SystemTap provides infrastructure to simplify the gathering of information about the running Linux system. This assists diagnosis of a performance or functional problem. SystemTap eliminates the need for the developer to go through the tedious and disruptive instrument, recompile, install, and reboot sequence that may be otherwise required to collect data.
SystemTap provides a simple command line interface and scripting language for writing instrumentation for a live running kernel plus user-space applications. We are publishing samples, as well as enlarging the internal "tapset" script library to aid reuse and abstraction. SystemTap is a tool for complex tasks that may require live analysis, programmable on-line response, and whole-system symbolic access, and can also handle simple tracing jobs.