*CHECKPOINTCTL-INSPECT*(1)

💖 CHECKPOINTCTL-INSPECT 💖

okay bestie, buckle up — this is checkpointctl-inspect(1) from the CHECKPOINTCTL manual, and it's literally the tool that spills all the low-level tea about a container checkpoint. no cap. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

checkpointctl-inspect — display low-level information about a container checkpoint

like, ALL the down-and-dirty details, not just the vibes. 🔍

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

checkpointctl inspect [OPTION]... FILE

that's it. that's the whole summoning ritual. one FILE, as many [OPTION]s as your heart desires. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the whole point is inspecting container checkpoint archives, right? iconic behavior. But here's the thing — if you wanna read command lines and environment variables, you need memory pages in the archive. no pages, no tea. 😭

CRIU LZ4-compressed pages get decoded automatically for you (you're welcome 💖), and that needs checkpoint/inventory.img to be there. keep that in mind.

By default the output tells you one of two things:

• CRIU compression: Enabled
• CRIU compression: Disabled

And if you go the JSON route, the output includes the boolean field criu_compression. this setting is describing CRIU memory page compression, and it's independent of archive compression — two separate things, don't get it twisted. 💀

Now, archives with no checkpoint/inventory.img? Those get reported as compression disabled, for compatibility with older checkpoints. nostalgia-core. And if the inventory metadata is invalid? boom, you get an error. periodt.

Also on the menu:

• Container created — this is literally the container creation time.
• Checkpoint data size — the combined size of files under checkpoint/, which includes memory images AND CRIU metadata.

In JSON output these values show up in created and checkpoint_size.total_size. write that down. 📝

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -h, --help — show help for checkpointctl inspect (when you need a little hand-holding, we've all been there 🥺)
• --all — show all information about container checkpoints. all of it. the full meal. 👑
• --files — display the open file descriptors for processes in the container checkpoint
• --format=FORMAT — specify the output format: tree or json (default "tree")
• --metadata — show metadata about the container
• --mounts — display an overview of mounts used in the container checkpoint
• -p, --pid=PID — display the process tree of a specific PID
• --ps-tree — display an overview of processes in the container checkpoint
• --ps-tree-cmd — display an overview of processes in the container checkpoint with full command line arguments (the receipts 📜)
• --ps-tree-env — display an overview of processes in the container checkpoint with their environment variables
• --sockets — display the open sockets for processes in the container checkpoint
• --stats — display checkpoint statistics (numbers!! we love numbers ✨)

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

checkpointctl(1) — the main character, honestly

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

The CRIU team — absolute legends, we stan 🫶

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bestie reminder: this whole thing is checkpointctl manual material, dated 2026-10-19. go inspect something gorgeous, slay, and remember — the vibes change, the flags never do. 💅✨🌈