1 History - History of the DTraceToolkit
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4 20-Apr-2005 Brendan Gregg Idea
5 For a while I had thought that a DTrace toolkit would be a nice
6 idea, but on this day it became clear. I was explaining DTrace to
7 an SSE from Sun (Canberra, Australia), who had a need for using
8 DTrace but didn't have the time to sit down and write all the
9 tools he was after. It simply made sense to have a DTrace toolkit
10 that people could download or carry around a copy to use. Some
11 people would write DTrace tools, others would use the toolkit.
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13 15-May-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.30
14 I had discussed the idea of a DTrace toolkit with the Sun PAE guys in
15 Adelaide, Australia. It was making more sense now. It would be much
16 like the SE Toolkit, not just due to the large number of sample
17 scripts provided, but also due to the role it would play: few people
18 wrote SE Toolkit programs, more people used it as a toolkit. While
19 we would like a majority of Solaris users to write DTrace scripts,
20 the reality is that many would want to use a prewritten toolkit.
21 Today I created the toolkit as version 0.30, with 11 main directories,
22 a dozen scripts, man pages and a structure for documentation.
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24 16-May-2005 Brendan Gregg OneLiners
25 I've been using the toolkit for a day now (wow!), and have noticed
26 a few problems I've been fixing. One of them was the dtrace oneliners.
27 I have them in two files, Docs/oneliners.txt and the examples in
28 Docs/Examples/oneliners_examples.txt. The problem is that when I'm
29 looking for a script, I'm looking in Docs/Commands - a list of the
30 seperate script files, or I'm doing an ls or find. Ok, so I've now
31 made each one liner a seperate script. This seems at first pretty
32 silly since they are oneliners and shouldn't deserve an entire script
33 each, but I've found having them as seperate scripts makes them far
34 easier to find and use. The scripts and man page for each script do
35 point out the fact that it's a one liner.
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37 17-May-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.33
38 Version 0.33 with 33 scripts. Maybe I should make the version number
39 equal the script count. :) I just finished dtruss, dapptrace and
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42 08-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Name changes.
43 I've renamed Docs/Commands to Docs/Contents. I found myself typing
44 "more Docs/Contents" by mistake a lot. ok, maybe it made more sense
45 to call it Contents after all. I've also made a symlink to it called
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48 08-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.35
49 Version 0.35 with 35 scripts. Also touched up procsystime and some
50 man pages. Added the CDDL version 1.0.
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52 09-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.42
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55 14-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.57
56 Added heaps of new scripts. Now at 57 scripts.
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58 17-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.61
59 Restyled many commands.
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61 28-Jun-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.70
62 Added several commands including dexplorer. Developed a few useful
63 variants of classic scripts while writing dexplorer, and have added
64 them to the toolkit (I kept wanting to run them individually but
65 not have to run an entire dexplorer).
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67 25-Jul-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.77
68 Added tcpsnoop.d, tcpsnoop, tcptop. Because of their addition I have
69 dropped tcpwbytes.d and tcpwlist. These are complex scripts, but they
70 track TCP in an accurate manner. However! also because they are
71 complex scripts, I expect they will require maintainence for newer
72 versions of [Open]Solaris, as various probes may change. They will
73 become much more stable once a network provider has been added to
74 DTrace (which may be some time away).
75 Also added iotop, and updated a bunch of scripts. A lot of work went
76 into this version, although the version change doesn't reflect that
77 (I'm still keeping the version number == to number of scripts).
78 Also added rwsnoop, rwtop, and more.
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80 26-Jul-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.82
81 Many new scripts added, many updates. This is a major release.
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83 17-Sep-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.83
84 A few scripts have been updated so that they work better.
85 execsnoop, iosnoop, opensnoop and rwsnoop will be more responsive
86 (increased switchrate).
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88 22-Sep-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.84
89 Some updates, fixed some bugs (cputimes, cpudists). Added cpuwalk.d.
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91 15-Nov-2005 Brendan Gregg Sys Admin Magazine
92 Ryan Matteson wrote an article on the DTraceToolkit which has been
93 printed in Sys Admin Magazine, December 2005. It's quite good,
94 and made it as the feature article - which means it will be available
95 online for some time. Thanks Matty, and Sys Admin Magazine!
96 "Observing I/O Behavior with the DTraceToolkit"
97 http://www.samag.com/documents/sam0512a/
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99 01-Dec-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.88
100 Many scripts were updated. Added the Apps category. I had planned
101 to add some key scripts, but they haven't made it out of testing yet.
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103 03-Dec-2005 Brendan Gregg Version 0.89
104 Added nfswisard.d, fixed a minor bug with tcp* tools (see
105 dtrace-discuss mailing list).
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107 12-Jan-2006 Brendan Gregg Version 0.92
108 Added a few scripts including rwbytype.d. Fixed several issues.
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110 09-Apr-2006 Brendan Gregg Solaris Internals 2nd Edition
111 In the past few months I have been contributing to Solaris Internals
112 2nd Edition. This book (now two volumes) is really amazing. The 2nd
113 volume does use the DTraceToolkit where appropriate, and covers loads
114 of useful topics. While writing and reviewing material for Solaris
115 Internals, I've had numerous new ideas for DTrace scripts. Not only
116 that, but a few people have managed to send me well styled, carefully
117 tested, well considered DTrace scripts for inclusion in the toolkit.
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119 20-Apr-2006 Brendan Gregg TCP bug fixed
120 Stefan Parvu sent me a bug for the tcp* scripts: on build 31+ they
121 error'd on the symbol SS_TCP_FAST_ACCEPT. This symbol was
122 renamed to SS_DIRECT (I checked the code, they are used in the
123 same way). Ironically, when I first wrote the scripts I had hardcoded
124 the value 0x00200000, then rewrote it "properly" by importing
125 the header files and using the symbol name. Had I been lazy and left
126 it hardcoded, the bug would never have eventuated. Not to worry,
127 it has returned to being hardcoded, so that it works on all builds
128 (until something else changes).
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130 21-Apr-2006 Brendan Gregg Restyled - again!
131 I've been writing the "DTraceToolkit Style Guide", to document
132 the style that these scripts obey. It is quite strict, and sets
133 the bar fairly high. I've been warned that it may cause very few
134 people to ever contribute scripts, which is fine. At some point
135 I'll carefully explain the mentality behind this, but in a nutshell:
136 Users on critical production servers expect the tools to be
137 accurate, carefully tested, and cause no undocumented harm.
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139 22-Apr-2006 Brendan Gregg Docs changes
140 The "Contrib" file was merged into the "Who" file. In hindsight
141 it is better to keep this data together than to split it up.
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143 24-Apr-2006 Brendan Gregg Version 0.96
144 The toolkit now contains 104 scripts, however I'll keep the version
145 number < 1.00 until the dust has settled on these new scripts.
146 There is some special significance with version 1.00, it would
147 imply that every script had been tested for some time - not that
148 I've just added a few.
149 There is a new main directory, FS for file system related scripts.
150 There are some interesting scripts in there, from or based on
151 Solaris Internals 2nd ed, vol 2.
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153 30-Sep-2007 Brendan Gregg Version 0.99
154 It's been a year and a half since the last release, and a lot has
155 happneed. Firstly, the DTraceToolkit has featured in the Prentice Hall
157 Solaris Performance and Tools
158 DTrace and mdb techniques for Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris
160 written by Richard McDougall, Jim Mauro and myself. It is a companion
161 book to "Solaris Internals 2nd edition" by Richard McDougall and
162 Jim Mauro. If you are serious about becomming a DTrace guru,
163 especially on Solaris, then please study both books. (Yes, I realize
164 that many people are using the DTraceToolkit because they don't have
165 the time or don't want to become DTrace gurus; well, so long as
166 you are using DTrace anyway :). The performance book was a great relief
167 to write - since we were able to put to print much performance wisdom
168 and knowledge that was begging to be documented.
170 Then, in late 2006 I joined an advanced products engineering team
171 at Sun in San Francisco, a team which includes the three members of
172 team DTrace. It's been a great opportunity to learn from such
173 engineers, and to contribute more directly to DTrace. So far my work
174 has included writing a JavaScript provider, integrated inet_ntoa()
175 style functions into DTrace, and prototying DTrace IP, TCP and UDP
178 Working on the network providers is good news for the DTraceToolkit,
179 as it will indirectly help the tcp* scripts become more stable. Yes,
180 those scripts have broken a few more times during the last 18 months,
181 sorry about that, and it will keep happening until we have stable
182 network providers. This is why I only ever wrote three tcp* scripts,
183 and not at least a dozen, which I'd really like to do.
185 I did leave my pile of old SPARC and x86 development servers behind
186 in Australia, and brought over a couple of laptops. That has made me
187 more dependant on Stefan for testing the toolkit - especially on SPARC.
189 So, it's been about 18 months since the last release, which is
190 mostly due to having less spare time due to moving countries and
193 Michelle from Sun docs has been asking for a newer version of the
194 DTraceToolkit for the OpenSolaris starter kit, which is why I'm
195 releasing this version now and not waiting a few more weeks as
196 I complete bug fixes.
198 So the good and the bad news for this release, starting with the bad,
200 Bad: tcpsnoop/tcptop still don't work on some Solaris 10 releases.
201 I've added versions that should work on Solaris Nevada and OpenSolaris
202 for releases from around late 2007. They are likely to break again.
203 The real answer, as always, is for stable nework providers to be
204 integrated into Solaris.
206 Many of the exciting new language provider scripts in this release
207 currently require downloading, patching and compling of the language
208 interpreter to get working. See the Readme file in each directory
211 Good: many more scripts to cover the new DTrace language providers
212 that are available (the DTraceToolkit is now 227 scripts). Many
213 updates to the Notes directory. Bug fixes. Some new categories
214 other than for scripts: Code - for simple programs to DTrace (and
215 for the example files), and Snippits - for useful lumps of DTrace
216 code to copy-n-paste from. The man pages are also making room
217 for documenting both stability and supported operating systems for
218 each script - now that DTrace exists for MacOS X Leopard, the
219 DTraceToolkit will begin supporting multiple operating systems.
221 This can be thought of as a developer's release of the DTraceToolkit -
222 to help people start using DTrace with Perl, Python, Ruby, Php, Java,
223 JavaScript, Shell and Tcl. I've written about 15 scripts for each
224 language, to cover the basics and to show the way for deeper analysis.
225 The scripts are also similar from one language to another, having
226 devoleped a tried-and-tested group of scripts for analyzing real world
227 issues - it made sense to repeat these scripts for every language
228 possible. To see what I mean, try reading,
230 Examples/j_cputime_example.txt Examples/py_cputime_example.txt
231 Examples/js_cputime_example.txt Examples/rb_cputime_example.txt
232 Examples/php_cputime_example.txt Examples/sh_cputime_example.txt
233 Examples/pl_cputime_example.txt Examples/tcl_cputime_example.txt
235 You might notice that the example files are more clearly and carefully
236 explained. Claire (my wife), wrote close to one hundred of them for
237 this release while I focused on writing and testing the scripts.
238 Claire has worked as a SysAdmin and as an IT instructor, and is well
239 skilled at explaining relavent technical details. And she can spell
240 much better than I can. :)
242 The future: I still have many new scripts and some bug fixes in mind,
243 as well as generally improving the Notes and Examples provided.
244 Hopefully it won't be too many months before you see another
245 release. Check here for the lastest installment,
247 http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/dtrace/dtracetoolkit
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