Description:

Learn Linux debugging and optimization—at kernel and application levels—hands-on!

This is the definitive guide to Linux software debugging and performance optimization at both the kernel and application levels. Using extensive Linux code examples, Steve Best systematically introduces open source tools and best-practice techniques for delivering bug-free, well-tuned code.

Drawing on his exceptional experience optimizing Linux systems for IBM, Best covers issues ranging from memory management and I/O to system processes and kernel bug messages. You'll walk through real debugging sessions, discovering the strategies experts use to debug even the most complex application- and kernel-related problems. You'll master sophisticated profiling techniques for identifying and resolving bottlenecks more quickly and learn how to capture the right data in the event of trouble. Coverage includes

• Bottleneck identification

• Code coverage

• Debuggers: gdb, kgdb, and KDB

• Memory management

• /proc kernel data analysis

• System process monitoring

• Network performance

• Oops bug messages

• Syslog and event logging

• Execution traces

• Profiling kernel behavior

• Cache misses

• User-Mode Linux

• Dynamic probes

• Crash dump analysis

• And more...

Linux® Debugging and Performance Tuning will be indispensable for every developer who needs to supercharge the Linux kernel and applications, and for every administrator and support specialist who must resolve Linux reliability or performance issues.

 

Table of Contents:

Foreword.

Acknowledgments.

About the Author.

Introduction.

1. Profiling.

2. Code Coverage.

3. GNU Debugger (gdb).

4. Memory Management Debugging.

5. System Information (/proc).

6. System Tools.

7. System Error Messages.

8. Event Logging.

9. Linux Trace Toolkit.

10. oprofile: a Profiler Supported by the Kernel.

11. User-Mode Linux.

12. Dynamic Probes.

13. Kernel-Level Debuggers (kgdb and kdb).

14. Crash Dump.

Index.