<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968"><title>Chapter 1. Introduction</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="SystemTap Tapset Reference Manual"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="SystemTap Tapset Reference Manual"><link rel="prev" href="index.html" title="SystemTap Tapset Reference Manual"><link rel="next" href="context_stp.html" title="Chapter 2. Context Functions"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 1. Introduction</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="index.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="context_stp.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="chapter" title="Chapter 1. Introduction"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="introduction"></a>Chapter 1. Introduction</h2></div></div></div><p>
SystemTap provides free software (GPL) 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.
</p><p>
SystemTap provides a simple command line interface and scripting language
for writing instrumentation for a live running kernel. The instrumentation
makes extensive use of the probe points and functions provided in the
<em class="firstterm">tapset</em> library. This document describes the various
probe points and functions.
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