GILK: A Dynamic Instrumentation Tool for the Linux Kernel
Author(s). David J. Pearce, Paul H.J. Kelly, Tony Field and Uli Harder.
Venue. In Conference on Modelling Techniques and Tools for Computer Performance Evaluation (TOOLS), pages 220--226, 2002. ©Springer
Abstract: This paper desribes a dynamic instrumentation tool for the Linux Kernal which allows a stock Linux kernel to be modified while in execution, with instruments implemented as kernel modules. The Intel x86 architecture poses a particular problem, due to variable length instructions, which this paper addresses for the first time. Finally we present a short case study illustrating its use in understanding i/o behaviour in the kernel. The source code is freely available for download.