Back in 2018 Oracle introduced Libresource as a standardized API for accessing system resource information around memory / network / device statistics and other metrics. Libresource v2 was announced this week as largely a rewrite of the project.

Libresource v2 aims to address some shortcomings of the original Libresource implementation while still being focused on offering a standardized means of tapping various Linux system resource information / statistics.

Libresource v2 is able to parse data faster, faster statistics fetching around sockets, a bulk API for better scalability, and a number of other improvements to provide faster and more efficient statistics fetching/parsing.

Oracle engineer Anjali Kulkarni wrote in the blog post about Libresource v2:

"Libresource v2 almost completely re-writes Libresource v1, to get a performance boost in fetching most /proc entries. For networking, we use netlink to drive performance, and for others like vmstat and meminfo we use efficient parsing mechanisms. Other than that, some entries like cpuinfo often add or remove fields as new CPUs evolve, and the outputs change between OS versions and hardware. Libresource helps to encapsulate the outputs from /proc so that changes like these are transparently handled in the library without the application needing to implement changes. Having an automated test infrastructure which, when run anytime on any OS or hardware after an update is done, can quickly identify any changes without manual intervention. For the above mentioned resasons, database and other applications should find the library a useful tool."

Those wanting to learn more about Libresource v2 can do so on the [1]Oracle Linux blog .



[1] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/libresource-v2