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Re: Questions on Systemtap performance


Hi -

>     When using SystemTap to probe in the kernel functions to get the
> executing time of the function, there must be performance cost when probing,
> how can I quantify the performance and overhead of SystemTap? Is there any
> tool which can do the job?

The basic overheads arise from the kernel's implementation of
kprobes/kretprobes, which on modern hardware tends to be in the
microsecond range per hit.  (In future kernels, this should be reduced
to about 25% with "djprobes".)

Systemtap can measure its own generated code's overhead (stap -t), but
does not measure the kernel's inherent overheads yet.

- FChE


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