.
+.nf
+
+ mono --trace=T:System.String,-M:System.String:Concat
+
+.fi
+Finally, namespaces can be specified using the N: prefix:
+.nf
+
+ mono --trace=N:System.Xml
+
.fi
-.Sp
-In the above sample Mono will load the user defined profiler from the
-shared library `mono-profiler-custom.so'.
.SH JIT MAINTAINER OPTIONS
The maintainer options are only used by those developing the runtime
itself, and not typically of interest to runtime users or developers.
.TP
+.I "--break method"
+Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
+(namespace.class:methodname). Use `Main' as method name to insert a
+breakpoint on the application's main method.
+.TP
+.I "--breakonex"
+Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions. This allows you to debug your
+application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
+.TP
.I "--compile name"
This compiles a method (namespace.name:methodname), this is used for
testing the compiler performance or to examine the output of the code
Instruct the runtime on the number of times that the method specified
by --compile (or all the methods if --compileall is used) to be
compiled. This is used for testing the code generator performance.
+.TP
+.I "--stats"
+Displays information about the work done by the runtime during the
+execution of an application.
+.TP
+.I "--wapi=hps|semdel"
+Perform maintenance of the process shared data.
+.Sp
+semdel will delete the global semaphore.
+.Sp
+hps will list the currently used handles.
.TP
.I "-v", "--verbose"
Increases the verbosity level, each time it is listed, increases the
verbosity level to include more information (including, for example,
a disassembly of the native code produced, code selector info etc.).
-.TP
-.I "--break method"
-Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
-(namespace.class:methodname). Use `Main' as method name to insert a
-breakpoint on the application's main method.
-.TP
-.I "--breakonex"
-Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions. This allows you to debug your
-application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
-.TP
-.I "--trace[=expression]"
-Shows method names as they are invoked. By default all methods are
-traced.
+.SH PROFILING
+The mono runtime includes a profiler that can be used to explore
+various performance related problems in your application. The
+profiler is activated by passing the --profile command line argument
+to the Mono runtime, the format is:
+.nf
+
+ --profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]
+
+.fi
+Mono has a built-in profiler called 'default' (and is also the default
+if no arguments are specified), but developers can write custom
+profilers, see the section "CUSTOM PROFILERS" for more details.
+.PP
+If a
+.I profiler
+is not specified, the default profiler is used.
.Sp
-The trace can be customized to include or exclude methods, classes or
-assemblies. A trace expression is a comma separated list of targets,
-each target can be prefixed with a minus sign to turn off a particular
-target. The words `program' and `all' have special meaning.
-`program' refers to the main program being executed, and `all' means
-all the method calls.
+The
+.I profiler_args
+is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself.
.Sp
-Assemblies are specified by their name, for example, to trace all
-calls in the System assembly, use:
+The default profiler accepts the following options 'alloc' to profile
+memory consumption by the application; 'time' to profile the time
+spent on each routine; 'jit' to collect time spent JIT-compiling methods
+and 'stat' to perform sample statistical profiling.
+If no options are provided the default is 'alloc,time,jit'.
+.PP
+By default the
+profile data is printed to stdout: to change this, use the 'file=filename'
+option to output the data to filename.
+.Sp
+For example:
.nf
- mono --trace=System app.exe
+ mono --profile program.exe
.fi
-Classes are specified with the T: prefix. For example, to trace all
-calls to the System.String class, use:
+.Sp
+That will run the program with the default profiler and will do time
+and allocation profiling.
+.Sp
.nf
- mono --trace=T:System.String app.exe
+ mono --profile=default:stat,alloc,file=prof.out program.exe
.fi
-And individual methods are referenced with the M: prefix, and the
-standar method notation:
+Will do sample statistical profiling and allocation profiling on
+program.exe. The profile data is put in prof.out.
+.Sp
+Note that the statistical profiler has a very low overhead and should
+be the preferred profiler to use (for better output use the full path
+to the mono binary when running and make sure you have installed the
+addr2line utility that comes from the binutils package).
+.SH PROFILERS
+There are a number of external profilers that have been developed for
+Mono, we will update this section to contain the profilers.
+.PP
+The heap Shot profiler can track all live objects, and references to
+these objects, and includes a GUI tool, this is our recommended
+profiler.
+To install you must download the profiler
+from Mono's SVN:
+.nf
+ svn co svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/heap-shot
+ cd heap-shot
+ ./autogen
+ make
+ make install
+.fi
+.PP
+See the included documentation for details on using it.
+.PP
+The Live Type profiler shows at every GC iteration all of the live
+objects of a given type. To install you must download the profiler
+from Mono's SVN:
+.nf
+ svn co svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/heap-prof
+ cd heap-prof
+ ./autogen
+ make
+ make install
+.fi
+.PP
+To use the profiler, execute:
+.nf
+ mono --profile=desc-heap program.exe
+.fi
+.PP
+The output of this profiler looks like this:
+.nf
+ Checkpoint at 102 for heap-resize
+ System.MonoType : 708
+ System.Threading.Thread : 352
+ System.String : 3230
+ System.String[] : 104
+ Gnome.ModuleInfo : 112
+ System.Object[] : 160
+ System.Collections.Hashtable : 96
+ System.Int32[] : 212
+ System.Collections.Hashtable+Slot[] : 296
+ System.Globalization.CultureInfo : 108
+ System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo : 144
+.fi
+.PP
+The first line describes the iteration number for the GC, in this case
+checkpoint 102.
+.PP
+Then on each line the type is displayed as well as the number of bytes
+that are being consumed by live instances of this object.
+.PP
+The AOT profiler is used to feed back information to the AOT compiler
+about how to order code based on the access patterns for pages. To
+use it, use:
+.nf
+ mono --profile=aot program.exe
+.fi
+The output of this profile can be fed back into Mono's AOT compiler to
+order the functions on the disk to produce precompiled images that
+have methods in sequential pages.
+.PP
+The
+.I logging profiler
+will eventually replace the default one. It is a
+"general purpose" profiler, which can report method execution time,
+allocations, jit time, and can also work in statistical mode. You invoke
+it with:
+.nf
+ mono --profile=logging program.exe
+.fi
+Its main characteristic is that it does not print the profiling data
+at the end of the program execution, and in fact it does not elaborate
+the events at all; instead, it logs them into a file periodically
+during the program execution. The file is binary, and encoded as packed
+as possible, so to see the data you must use a decoder program, which
+you can find in svn in the "Mono.Profiler" module.
+.PP
+Some examples: to use the statistical profiler:
+.nf
+ mono --profile=logging:s program.exe
+.fi
+To profile method enter-exit and allocations:
+.nf
+ mono --profile=logging:c,a program.exe
+.fi
+To profile method enter-exit and jit time, and write the data to "mydata.mprof":
+.nf
+ mono --profile=logging:c,j,o=mydata.mprof program.exe
+.fi
+Then you would need to invoke the decoder on "mydata.mprof" to see the
+profiling results.
+.PP
+In its current state, this profiler can also perform heap analysis (like
+heap-shot), and the decoder is already able to read the data, however
+the user interface for this feature has not yet been written (which means
+that the data is not printed by the decoder).
+.PP
+More explanations are provided here: "http://www.mono-project.com/LoggingProfiler".
+.PP
+The whole set of options accepted by the logging profiler is the following:
+.TP
+.I output
+(or "out" or "o", default "o=profiler-log.prof"): the name of the output file.
+.TP
+.I jit
+(or "j"): collect information about time spent jitting methods.
+.TP
+.I allocations
+(or "alloc" or "a"): collect information about each allocation (object class
+and size).
+.TP
+.I enter-leave
+(or "calls" or "c"): measure the time spent inside each method call.
+.TP
+.I statistical
+(or "stat" or "s"): do statistical profiling.
+.TP
+.I unreachable
+(or "free" or "f"): enable garbage collection profiling in its lightweight
+form (at each collection, the list if unreachable objects is dumped, and
+for each object the class and size is provided, which together with the
+basic allocation information allows to compute the heap size broken down
+by class).
+.TP
+.I heap-shot
+(or "heap" or "h"): enable full heap profiling, in this case at each
+collection a full heap snapshot is dumped to disk.
+.TP
+.I gc-commands
+(or "gc-c" or "gcc", default none, file name required): the name of the
+file that controls the heap snapshot dumps.
+.TP
+.I gc-dumps
+(or "gc-d" or "gcd", default "gcd=0"): the initial number of heap
+snapshots to dump (if the control file is not used).
+.TP
+.I per-thread-buffer-size
+(or "tbs", default "tbs=10000"): the number of events that a thread buffer
+can hold, when it's full it is written to disk (the writing thread is the
+one that filled its buffer).
+.TP
+.I statistical-thread-buffer-size
+(or "sbs", default "sbs=10000"): the number of statistical samples that
+are hold in memory before they are dumped to disk (the system does
+double-buffering and the statistical samples are written by a helper
+thread).
+.TP
+.I write-buffer-size
+(or "wbs", default "wbs=1024"): size in bytes of the internal write
+buffers.
+.SH CUSTOM PROFILERS
+Mono provides a mechanism for loading other profiling modules which in
+the form of shared libraries. These profiling modules can hook up to
+various parts of the Mono runtime to gather information about the code
+being executed.
+.PP
+To use a third party profiler you must pass the name of the profiler
+to Mono, like this:
.nf
- mono --trace=M:System.Console:WriteLine app.exe
+ mono --profile=custom program.exe
.fi
-As previously noted, various rules can be specified at once:
+.PP
+In the above sample Mono will load the user defined profiler from the
+shared library `mono-profiler-custom.so'. This profiler module must
+be on your dynamic linker library path.
+.PP
+A list of other third party profilers is available from Mono's web
+site (www.mono-project.com/Performance_Tips)
+.PP
+Custom profiles are written as shared libraries. The shared library
+must be called `mono-profiler-NAME.so' where `NAME' is the name of
+your profiler.
+.PP
+For a sample of how to write your own custom profiler look in the
+Mono source tree for in the samples/profiler.c.
+.SH CODE COVERAGE
+Mono ships with a code coverage module. This module is activated by
+using the Mono --profile=cov option. The format is:
+.I "--profile=cov[:assembly-name[/namespace]] test-suite.exe"
+.PP
+By default code coverage will default to all the assemblies loaded,
+you can limit this by specifying the assembly name, for example to
+perform code coverage in the routines of your program use, for example
+the following command line limits the code coverage to routines in the
+"demo" assembly:
.nf
- mono --trace=T:System.String,T:System.Random app.exe
+ mono --profile=cov:demo demo.exe
.fi
-You can exclude pieces, the next example traces calls to
-System.String except for the System.String:Concat method.
+.PP
+Notice that the
+.I assembly-name
+does not include the extension.
+.PP
+You can further restrict the code coverage output by specifying a
+namespace:
.nf
- mono --trace=T:System.String,-M:System.String:Concat
+ mono --profile=cov:demo/My.Utilities demo.exe
.fi
-Finally, namespaces can be specified using the N: prefix:
+.PP
+Which will only perform code coverage in the given assembly and
+namespace.
+.PP
+Typical output looks like this:
.nf
- mono --trace=N:System.Xml
+ Not covered: Class:.ctor ()
+ Not covered: Class:A ()
+ Not covered: Driver:.ctor ()
+ Not covered: Driver:method ()
+ Partial coverage: Driver:Main ()
+ offset 0x000a
.fi
+.PP
+The offsets displayed are IL offsets.
+.PP
+A more powerful coverage tool is available in the module `monocov'.
+See the monocov(1) man page for details.
.SH DEBUGGING
+It is possible to obtain a stack trace of all the active threads in
+Mono by sending the QUIT signal to Mono, you can do this from the
+command line, like this:
+.nf
+
+ kill -QUIT pid
+
+.fi
+Where pid is the Process ID of the Mono process you want to examine.
+The process will continue running afterwards, but its state is not
+guaranteed.
+.PP
+.B Important:
+this is a last-resort mechanism for debugging applications and should
+not be used to monitor or probe a production application. The
+integrity of the runtime after sending this signal is not guaranteed
+and the application might crash or terminate at any given point
+afterwards.
.PP
You can use the MONO_LOG_LEVEL and MONO_LOG_MASK environment variables
to get verbose debugging output about the execution of your
.PP
The following is a common use to track down problems with P/Invoke:
.nf
+
$ MONO_LOG_LEVEL="debug" MONO_LOG_MASK="dll" mono glue.exe
+
.fi
.PP
.SH SERIALIZATION
Mono's XML serialization engine by default will use a reflection-based
-approach to serialize which might be slow for continous processing
+approach to serialize which might be slow for continuous processing
(web service applications). The serialization engine will determine
when a class must use a hand-tuned serializer based on a few
parameters and if needed it will produce a customized C# serializer
serializer, or an integer that is the minimum number of uses before
the runtime will produce a custom serializer (0 will produce a
custom serializer on the first access, 50 will produce a serializer on
-the 50th use).
+the 50th use). Mono will fallback to an interpreted serializer if the
+serializer generation somehow fails. This behavior can be disabled
+by setting the option
+.B `nofallback'
+(for example: MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS=0,nofallback).
.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
.TP
.I "GC_DONT_GC"
assemblies on demand and store the result into a cache in
~/.mono/aot-cache.
.TP
-.I "MONO_ASPNET_NODELETE"
-If set to any value, temporary source files generated by ASP.NET support
-classes will not be removed. They will be kept in the user's temporary
-directory.
-.TP
.I "MONO_CFG_DIR"
If set, this variable overrides the default system configuration directory
($PREFIX/etc). It's used to locate machine.config file.
.TP
+.I "MONO_COM"
+Sets the style of COM interop. If the value of this variable is "MS"
+Mono will use string marhsalling routines from the liboleaut32 for the
+BSTR type library, any other values will use the mono-builtin BSTR
+string marshalling.
+.TP
.I "MONO_CONFIG"
If set, this variable overrides the default runtime configuration file
($PREFIX/etc/mono/config). The --config command line options overrides the
.TP
.I "MONO_DEBUG"
If set, enables some features of the runtime useful for debugging.
-Currently this enables two features: stack traces when interrupting
-the process from the shell; Visible error messages on assembly
-loading and also to track problems with delegates that are released,
-but a reference is kept in unmanaged code.
+This variable should contain a comma separated list of debugging options.
+Currently, the following options are supported:
+.RS
+.ne 8
.TP
-The stack tracing option makes the runtime display the stack traces
-for all the threads running and exit when mono is interrupted (Ctrl-C)
-and print some additional messages on error conditions. It may not
-exit cleanly. Use at your own risk.
+.I "collect-pagefault-stats"
+Collects information about pagefaults. This is used internally to
+track the number of page faults produced to load metadata. To display
+this information you must use this option with "--stats" command line option.
.TP
-Also, this option will leak delegate trampolines that are no longer
+.I "handle-sigint"
+Captures the interrupt signal (Control-C) and displays a stack trace
+when pressed. Useful to find out where the program is executing at a
+given point. This only displays the stack trace of a single thread.
+.TP
+.I "keep-delegates"
+This option will leak delegate trampolines that are no longer
referenced as to present the user with more information about a
-delegate missuse. Basically a delegate instance might be created,
+delegate misuse. Basically a delegate instance might be created,
passed to unmanaged code, and no references kept in managed code,
which will garbage collect the code. With this option it is possible
to track down the source of the problems.
.TP
+.I "break-on-unverified"
+If this variable is set, when the Mono VM runs into a verification
+problem, instead of throwing an exception it will break into the
+debugger. This is useful when debugging verifier problems
+.TP
+.I "no-gdb-backtrace"
+This option will disable the GDB backtrace emitted by the runtime
+after a SIGSEGV or SIGABRT in unmanaged code.
+.ne
+.RE
+.TP
.I "MONO_DISABLE_AIO"
If set, tells mono NOT to attempt using native asynchronous I/O services. In
that case, a default select/poll implementation is used. Currently only epoll()
is supported.
.TP
-.I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM"
-If this variable is set, it disables the shared memory part of the
-Windows I/O Emulation layer, and handles (files, events, mutexes,
-pipes) will not be shared across processes. Process creation is also
-disabled. This option is only available on Unix.
+.I "MONO_DISABLE_MANAGED_COLLATION"
+If this environment variable is `yes', the runtime uses unmanaged
+collation (which actually means no culture-sensitive collation). It
+internally disables managed collation functionality invoked via the
+members of System.Globalization.CompareInfo class. Collation is
+enabled by default.
.TP
.I "MONO_EGD_SOCKET"
For platforms that do not otherwise have a way of obtaining random bytes
this can be set to the name of a file system socket on which an egd or
prngd daemon is listening.
.TP
+.I "MONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE"
+Sets the type of event log provider to use (for System.Diagnostics.EventLog).
+.Sp
+Possible values are:
+.RS
+.TP
+.I "local[:path]"
+.Sp
+Persists event logs and entries to the local file system.
+.Sp
+The directory in which to persist the event logs, event sources and entries
+can be specified as part of the value.
+.Sp
+If the path is not explicitly set, it defaults to "/var/lib/mono/eventlog"
+on unix and "%APPDATA%\mono\eventlog" on Windows.
+.TP
+.I "win32"
+.Sp
+.B
+Uses the native win32 API to write events and registers event logs and
+event sources in the registry. This is only available on Windows.
+.Sp
+On Unix, the directory permission for individual event log and event source
+directories is set to 777 (with +t bit) allowing everyone to read and write
+event log entries while only allowing entries to be deleted by the user(s)
+that created them.
+.TP
+.I "null"
+.Sp
+Silently discards any events.
+.ne
+.PP
+The default is "null" on Unix (and versions of Windows before NT), and
+"win32" on Windows NT (and higher).
+.RE
+.TP
.I "MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS"
If set, contains a colon-separated list of text encodings to try when
turning externally-generated text (e.g. command-line arguments or
conversion ending the search. When writing external text (e.g. new
filenames or arguments to new processes) the first item in this list
is used, or UTF-8 if the environment variable is not set.
+.IP
+The problem with using MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS to process your
+files is that it results in a problem: although its possible to get
+the right file name it is not necessarily possible to open the file.
+In general if you have problems with encodings in your filenames you
+should use the "convmv" program.
.TP
.I "MONO_GAC_PREFIX"
Provides a prefix the runtime uses to look for Global Assembly Caches.
install. Or to the directory provided in the gacutil /gacdir command. Example:
.B /home/username/.mono:/usr/local/mono/
.TP
-.I "MONO_LOG_LEVEL"
-The logging level, possible values are `error', `critical', `warning',
-`message', `info' and `debug'. See the DEBUGGING section for more
-details.
-.TP
-.I "MONO_LOG_MASK"
-Controls the domain of the Mono runtime that logging will apply to.
-If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
-"asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
-(garbage collector), "cfg" (config file loader), "aot" (precompiler) and "all".
-The default value is "all". Changing the mask value allows you to display only
-messages for a certain component. You can use multiple masks by comma
-separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
-messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
+.I "MONO_IOMAP"
+Enables some filename rewriting support to assist badly-written
+applications that hard-code Windows paths. Set to a colon-separated
+list of "drive" to strip drive letters, or "case" to do
+case-insensitive file matching in every directory in a path. "all"
+enables all rewriting methods. (Backslashes are always mapped to
+slashes if this variable is set to a valid option.)
+.fi
+.Sp
+For example, this would work from the shell:
+.nf
+
+ MONO_IOMAP=drive:case
+ export MONO_IOMAP
+
+.fi
+If you are using mod_mono to host your web applications, you can use
+the
+.B MonoSetEnv
+directive, like this:
+.nf
+
+ MonoSetEnv MONO_IOMAP=all
+
+.fi
.TP
.I "MONO_MANAGED_WATCHER"
-If set to any value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
-managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use FAM under
-Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling back to the
-managed implementation on error.
+If set to "disabled", System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use a file watcher
+implementation which silently ignores all the watching requests.
+If set to any other value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
+managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use inotify, FAM,
+Gamin, kevent under Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling
+back to the managed implementation on error.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_NO_SMP"
+If set causes the mono process to be bound to a single processor. This may be
+useful when debugging or working around race conditions.
.TP
.I "MONO_PATH"
-Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library files.
+Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library
+files. This is a tool convenient for debugging applications, but
+should not be used by deployed applications as it breaks the assembly
+loader in subtle ways.
+.Sp
Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on unix). Example:
.B /home/username/lib:/usr/local/mono/lib
+.Sp
+Alternative solutions to MONO_PATH include: installing libraries into
+the Global Assembly Cache (see gacutil(1)) or having the dependent
+libraries side-by-side with the main executable.
+.Sp
+For a complete description of recommended practices for application
+deployment, see the
+http://www.mono-project.com/Guidelines:Application_Deployment page.
.TP
.I "MONO_RTC"
Experimental RTC support in the statistical profiler: if the user has
the permission, more accurate statistics are gathered. The MONO_RTC
-value must be restricted to what the linux rtc allows: power of two
+value must be restricted to what the Linux rtc allows: power of two
from 64 to 8192 Hz. To enable higher frequencies like 4096 Hz, run as root:
.nf
+
echo 4096 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq
+
.fi
.Sp
For example:
.nf
+
MONO_RTC=4096 mono --profiler=default:stat program.exe
+
.fi
.TP
.I "MONO_NO_TLS"
This is the directory where the Windows I/O Emulation layer stores its
shared state data (files, events, mutexes, pipes). By default Mono
will store the ".wapi" directory in the users's home directory.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_SHARED_HOSTNAME"
+Uses the string value of this variable as a replacement for the host name when
+creating file names in the ".wapi" directory. This helps if the host name of
+your machine is likely to be changed when a mono application is running or if
+you have a .wapi directory shared among several different computers.
+.Sp
+Mono typically uses the hostname to create the files that are used to
+share state across multiple Mono processes. This is done to support
+home directories that might be shared over the network.
.TP
-.I "MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU"
-Sets the maximum number of threads in the threadpool per CPU. The default is
-50 for non-windows systems and 25 for windows.
+.I "MONO_STRICT_IO_EMULATION"
+If set, extra checks are made during IO operations. Currently, this
+includes only advisory locks around file writes.
.TP
-.I "MONO_TRACE"
-If set, enables the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener, which will
-print the output of the System.Diagnostics Trace and Debug classes.
-It can be set to a filename, and to Console.Out or Console.Error to display
-output to standard output or standard error, respectively.
-See the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener documentation for more
-information.
+.I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM"
+If set, disables the shared memory files used for cross-process
+handles: process have only private handles. This means that process
+and thread handles are not available to other processes, and named
+mutexes, named events and named semaphores are not visible between
+processes.
+.Sp
+This is can also be enabled by default by passing the
+"--disable-shared-handles" option to configure.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_THEME"
+The name of the theme to be used by Windows.Forms. Available themes today
+include "clearlooks", "nice" and "win32".
+.Sp
+The default is "win32".
+.TP
+.I "MONO_TLS_SESSION_CACHE_TIMEOUT"
+The time, in seconds, that the SSL/TLS session cache will keep it's entry to
+avoid a new negotiation between the client and a server. Negotiation are very
+CPU intensive so an application-specific custom value may prove useful for
+small embedded systems.
+.Sp
+The default is 180 seconds.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU"
+The maximum number of threads in the general threadpool will be
+20 + (MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU * number of CPUs). The default value for this
+variable is 5.
.TP
.I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS"
Controls the threshold for the XmlSerializer to produce a custom
custom serializer or a number to indicate when the XmlSerializer
should start serializing. The default value is 50, which means that
the a custom serializer will be produced on the 50th use.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_DEBUG"
+Set this value to 1 to prevent the serializer from removing the
+temporary files that are created for fast serialization; This might
+be useful when debugging.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_ASPNET_INHIBIT_SETTINGSMAP"
+Mono contains a feature which allows modifying settings in the .config files shipped
+with Mono by using config section mappers. The mappers and the mapping rules are
+defined in the $prefix/etc/mono/2.0/settings.map file and, optionally, in the
+settings.map file found in the top-level directory of your ASP.NET application.
+Both files are read by System.Web on application startup, if they are found at the
+above locations. If you don't want the mapping to be performed you can set this
+variable in your environment before starting the application and no action will
+be taken.
+.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES FOR DEBUGGING
+.TP
+.I "MONO_ASPNET_NODELETE"
+If set to any value, temporary source files generated by ASP.NET support
+classes will not be removed. They will be kept in the user's temporary
+directory.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_LOG_LEVEL"
+The logging level, possible values are `error', `critical', `warning',
+`message', `info' and `debug'. See the DEBUGGING section for more
+details.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_LOG_MASK"
+Controls the domain of the Mono runtime that logging will apply to.
+If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
+"asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
+(garbage collector), "cfg" (config file loader), "aot" (precompiler) and "all".
+The default value is "all". Changing the mask value allows you to display only
+messages for a certain component. You can use multiple masks by comma
+separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
+messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
+.TP
+.I "MONO_TRACE"
+Used for runtime tracing of method calls. The format of the comma separated
+trace options is:
+.nf
+
+ [-]M:method name
+ [-]N:namespace
+ [-]T:class name
+ [-]all
+ [-]program
+ disabled Trace output off upon start.
+
+.fi
+You can toggle trace output on/off sending a SIGUSR2 signal to the program.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_TRACE_LISTENER"
+If set, enables the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener, which will
+print the output of the System.Diagnostics Trace and Debug classes.
+It can be set to a filename, and to Console.Out or Console.Error to display
+output to standard output or standard error, respectively. If it's set to
+Console.Out or Console.Error you can append an optional prefix that will
+be used when writing messages like this: Console.Error:MyProgramName.
+See the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener documentation for more
+information.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_XEXCEPTIONS"
+This throws an exception when a X11 error is encountered; by default a
+message is displayed but execution continues
+.TP
+.I "MONO_XSYNC"
+This is used in the System.Windows.Forms implementation when running
+with the X11 backend. This is used to debug problems in Windows.Forms
+as it forces all of the commands send to X11 server to be done
+synchronously. The default mode of operation is asynchronous which
+makes it hard to isolate the root of certain problems.
+.TP
+.I "MONO_GENERIC_SHARING"
+This environment variable is completely unsupported, don't use it.
+This controls for which classes to enable generic code sharing in
+principle. Permissible values are "all", "corlib" and "none". The
+default is "corlib", meaning that sharing can only happen for corlib
+classes. Note that to enable generation of shared code the "gshared"
+compiler option has to be set as well.
+.SH VALGRIND
+If you want to use Valgrind, you will find the file `mono.supp'
+useful, it contains the suppressions for the GC which trigger
+incorrect warnings. Use it like this:
+.nf
+ valgrind --suppressions=mono.supp mono ...
+.fi
+.SH DTRACE
+On some platforms, Mono can expose a set of DTrace probes (also known
+as user-land statically defined, USDT Probes).
+.TP
+They are defined in the file `mono.d'.
+.TP
+.B ves-init-begin, ves-init-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of runtime initialization.
+.TP
+.B method-compile-begin, method-compile-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of method compilation.
+The probe arguments are class name, method name and signature,
+and in case of method-compile-end success or failure of compilation.
+.TP
+.B gc-begin, gc-end
+.Sp
+Begin and end of Garbage Collection.
+.TP
+To verify the availability of the probes, run:
+.nf
+ dtrace -P mono'$target' -l -c mono
+.fi
.SH FILES
On Unix assemblies are loaded from the installation lib directory. If you set
`prefix' to /usr, the assemblies will be located in /usr/lib. On
Windows, the assemblies are loaded from the directory where mono and
mint live.
-.PP
-~/.mono/aot-cache
-.PP
+.TP
+.B ~/.mono/aot-cache
+.Sp
The directory for the ahead-of-time compiler demand creation
assemblies are located.
-.PP
-/etc/mono/config, ~/.mono/config
-.PP
+.TP
+.B /etc/mono/config, ~/.mono/config
+.Sp
Mono runtime configuration file. See the mono-config(5) manual page
for more information.
-.PP
-~/.config/.mono/certs, /usr/share/.mono/certs
-.PP
+.TP
+.B ~/.config/.mono/certs, /usr/share/.mono/certs
+.Sp
Contains Mono certificate stores for users / machine. See the certmgr(1)
-manual page for more information on managing certificate stores.
-.PP
-~/.config/.mono/keypairs, /usr/share/.mono/keypairs
-.PP
+manual page for more information on managing certificate stores and
+the mozroots(1) page for information on how to import the Mozilla root
+certificates into the Mono certificate store.
+.TP
+.B ~/.mono/assemblies/ASSEMBLY/ASSEMBLY.config
+.Sp
+Files in this directory allow a user to customize the configuration
+for a given system assembly, the format is the one described in the
+mono-config(5) page.
+.TP
+.B ~/.config/.mono/keypairs, /usr/share/.mono/keypairs
+.Sp
Contains Mono cryptographic keypairs for users / machine. They can be
accessed by using a CspParameters object with DSACryptoServiceProvider
and RSACryptoServiceProvider classes.
-.PP
-~/.config/.isolatedstorage, ~/.local/share/.isolatedstorage, /usr/share/.isolatedstorage
-.PP
+.TP
+.B ~/.config/.isolatedstorage, ~/.local/share/.isolatedstorage, /usr/share/.isolatedstorage
+.Sp
Contains Mono isolated storage for non-roaming users, roaming users and
local machine. Isolated storage can be accessed using the classes from
the System.IO.IsolatedStorage namespace.
+.TP
+.B <assembly>.config
+.Sp
+Configuration information for individual assemblies is loaded by the
+runtime from side-by-side files with the .config files, see the
+http://www.mono-project.com/Config for more information.
+.TP
+.B Web.config, web.config
+.Sp
+ASP.NET applications are configured through these files, the
+configuration is done on a per-directory basis. For more information
+on this subject see the http://www.mono-project.com/Config_system.web
+page.
.SH MAILING LISTS
-Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list for details.
+Mailing lists are listed at the
+http://www.mono-project.com/Mailing_Lists
.SH WEB SITE
-Visit: http://www.mono-project.com for details
+http://www.mono-project.com
.SH SEE ALSO
-.BR mcs(1), mint(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), certmgr(1).
+.PP
+certmgr(1), mcs(1), monocov(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), mozroots(1), xsp(1).
+.PP
+For more information on AOT:
+http://www.mono-project.com/AOT
.PP
For ASP.NET-related documentation, see the xsp(1) manual page
projects / mono.git / blobdiff