LTTng (Linux Trace Toolkit: next generation) is a

system software System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS) like macOS, Linux, Android and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, search engin ...

package for correlated

tracing Tracing may refer to: Computer graphics * Image tracing, digital image processing to convert raster graphics into vector graphics * Path tracing, a method of rendering images of three-dimensional scenes such that the global illumination is faithf ...

of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

, applications and libraries. The project was originated by Mathieu Desnoyers with an initial release in 2005. Its predecessor is the

Linux Trace Toolkit The Linux Trace Toolkit (LTT) is a set of tools that is designed to log program execution details from a patched Linux kernel and then perform various analyses on them, using console-based and graphical tools. LTT has been mostly superseded by its ...

. LTTng uses the Tracepoint instrumentation of the

, as well as various other information sources such as kprobes, and the Perf performance monitoring counters. Designed for minimal performance impact and having a near-zero impact when not tracing, it is useful for

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve in ...

a wide range of bugs that are otherwise extremely challenging.

Features

The challenging problems traceable with LTTng include, for example, performance problems on parallel systems and on real-time systems. Custom instrumentation is easy to add.

Structure

LTTng consists of kernel modules (for Linux kernel tracing) and dynamically linked libraries (for application and library tracing). It is controlled by a session daemon, which receives commands from a command line interface, lttng. The Babeltrace project allows translating traces into a human-readable log, and provides a trace reading library, libbabeltrace.

Deployment

LTTng is available as a set of packages. LTTng has at least basic support for all

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

-supported

architectures Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

(see the LTTng-modules README file for more details) as well as support for

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. Major users include

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, IBM,

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

. It is included in Wind River Workbench,

Mentor Graphics Siemens EDA is a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981 as Mentor Graphics, the company was acquired by Siemens in ...

Mentor Embedded Linux,

ELinOS ELinOS is a commercial development environment for embedded Linux. It consists of a Linux distribution for the target embedded system and development tools for a development host computer. The development host computer usually is a standard deskto ...

embedded Linux,

MontaVista MontaVista Software is a company that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are made for other corporations developing embedded systems such as Automotive industry, automotive electronics ...

Mobilinux 5.0, STLinux and

SUSE Linux Enterprise SUSE Linux Enterprise (often abbreviated to SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop comp ...

Real-Time Linux distributions. Once collected, multiple solutions exist to process and visualize LTTng trace data (kernel and userspace) such as the open-source LTTV viewer,

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

Trace Compass or commercial tools such as

' Sourcery Analyzer and Percepio Tracealyzer.Percepio Tracealyzer
/ref> LTTng-modules, LTTng-UST, LTTng-tools and Babeltrace are actively developed by an open community.

Features

Structure

Deployment

See also

Further reading

References

External links