SystemTap is a tracing and probing tool that allows
users to study and monitor the activities of the
computer system (particularly, the kernel) in fine
detail. It provides information similar to the output
of tools like netstat,
ps, top, and
iostat, but is
designed to provide more filtering and analysis
options for collected information.
1.1. Documentation Goals
SystemTap provides the infrastructure to monitor the running Linux kernel for detailed analysis. This can assist administrators and developers in identifying the underlying cause of a bug or performance problem.
Without SystemTap, monitoring the activity of a running kernel would require a tedious instrument, recompile, install, and reboot sequence. SystemTap is designed to eliminate this and allows users to gather the same information by running user-written SystemTap scripts.
SystemTap was initially designed for users with intermediate to advanced knowledge of the kernel. As a consequence, it is less useful to administrators or developers with limited knowledge of and experience with the Linux kernel. Moreover, much of the existing SystemTap documentation is aimed at knowledgeable and experienced users, which makes learning the tool similarly difficult.
To lower these barriers, the SystemTap Beginners Guide was written with the following goals:
to introduce users to SystemTap, familiarize
them with its architecture, and provide setup
instructions;
to provide pre-written SystemTap scripts for monitoring detailed activity in different components of the system, along with instructions on how to run them and analyze their output.