Pointers to learn how to use DTrace

Question

When I asked for tools to profile Rails apps, someone pointed at DTrace. Since I work on MacOSX stations and deploy on OpenSolaris, it is a valid way to go. But I have little knowledge of DTrace.

Besides the usual suspect, Sun DTrace page and the avaliable info there, is there any other killer pointer to learn Dtrace out there?

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 16 '08 at 00:57

I did a 35 min video and showed some DTrace starter examples that you can find here: http://cocoasamurai.blogspot.com/2008/05/dtrace-for-cocoa-developers.html which were intended for introducing DTrace to Cocoa Developers, but it can work for anybody really

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 25 '12 at 00:07

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edited Jul 25 '12 at 00:07

alanc

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answered Jan 27 '09 at 20:21

philant

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score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 01 '09 at 13:34

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Watch the Brian Cantrill DTrace video. This is a great demo-based talk and Cantrill is one of the DTrace creators.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8002801113289007228

answered Feb 01 '09 at 13:34

elasticrat

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The link wasn't working, but I looked for the video and I think I found it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgmA48fILq8 – Aaron Storck Jun 11 '14 at 03:24

mat · Answer 4 · 2008-12-09T14:21:13.507

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I found that reading dtrace version of the usual admin monitoring tools of Mac OS X was a great help truss -> dtruss. There are at least a dozen different scripts that you can read. (Most begining by "d".)

There also is /Developer/Applications/Instruments.app which is a graphical app which generates dtrace scripts.

Also, Wikipedia's DTrace page has loads of links which should help.

edited Dec 09 '08 at 14:21

answered Dec 09 '08 at 14:11

mat

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score 4 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 25 '12 at 00:31

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This is probably way too late to be useful, but Adam Leventhal's DTrace boot camp presentation is great for getting started:

http://blogs.oracle.com/roller/resources/ahl/dtrace_course.2005.8.18.pdf

edited Jul 25 '12 at 00:31

alanc

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answered Sep 23 '11 at 22:54

Dave Pacheco

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score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 09 '08 at 14:23

You can also try the "dtrace toolkit" it has scripts for lots of monitoring purposes to give you a kick start.

Also you can attach X-Code's "Instruments" to any process. After this gives you a general idea of your app you can give a try to write your own scripts

Pointers to learn how to use DTrace

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