Linux 5.17 Picks Up A Real-Time Analysis Tool

A new tool added to the kernel source tree with Linux 5.17 is rtla to serve for real-time Linux performance and tracing analysis.

Thanks to the work of kernel developer Daniel Bristot de Oliveira who is employed by Red Hat, the Real-Time Linux Analysis (RTLA) tool has been added to the kernel source tree.

RTLA makes use of the Linux kernel's tracing capabilities to help analyze performance and tracing data. In particular, the rtla command has sub-options for reading information from the kernel's operating system noise "osnoise" and IRQ/thread timer latency "timerlat"tracers.

This tool will become quite valuable with PREEMPT_RT real-time Linux kernel support also expected to be finally mainlined soon.

The RTLA tool describes itself as: "The rtla is a meta-tool that includes a set of commands that aims to analyze the real-time properties of Linux. But instead of testing Linux as a black box, rtla leverages kernel tracing capabilities to provide precise information about the properties and root causes of unexpected results."

More details about RTLA via Daniel's blog and RTLA was merged on Sunday as part of the tracing updates for Linux 5.17.

rtla is now in the mainline kernel for helping to analyze real-time performance of the kernel... Good to see ahead of PREEMPT_RT's long-awaited mainlining. And yet more great kernel contributions via Red Hat.