This is the official Linux port of the DTrace tracing tool.
The source is posted here on github.com in the hope that it increases the visibility for our work and to make it even easier for people to access the source. We also use this repository to work with developers in the Linux community.
The main development branch is devel.
We provide prebuilt x86_64 and aarch64 DTrace userspace packages for Oracle Linux 9 (UEK7 kernel), Oracle Linux 8 (UEK7 or UEK6 kernel), and Oracle Linux 7 (UEK6 kernel). These packages are based on the Oracle Linux specific release branch 2.0-branch.
The latest packages can be obtained from the following Oracle Linux yum server repositories:
- Oracle Linux 9 (x86_64) UEK Release 7: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL9/UEKR7/x86_64/
- Oracle Linux 9 (aarch64) BaseOS Latest: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL9/baseos/latest/aarch64/
- Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64) UEK Release 7: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/UEKR7/x86_64/
- Oracle Linux 8 (aarch64) UEK Release 7: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/UEKR7/aarch64/
- Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64) UEK Release 6: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/UEKR6/x86_64/
- Oracle Linux 8 (aarch64) BaseOS Latest: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/baseos/latest/aarch64/
- Oracle Linux 7 (x86_64) UEK Release 6: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL7/UEKR6/x86_64/
- Oracle Linux 7 (aarch64) UEK Release 6: https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL7/UEKR6/aarch64/
Source code for the UEK kernel is available on github in the linux-uek repo.
- 1. License
- 2. How to Build DTrace
- 3. Testing
- 4. How to Run DTrace
- 5. Questions
- 6. Pull Requests and Support
- 7. Building Previous Releases of DTrace
DTrace is licensed under the UPL 1.0 (Universal Permissive License). A copy is included in this repository as the LICENSE file.
The build instructions focus on building DTrace for the upstream Linux kernel. We will use the 5.14.9 release, but the instructions apply to most recent Linux kernel versions.
Please read this section carefully before moving over to the build documentation to ensure your environment is properly configured.
DTrace uses a type introspection system called CTF. This is supported by upstream GCC and GNU Binutils. Make sure you have binutils 2.36 or later installed.
If your distro provides libctf.so in a binutils development package, you need to install that too.
If your distro provides binutils 2.36 or later, you should install it. If not, you can build your own local copy (which can be configured with a --prefix specific to itself to avoid disturbing the distro version).
A few other packages are required, either for building or at runtime. They should be part of most Linux distributions today and can be installed via the package manager of your distro. The table below gives package names for Debian and Oracle Linux.
For building:
| Prerequisite | Debian | Oracle Linux |
|---|---|---|
| glibc headers | libc6-dev | glibc-headers |
| glibc (static) | (in libc6-dev) | glibc-static |
| glibc (32-bit dev) | libc6-dev-i386 | glibc-devel.i686 |
| bison | bison | bison |
| flex | flex | flex |
| BPF gcc | gcc-bpf | gcc-bpf-unknown-none |
| BPF binutils | binutils-bpf | binutils-bpf-unknown-none |
| libpcap dev | libpcap-dev | libpcap-devel |
| wireshark | wireshark | wireshark |
| valgrind | valgrind | valgrind-devel |
| fuse3 or fuse | libfuse3-dev or libfuse-dev | fuse3-devel or fuse-devel |
| kernel headers | linux-headers-- | kernel-uek-devel- |
| linux-headers--common |
At runtime:
| Prerequisite | Debian | Oracle Linux |
|---|---|---|
| wireshark | wireshark | wireshark |
| fuse3 or fuse | libfuse3-3 or libfuse2 | fuse3-devel or fuse-devel |
The simplest way of building DTrace is done by issuing the following commands from the DTrace source tree:
make
sudo make install
Some distributions install the BPF gcc and binutils under different names. You can specify the executables to use using the BPFC and BPFLD variables. E.g. on Debian you could use:
make BPFC=bpf-gcc BPFLD=bpf-ld
sudo make install
See ./configure --help, make help, and the top-level GNUmakefile for a
full list of options (installing in different places, building translators for
kernels, etc.)
Some of the options (e.g., those specifying paths) may need to be specified
when installing as well as when building. To avoid this, you can use the
configure script: it bakes variable settings into the makefile so that they
persist across multiple invocations, including make install.
A testsuite is provided in the source tree. It is run using make in conjunction with one of the following targets:
| target | description |
|---|---|
check-verbose |
Tests binaries from build directory. Prints result of every tests. |
check-installed-verbose |
Tests binaries installed in the system. Prints result of every tests. |
Example:
sudo make check-verbose
Logs from test runs are stored in test/log/<run_number>/.
The most recent logs are also available by via the test/log/current/ symbolic link.
The testsuite itself has more dependencies that need to be installed. The full list is available in the dtrace.spec file.
The dtrace binary is installed in /usr/sbin/dtrace.
Currently, you can only run dtrace with root privileges.
Be careful not to confuse the utility with SystemTap's dtrace script,
which is installed in /usr/bin/dtrace.
For questions, please ask on the dtrace mailing list. Older discussions are archived here.
We have a #linux-dtrace IRC channel on irc.libera.chat, you can ask questions there as well.
We currently do not accept pull requests via GitHub, please contact us via the mailing list or IRC channel listed above.
The source code for DTrace is published here without support. Compiled binaries are provided as part of Oracle Linux, which is free to download, distribute and use. Support for DTrace is included in Oracle Linux support subscriptions. Individual packages and updates are available on the Oracle Linux yum server.
Refer to these instructions to build DTrace versions prior to 2.0.0-1.13.2.
