BPF Performance Tools

BPF and related observability tools give software professionals unprecedented visibility into software, helping them analyse operating system and application performance, troubleshoot code, and strengthen security. BPF Performance Tools: Linux System and Application Observability is the industry’s most comprehensive guide to using these tools for observability. Brendan Gregg, author of the industry’s definitive guide to system performance, introduces powerful new methods and tools for doing analysis that leads to more robust, reliable, and safer code.

This authoritative guide:

• Explores a wide spectrum of software and hardware targets
• Thoroughly covers open source BPF tools from the Linux Foundation iovisor project’s bcc and bpftrace repositories
• Summarises performance engineering and kernel internals you need to understand
• Provides and discusses 150+ bpftrace tools, including 80 written specifically for this book: tools you can run as-is, without
• programming — or customise and develop further, using diverse interfaces and the bpftrace front-end

You’ll learn how to use BPF (eBPF) tracing tools to analyse CPUs, memory, disks, file systems, networking, languages, applications, containers, hypervisors, security, and the Linux kernel. You’ll move from basic to advanced tools and techniques, producing new metrics, stack traces, custom latency histograms, and more. It’s like having a superpower: with Gregg’s guidance and tools, you can analyse virtually everything that impacts system performance, so you can improve virtually any Linux operating system or application.

Use BPF Tools to Optimize Performance, Fix Problems, and See Inside Running Systems

BPF-based performance tools give you unprecedented visibility into systems and applications, so you can optimize performance, troubleshoot code, strengthen security, and reduce costs. BPF Performance Tools: Linux System and Application Observability is the definitive guide to using these tools for observability.

Pioneering BPF expert Brendan Gregg presents more than 150 ready-to-run analysis and debugging tools, expert guidance on applying them, and step-by-step tutorials on developing your own. You’ll learn how to analyze CPUs, memory, disks, file systems, networking, languages, applications, containers, hypervisors, security, and the kernel. Gregg guides you from basic to advanced tools, helping you generate deeper, more useful technical insights for improving virtually any Linux system or application.

• Learn essential tracing concepts and both core BPF front-ends: BCC and bpftrace
• Master 150+ powerful BPF tools, including dozens created just for this book, and available for download
• Discover practical strategies, tips, and tricks for more effective analysis
• Analyze compiled, JIT-compiled, and interpreted code in multiple languages: C, Java, bash shell, and more
• Generate metrics, stack traces, and custom latency histograms
• Use complementary tools when they offer quick, easy wins
• Explore advanced tools built on BPF: PCP and Grafana for remote monitoring, eBPF Exporter, and kubectl-trace for tracing Kubernetes
• Foreword by Alexei Starovoitov, creator of the new BPF

BPF Performance Tools will be an indispensable resource for all administrators, developers, support staff, and other IT professionals working with any recent Linux distribution in any enterprise or cloud environment.