STAPBPF(8)

NAME
stapbpf - systemtap bpf runtime

SYNOPSIS
stapbpf [ OPTIONS ] MODULE

DESCRIPTION
The stapbpf program is the BPF back-end of the Systemtap tool. It expects a bpf-elf file produced by the front-end stap tool, when run with --runtime=bpf.

Splitting the systemtap tool into a front-end and a back-end allows a user to compile a systemtap script on a development machine that has the debugging information (need to compile the script) and then transfer the resulting shared object to a production machine that doesn't have any development tools or debugging information installed.

Please refer to stappaths (7) for the version number, or run rpm -q systemtap (fedora/red hat) apt-get -v systemtap (ubuntu)

OPTIONS
The stapbpf program supports the following options. Any other option prints a list of supported options.

-v  Verbose mode.

-V  Print version number and exit.

-w  Suppress warnings from the script.

-h  Print help message.

-o FILE
    Send output to FILE.

ARGUMENTS
MODULE is the path of a bpf-elf file produced by the front-end stap tool, when run with --runtime=bpf.

EXAMPLES
Here is a very basic example of how to use stapbpf. First, use stap to compile a script. The stap program will report the name of the resulting module in the current working directory.

$ stap --runtime=bpf -p4 -e 'probe begin { printf("Hello World!\n"); exit() }'
stap_28784.bo

Run stapbpf with the pathname to the module as an argument.

$ stapbpf ./stap_28784.bo
Hello World!

LIMITATIONS
This runtime is in an early stage of development and it currently lacks support for a number of features available in the default runtime. The only probes currently supported are: begin end kernel.* for loops and while loops are usable only in begin and end probes. try and foreach statements are not supported. Except for printf format strings, there is no support for string variables or string literals. Additionally, printf is limited to no more than 3 format specifiers and the name of the bpf-elf file produced by the front-end stap tool should not be changed.

SAFETY AND SECURITY
See the stap(1) manual page for additional information on safety and security.

SEE ALSO
stap(1), stapprobes(3stap), staprun(8), stapex(3stap)

BUGS
Use the Bugzilla link of the project web page or our mailing list. http://sourceware.org/systemtap/, <systemtap@sourceware.org>.