Oracle Still Working On DTrace For Linux In 2018

A decade ago Linux users were clamoring for Sun Microsystems to bring Solaris' DTrace and ZFS to Linux. While there are still petitions for Oracle to more liberally license ZFS so it could see mainline Linux support, it's been years since hearing much interest in DTrace for Linux. Over time other dynamic tracing implementations have come about and improved in comparison to DTrace, but for those still wanting this dynamic tracing framework that originated at Sun Microsystems, Oracle remains working on the Linux port.

Linux administrators and developers have seen SystemTap come about as well as LTTng, improvements to ftrace/ltrace/strace, and most recently eBPF going mainline and becoming quite popular. But if you are still interested in DTrace on Linux, Oracle has been continuing their work.

Oracle's Tomáš Jedlička presented on the state of DTrace for Linux as well as some example usage. His presentation was at FOSDEM 2018 earlier this month. If you are interested in DTrace for Linux, the presentation is embedded below or there is also the PDF slide deck.

The user-space and kernel portions for DTrace on Linux continue to be hosted at oss.oracle.com. The kernel bits are focused on Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) for Oracle Linux, which is currently based against Linux v4.1.