I'm exploring the Dynamic Tracing [1] facility that postgres provides and planning to set it up in a reliable way on postgres running on Ubuntu. It looks like SystemTap is available on Ubuntu whereas DTrace isn't. I have no experience in using any of these tools. I would like to hear from hackers who have knowledge in this area or set it up previously.
In general, I have the following questions:
1) Can the Dynamic Tracing reliably be used in production servers without impacting the performance? In other words, will the Dynamic Tracing incur extra costs(CPU or IO) that may impact the postgres performance eventually? 2) Does it fare better in terms of postgres observability? If yes, is it a better choice than the existing way that postgres emits server logs and provides stats via views, pg_stat_statements etc.?
My motivation is to see if Dynamic Tracing is a better way to get the important information out of a running postgres server.
