Input only recording and playback issues

[fossxplorer]

According to Tlog config file, we can choose to enable and disable the following, among others:

 "log": {
        // If true, user input is logged.                                                                                                                    
        // "input" : false,                                                                                                                                  
        "input" : true,
        

        // If true, terminal output is logged.                                                                                                               
        // "output" :true,                                                                                                                                  
        "output" : false,

        // If true, terminal window size changes are logged.                                                                                                 
        // "window" : true                                                                                                                                   
    },

By specifying to only record input, the system is unable to play back. The following gives nothing:

tlog-play --lax -f   -r journal -M TLOG_REC=cd4263b8165144e2952752446d11b521-46b2-283bce3a

But it seems the inputs are actually recorded as it can be seen from journalctl.

Why do i see playback issues without output recording?

[spbnick]

@fossxplorer, at the moment input playback is not supported on the terminal. That will likely require embedding a terminal emulator into tlog-play, which we have in plans, but haven't worked on, yet. However, input playback is expected in our Web UI player. @sabbaka, could you comment on that?

[fossxplorer]

Thanks a lot for prompt reply @spbnick Good to know that and it's a time saver to avoid wasting more on debugging :) By Web UI, you mean Cockpit perhaps? Is this also supported by ES recording and playback? We primarily need the input only recording to work with ES.

[spbnick]

Yes, by Web UI I mean our current Cockpit UI. However, it is planned to be a separate, reusable component, that's why I'm insisting on calling it just "Web UI player" :) You can record input-only to ES, no problem, but unfortunately only tlog-play supports playback from it, and it doesn't play back input yet, as I said above. Eventually, our Web UI player will support ES too, but that's quite far away, AFAIK.

[fossxplorer]

Great to know the details and the limitations, really! Thanks again! You can consider closing the case, but open cases might be easier for others with similar question/issue to come by and read :) Perhaps the details from this issue should go into a FAQ section somewhere.

[sabbaka]

@fossxplorer I plan to release Web UI player as a cockpit module and it will be added here as well. It could play input in a separate window, but now the recorded sessions are loaded from Journal only. As for playing input by tlog-play that is a plan for future.