DESCRIPTION

These errors and warnings occur when the kernel systemtap is running on lacks support for user-space process tracking facilities.

COMPILE-TIME ERROR

The error

ERROR: user-space process-tracking facilities not available

occurs when the script contains a uprobes probe point that the current kernel does not support.

RUNTIME WARNINGS

The warning,

WARNING: process-tracking facilities are not available in this kernel

and the related message,

WARNING: cannot track target in process '...'

both occur at runtime when running on a kernel (generally an older version) that has neither utrace functionality nor an acceptable substitute.

The script should still load and run. However, probes that rely on availability of process-tracking facilities will silently fail to trigger.

RESOLVING THE ISSUE

If process-tracking functionality is absolutely necessary, either a kernel version newer than 3.5 is needed, or an older version must be compiled with appropriate utrace patches.