BPF Performance Tools

About

Features

• Deeper, more in-depth coverage than any other eBPF resource
• Quickly analyze everything that impacts Linux system performance: ask questions and get fast answers in production environments
• Learn by example, with tools you can use to find performance wins and then customize for even more power
• Covers invaluable, in-demand technology: eBPF was the subject of over two dozen talks at the recent Linux Plumbers developer’s conference
• Downloadable source code includes 80+ new BPF analysis tools created for this book

Description

BPF Performance Tools provides a practical and comprehensive guide to using eBPF and modern observability tools to gain deep insight into Linux systems and applications. As software environments become increasingly complex, observability has become essential for understanding performance, troubleshooting issues, improving reliability, and strengthening security. This text introduces readers to the concepts, techniques, and tools that enable unprecedented visibility into system behaviour, helping developers, engineers, and administrators identify and solve performance challenges with confidence.

Written by renowned performance expert Brendan Gregg, the text combines foundational knowledge of operating systems, kernel internals, and performance engineering with hands-on exploration of industry-leading BPF technologies. Readers learn how to use eBPF tracing and observability tools to analyse CPUs, memory, storage, file systems, networking, applications, containers, hypervisors, and the Linux kernel. Progressing from fundamental concepts to advanced analysis techniques, the text demonstrates how to generate custom metrics, capture stack traces, build latency histograms, and investigate real-world performance issues across modern computing environments.

Featuring extensive coverage of open-source tools from the Linux Foundation's iovisor project, including bcc and bpftrace, it includes more than 150 ready-to-use tracing tools and examples that can be used immediately or adapted to meet specific requirements. By combining practical examples with powerful diagnostic methodologies, BPF Performance Tools equips readers with the skills needed to improve application performance, enhance system reliability, and gain deeper visibility into virtually every aspect of Linux-based systems.

Extras

Author's Site

Please visit the author's site at http://www.brendangregg.com/bpf-performance-tools-book.html.

Sample Content

Online Sample Chapter

BPF and the I/O Stack

Table of Contents

• Part I: Technologies
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Technology Background
• 3. Performance Analysis
• 4. bcc5. bpftrace
• Part II: Using BPF Tools
• 6. CPUs
• 7. Memory
• 8. File Systems
• 9. Disk I/O
• 10. Networking
• 11. Security
• 12. Languages
• 13. Applications
• 14. Kernel
• 15. Containers
• 16. Hypervisors
• Part III: Additional Topics
• 17. Other BPF Tools
• 18. Tips and Tricks
• Appendices
• A. bpftrace One-Liners
• B. bpftrace Cheat Sheet
• C. bcc Tool Development
• Glossary
• Bibliography

Updates

Errata

We've made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its companion content. Any errors that have been confirmed since this book was published can be downloaded below.

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