contents/installing-lttng/intro.md

   1 ---
   2 id: installing-lttng
   3 ---
   4
   5 **LTTng** is a set of software components which interact to allow
   6 instrumenting the Linux kernel and user applications and controlling
   7 tracing sessions (starting/stopping tracing, enabling/disabling events,
   8 etc.). Those components are bundled into the following packages:
   9
  10   * **LTTng-tools**: Libraries and command line interface to control
  11     tracing sessions
  12   * **LTTng-modules**: Linux kernel modules allowing Linux to be
  13     traced using LTTng
  14   * **LTTng-UST**: User space tracing library
  15
  16 Most distributions mark the LTTng-modules and LTTng-UST packages as
  17 optional. In the following sections, we always provide the steps to
  18 install all three, but be aware that LTTng-modules is only required if
  19 you intend to trace the Linux kernel and LTTng-UST is only required if
  20 you intend to trace user space applications.
  21
  22 This chapter shows how to install the above packages on a Linux
  23 system. The easiest way is to use the package manager of the system's
  24 distribution ([desktop](#doc-desktop-distributions) or
  25 [embedded](#doc-embedded-distributions)). Support is also available for
  26 [enterprise distributions](#doc-enterprise-distributions), such as
  27 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).
  28 Otherwise, you can
  29 [build the LTTng packages from source](#doc-building-from-source).