Intel® VTune™ Profiler User Guide

User Guide

Contents

Set Up Linux* System for Remote Analysis

You can collect data remotely on a target Linux* system by specifying the system as the analysis target in
Intel® VTune™
Profiler
 by selecting
Remote Linux (SSH)
 in the
Where
 pane when configuring an analysis.
VTune
Profiler
 provides an option to automatically install the appropriate collectors on the target system. Specify a location for the install using the
VTune
Profiler
 installation directory on the remote system
 field.
The automatic installation on the remote Linux system does not build the sampling drivers although you can install the pre-built sampling drivers if you connect via password-less SSH as the root user. Driverless sampling data collection is based on the Linux Perf* tool functionality, which is available without Root access and has a limited scope of analysis options. To collect advanced hardware event-based sampling data, manually install the sampling driver or set up the password-less SSH connection with the Root user account.
  1. Install the
    VTune
    Profiler
     collectors on the target system.

Install the
VTune
Profiler
 Collectors Automatically

When you enter the connection parameters in the
Remote Linux* (SSH)
 window of the
WHERE
 pane,
VTune
Profiler
 checks for the presence of
VTune
Profiler
 collector package on the target system specified.
If an appropriate package was not located on the target system,
VTune
Profiler
 offers to deploy the package automatically.
Press the
Deploy
 button to start the automatic collectors package deployment process.
If the collectors are not automatically installed or you get an error message after an automatic install attempt, you can install the collectors manually.

Install the
VTune
Profiler
 Collectors Manually

Use the following steps to set up analysis on a target regular or embedded Linux target system.
  1. Copy the required target package archive to the target device using ftp, sftp, or scp. The following target packages are available on the host system where the
    VTune
    Profiler
     is installed:
    • <>/target/linux/vtune_
      profiler
      _target_sep_x86.tgz
       - provides hardware event-based sampling collector only (SEP) for x86 systems
    • <install-dir>
      /target/linux/vtune_
      profiler
      _target_sep_x86_64.tgz
       - provides hardware event-based sampling collector only (SEP) for 64-bit systems
    • <install-dir>
      /target/linux/vtune_
      profiler
      _target_x86.tgz
       - provides all
      VTune
      Profiler
       collectors for x86 systems
    • <install-dir>
      /target/linux/vtune_
      profiler
      _target_x86_64.tgz
       - provides all
      VTune
      Profiler
       collectors for 64-bit systems
    Use both
    *_x86
     and
    *_x86_64
     packages if you plan to run and analyze 32-bit processes on 64-bit systems.
  2. On the target device, unpack the product package to the
    /tmp
     directory or another writable location on the system:
    target> tar -zxvf <
    target_package
    >.tgz
    VTune
    Profiler
     target package is located in the newly created directory
    /tmp/vtune_
    profiler
    _<
    version
    >.<
    package_num
    >
    .
When collecting data remotely, the
VTune
Profiler
 looks for the collectors on the target device in its default location:
/tmp/vtune_
profiler
_<
version
>.<
package_num
>
. It also temporary stores performance results on the target system in the
/tmp
directory. If you installed the target package to a different location or need to specify another temporary directory, make sure to configure your target properties in the
Configure Analysis
 window as follows:
  • Use the
    VTune
    Profiler
     installation directory on the remote system
     option to specify the path to the
    VTune
    Profiler
     on the remote system. If default location is used, the path is provided automatically.
  • Use the
    Temporary directory on the remote system
     option to specify a non-default temporary directory.
Alternatively, use the and options from the
vtune
 command line.

Build and Install the Drivers Manually

Building the sampling drivers is only required if the drivers were not built as part of the collector installation. The installation output should inform you if building the sampling driver is required.
To enable hardware event-based sampling analysis on your target device:
  1. Build the sampling driver on the target system.
    • Make sure kernel headers correspond to the kernel version running on the device. For details, see the
      README.txt
       file in the
      sepdk/src
       directory.
    • Make sure compiler version corresponds to the architecture (x86 or x86_64) of the kernel running on the target system.
    • For Hotspots in hardware event-based sampling mode, Microarchitecture Exploration, and Custom event-based sampling analysis types, you may not need root credentials and installing the sampling driver for systems with kernel 2.6.32 or higher, which exports CPU PMU programming details over
      /sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu/format
       file system. Your operating system limits on the maximum amount of files opened by a process as well as maximum memory mapped to a process address space still apply and may affect profiling capabilities. These capabilities are based on Linux Perf* functionality and all its limitations fully apply to the
      VTune
      Profiler
       as well. For more information, see the
      Tutorial: Troubleshooting and Tips
       topic at https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page.
  2. On the target device, install the drivers.
    If the
    insmod-sep
     script does not work on the target system due to absence of standard Linux commands, you may install drivers manually using the Linux OS
    insmod
     command directly.
To build the sampling driver as RPM using build services as Open Build Service (OBS), use the
sepdk.spec
 file located at the
<
install-dir
>/sepdk/src
 the directory.

Product and Performance Information

1

Performance varies by use, configuration and other factors. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex.