.TH vfscount 8 "2018-09-06" "USER COMMANDS" .SH NAME vfscount.bt \- Count VFS calls ("vfs_*"). Uses bpftrace/eBPF. .SH SYNOPSIS .B vfscount.bt .SH DESCRIPTION This counts VFS calls. This can be useful for general workload characterization of these operations. This works by tracing all kernel functions beginning with "vfs_" using dynamic tracing. This may match more functions than you are interested in measuring: Edit the script to customize which functions to trace. Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool. .SH REQUIREMENTS CONFIG_BPF and bpftrace. .SH EXAMPLES .TP Count all VFS calls until Ctrl-C is hit: # .B vfscount.bt .SH FIELDS .TP 1st Kernel function name (in @[]) .TP 2nd Number of calls while tracing .SH OVERHEAD This traces kernel vfs functions and maintains in-kernel counts, which are asynchronously copied to user-space. While the rate of VFS operations can be very high (>1M/sec), this is a relatively efficient way to trace these events, and so the overhead is expected to be small for normal workloads. Measure in a test environment, and if overheads are an issue, edit the script to reduce the types of vfs functions traced (currently all beginning with "vfs_"). .SH SOURCE This is from bpftrace. .IP https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace .PP Also look in the bpftrace distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing example usage, output, and commentary for this tool. This is a bpftrace version of the bcc tool of the same name. The bcc tool may provide more options and customizations. .IP https://github.com/iovisor/bcc .SH OS Linux .SH STABILITY Unstable - in development. .SH AUTHOR Brendan Gregg .SH SEE ALSO vfsstat.bt(8)