A Real-Time System Performance Profiler with eBPF & Grafana

System performance monitoring isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential. With infrastructure becoming more distributed and complex, getting real-time, low-overhead visibility into your systems is increasingly difficult.

Enter eBPF. This Linux kernel technology provides deep observability with almost zero overhead. Combine it with Grafana, and you’ve got a live dashboard that shows exactly what’s going wrong—before your users even notice.

This post walks through how to use eBPF for kernel-level performance monitoring and Grafana for real-time data visualization. The goal? A live profiler that gives actionable insights without needing constant maintenance.

Why Use eBPF?

eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) lets you run sandboxed programs inside the Linux kernel. It’s powerful, efficient, and finally usable without deep kernel hacking. Here’s why it matters:

• Runs in-kernel: No reboots or invasive instrumentation needed.
• Near-zero overhead: Perfect for real-time, always-on profiling.
• Traces deep system behavior: CPU, I/O, memory, networking—eBPF covers it all.

You can monitor live systems without impacting performance or violating SLAs.

What You Can Monitor with eBPF

eBPF opens the door to kernel-level insights, such as:

• Process scheduling delays
• CPU usage per process
• Kernel function calls (e.g., tcp_sendmsg)
• Disk I/O latency
• Page faults
• Network throughput by socket or interface

This was once only possible with guesswork or heavy agents. Now, it’s fast, accurate, and production-safe.

Visualizing Data with Grafana

Grafana makes monitoring understandable.

Rather than squinting at terminal logs, you get real-time dashboards, trends, and alerts. eBPF exports its metrics through collectors like Prometheus or InfluxDB, and Grafana turns that stream into actionable visuals.

Want to see syscall latency spikes per process? Done.
Need to track disk queue build-up per device? Easy.

Grafana helps you interpret the data—not just collect it.

System Profiler Architecture (Conceptual)

Here’s the pipeline at a high level:

sql
eBPF programs
   ↓
Metrics Collector (e.g., Prometheus)
   ↓
Grafana Dashboards
   ↓
Real-Time Insights

You can either write custom eBPF programs or use community tools like:

• bcc tools (execsnoop, runqlat, etc.)
• BPFtrace (great for ad-hoc tracing)
• Hubble (by Cilium, for networking observability)

Real-World Use Cases

Scenario 1: Kubernetes cluster with latency issues.
Logs aren’t helpful. eBPF traces show a sidecar proxy slowing DNS resolution.
Fix: Optimize DNS caching → latency solved.

Scenario 2: On-prem database showing slow writes.
Traditional metrics suggest “disk wait”, but eBPF traces a journaling bug in syscall layer.
Fix: Kernel patch → massive performance improvement.

These aren’t unicorn use cases. They’re real-world wins from better visibility.

Benefits of eBPF + Grafana

• Low System Overhead – Live profiling without killing performance
• Real-Time Dashboards – See trends, spikes, and patterns instantly
• Deep Observability – Kernel insights no standard tool provides
• Highly Customizable – Trace exactly what matters to you
• Visual Context – Grafana panels and alerts make data meaningful

Even if you’re new to observability, this stack gives clarity where tools like top, htop, or ps fall short.

Optimization Tips

• Use read-only probes to avoid altering kernel state.
• Apply filters (by PID, function, etc.) to reduce data volume.
• Don’t trace everything—focus on specific issues.
• Set reasonable refresh intervals in Grafana to prevent lag.
• Configure alerts on actionable metrics only—avoid alert fatigue.

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Final Thoughts

Combining eBPF and Grafana gives you the best of both worlds: deep, real-time kernel insights and a clean, visual dashboard. It’s not plug-and-play—you’ll need to invest time upfront—but once in place, it’s like having an early warning system for your infrastructure.

You’ll know when something’s off before it becomes a crisis.

If system performance matters—and let’s be honest, it always does—this is worth building.