DTrace: Dynamic Tracing in Oracle Solaris, Mac OS X and FreeBSD [Paperback]

Its finally here, the great masterpiece. This books completes what "Solaris Performance & Tools" started. This new book focuses entirely on DTrace and is really several books rolled into one.

Part I gives you a complete DTrace Textbook. It breaks down the language and introduces you all the foundational concepts. It is brisk and every concept has an example making it extremely accessable.

Part II is the combination of several runbooks and a collection of cookbooks. For CPU, I/O, network, etc there is the same methodical systematic approach to exposing problems that we got in "Performance & Tools" but vastly expanded. After hitting all the fundamental resources it breaks down into various programming languages, databases, applications and daemons.

The true value of this book is here in Part II. You may know that you have a certain kind of problem, and you know that DTrace can probly find it for you, but you don't know where to start and in what order to proceed. If you do it on your own you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed and lost in the labyrinth that is the Solaris kernel. This is why the methodical approach Jim and Brendan take is so important, you really don't need to know anything more than you need to dig into some broad problem and the text leads you down the path of elimination and analysis step-by-step.

Part III hits tools, tips, and security. Learn how to spy on users, audit activity, use Apple Instruments or DTrace in NetBeans and lots more. Chapter 13 on tools is a great way to learn about all those tools out there that you may have heard of but aren't familiar with, or even introduce you to new toys you didn't know existed.

But thats not all... there are 7 Appendix, including a complete language reference, error message reference, and cheat sheet.

The important thing about this book is that it will actually help you solve real-world problems. A hardworking sysadmin doesn't have the time it takes to learn all the ins-and-outs of Solaris's kernel and learning all of DTrace's power can take years. The book is full of examples, I think have the page count has to be just code examples that you can actually use. This book is practical, accessible and will turn any Solaris administrator into an instant rock star.

B Rockwood provides an excellent review of the book and there is not much to add beyond that. If you are interested in the state-of-the-art of system analysis / performance analysis and the DTrace tool that provides unprecedented levels of information available in these areas, then this is a must-have book. Highly recommended!

The last book I tried to use while at my computer was the first edition of the O'Reilly behemoth UNIX Power Tools, a small phone book in both page count and page quality. Working through a very large book of very many items front to back, as I did, might seem like a fool's errand. But Power Tools was, and in its third edition must still be, a tirelessly, relentlessly cross-referenced work. I was impressed by the vigor and care its contributors applied to relate so many points of information to each other. Moreover, I was struck by the implication that I could follow suit. It was a breath of encouragement I was grateful to receive, as I wanted to grow into power user status myself. It was also a gift I think about paying forward when I teach. Like when someone again runs off with my current copy, but in a way that doesn't stress the trust I place in my colleagues.

This book on DTrace, a technology for tracing process and operating system behavior, is also quite thick, and filled with many bits of information, hard-won from examining many dark areas of system and process code. The book is, in turns, a meandering journal, a breathless mash-up of contributions, a collection of clipped, man page-style narratives, and a dry series of code and output blocks the authors sometimes deem self-evident. Some clues, such as an oft-repeated warning that the fbt provider is unstable, suggest the book was built by force of compilation alone, with little interest in supporting a read-through, much less a systematic view of the content.

It is however a formidable cache, quite possibly including every DTrace program of general consequence written in the last few years. Despite protests to the contrary, it is also partly a tribute-to-self and tour de force of its lead author, and what he has done and can do with this technology. (I agree with another reviewer who found the preening on the back cover and introduction a bit too much.) The biggest benefit the reader receives from this work, then, are the products of that facility: scripts, recipes, power tools. Call them what you like.

But an 1100-page book of any construction needs some figurative handle to manage it. Unix Power Tools provided one with a display of cross-referencing heroics I doubt we will see again. After several attempts at cutting my own path, I downloaded the scripts and just started working through them, treating the book as a resource to clarify what I couldn't divine on my own. My results with that strategy so far amount to a coin-toss. To make full use of this book, I suspect most readers will have to meet the material more than half way, providing perhaps an uncommon passion, or considerable expertise. It would be better to bring both, and a continuous caffeine feed, to succeed.