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bpftrace/bpftrace

High-level tracing language for Linux
Source code at GitHub https://bpftrace.org/
bpftrace/bpftrace.json
{
  "createdAt": "2018-08-31T04:34:44Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "High-level tracing language for Linux",
  "fullName": "bpftrace/bpftrace",
  "homepage": "https://bpftrace.org/",
  "language": "C++",
  "name": "bpftrace",
  "pushedAt": "2026-01-07T23:34:15Z",
  "stargazersCount": 9864,
  "topics": [
    "bcc",
    "bpf",
    "ebpf",
    "kprobes",
    "tracepoints",
    "tracing",
    "uprobes",
    "usdt"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2026-01-07T23:34:19Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/bpftrace/bpftrace"
}

bpftrace

Build Status Latest Release License

bpftrace is a general purpose tracing tool and language for Linux. It leverages eBPF to provide powerful, efficient tracing capabilities with minimal overhead. bpftrace uses LLVM as a compiler backend, and libbpf for interacting with the Linux BPF subsystem, including kernel dynamic tracing (kprobes, hardware and software perf events), user-level dynamic tracing (USDT, uprobes), tracepoints (regular, raw), and more. The bpftrace language is inspired by awk, C, and predecessor tracers such as DTrace and SystemTap.

Visit bpftrace.org for tutorials, documentation, and labs!

This respository also contains some [canonical tools]!(tools/README.md).

For migrating from older versions, see the [migration guide]!(docs/migration_guide.md).

Quick Start

Section titled “Quick Start”

Get started with bpftrace in just a few minutes! To build from source, see the [building]!(#building) section below. However, you can often install it using your distribution’s package manager.

[!IMPORTANT] When using a distribution package, be sure to verify bpftrace --version when referencing documentation.

Distributions Command
Ubuntu 22.04 Ubuntu 24.04 Ubuntu 25.04 Ubuntu 25.10 Debian 13 Debian 14 Debian Unstable 
sudo apt install bpftrace
Fedora 41 Fedora 42 Fedora 43 Fedora Rawhide CentOS 9 CentOS 10 
sudo dnf install bpftrace
Alpine 3.21 Alpine 3.22 Alpine Edge 
sudo apk add bpftrace
Arch Linux 
sudo pacman -S bpftrace
Gentoo 
sudo emerge -av bpftrace
nixpkgs 
nix-shell -p bpftrace
openSUSE Tumbleweed 
sudo zypper install bpftrace
AppImage (nightly) 
declare -A suffixes=([x86_64]="X64" [amd64]="AMD64");
declare prefix="bpftrace/bpftrace/workflows/binary/master/bpftrace";
declare url="https://nightly.link/${prefix}-${suffixes[$(uname -m)]}.zip";
curl -L -o bpftrace.zip "${url}" && unzip bpftrace.zip

Contributing

Section titled “Contributing”

See our [contributing guide]!(CONTRIBUTING.md) for details on how to contribute, and our [governance]!(GOVERNANCE.md) document for details on how the project is run.

If you have tools built with bpftrace that you’d like to submit, please contribute to the user-tools repository.

Building

Section titled “Building”

For minimum kernel version requirements, see our [dependency support policy]!(docs/dependency_support.md#linux-kernel). Your kernel should be built with the necessary BPF options enabled. Verify this by running the check_kernel_features script from the scripts directory.

bpftrace also uses git submodules, so ensure they are initialized when checking out the code. See [dependency support]!(docs/dependency_support.md) for details.

Terminal window
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/bpftrace/bpftrace
cd bpftrace

bpftrace provides a Nix flake, which is recommended for building and testing.

Terminal window
nix develop

For a suitable build environment without Nix, see our Dockerfiles for detailed build examples:

If all dependencies are installed correctly, you should be able to configure and build using CMake.

Terminal window
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -B build .
make -C build -j$(nproc)
Troubleshooting

Kernel Lockdown: If your system has kernel lockdown enabled (often with Secure Boot), bpftrace will be blocked. To disable:

  • Disable Secure Boot in UEFI, or
  • Run sudo mokutil --disable-validation and reboot, or
  • Temporarily lift lockdown with SysRQ+x (until next boot)

Community & Support

Section titled “Community & Support”

bpftrace is built and maintained by a diverse community of contributors, users, and organizations who rely on it for production tracing and debugging.

Get help or get involved: