DTrace: Dynamic Tracing in Oracle Solaris, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD, Rough Cuts

Description

This is the Rough Cut version of the printed book.

The Oracle Solaris DTrace feature revolutionizes the way you debug operating systems and applications. Using DTrace, you can dynamically instrument software and quickly answer virtually any question about its behavior. Now, for the first time, there's a comprehensive, authoritative guide to making the most of DTrace in any supported UNIX environment--from Oracle Solaris to OpenSolaris, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD.

Written by key contributors to the DTrace community, DTrace teaches by example, presenting scores of commands and easy-to-adapt, downloadable D scripts. These concise examples generate answers to real and useful questions, and serve as a starting point for building more complex scripts. Using them, you can start making practical use of DTrace immediately, whether you're an administrator, developer, analyst, architect, or support professional.

The authors fully explain the goals, techniques, and output associated with each script or command. Drawing on their extensive experience, they provide strategy suggestions, checklists, and functional diagrams, as well as a chapter of advanced tips and tricks. You'll learn how to

• Write effective scripts using DTrace's D language
• Use DTrace to thoroughly understand system performance
• Expose functional areas of the operating system, including I/O, filesystems, and protocols
• Use DTrace in the application and database development process
• Identify and fix security problems with DTrace
• Analyze the operating system kernel
• Integrate DTrace into source code
• Extend DTrace with other tools

This book will help you make the most of DTrace to solve problems more quickly and efficiently, and build systems that work faster and more reliably.

Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword xxi

What Is DTrace? 1

Why Do You Need It? 1

Capabilities 2

Dynamic and Static Probes 4

DTrace Features 4

A First Look 6

Overview 8

Architecture 16

Summary 17

D Language Components 20

Probes 23

Variables 26

Aggregations 33

Actions 37

Options 43

Example Programs 44

Summary 49

Start at the Beginning 52

Observing CPUs 56

Observing Memory 95

Observing Disk and Network I/O 125

Summary 148

Capabilities 152

Disk I/O Strategy 154

Checklist 155

Providers 156

Scripts 172

Case Studies 269

Summary 290

Capabilities 292

Strategy 295

Checklist 296

Providers 297

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