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1.2. SystemTap Capabilities

SystemTap was originally developed to provide functionality for Red Hat Enterprise Linux similar to previous Linux probing tools such as dprobes and the Linux Trace Toolkit. It aims to supplement the existing suite of Linux monitoring tools by providing users with the infrastructure to track kernel activity, and combines this capability with the following two features:
Most of the SystemTap scripts enumerated in Chapter 5, Useful SystemTap Scripts demonstrate system forensics and monitoring capabilities not natively available with other similar tools (such as top, oprofile, or ps). These scripts are provided to give readers extensive examples of the application of SystemTap and to educate them further on the capabilities they can employ when writing their own SystemTap scripts.