1.2. Reasons to use SystemTap

SystemTap provides infrastructure to simplify the gathering of information about a running Linux kernel so that it may be further analyzed. This analysis assists in identifying the underlying cause of a performance or functional problem. SystemTap was designed to eliminate the need for a developer to go through the tedious instrument, recompile, install, and reboot sequence normally required to collect this kind of data. To do this, it provides a simple command-line interface and scripting language for writing kernel instrumentation. With SystemTap, developers, system administrators, and users can easily write scripts that gather and manipulate kernel data that is not otherwise available using standard Linux tools. Users of SystemTap will find it to be a significant improvement over older methods.