Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE and Intel® VTune™ Amplifier for Systems Help

Remote Linux - Attach to Process Target Type

Use this configuration to specify a particular process to attach to and analyze with the Intel® VTune™ Amplifier on the remote Linux* system via SSH connection.

Prerequisites: Make sure to prepare your target Linux system for analysis:

  1. Set up a password-less SSH access to the target using RSA keys.

  2. Install the VTune Amplifier target package with data collectors on the target Linux system.

    Note

    If you choose to install the target package to a non-default location, make sure to specify the correct path either with the VTune Amplifier installation directory on the remote system option in the Analysis Target tab (GUI) or with the -target-install-dir option (CLI).

  3. Build the drivers on the host (if required), copy them to the target system and install the drivers.

    Note

    To build the sampling driver as RPM using build services as Open Build Service (OBS), use the sepdk.spec file located at <install_dir>/sepdk/src the directory.

To access the analysis target configuration, open the Analysis Target window, choose the local target system on the left, select the Attach to Process target type from the drop-down menu on the right and in the via SSH field specify the username, hostname, and port (if required) for your remote Linux machine as username@hostname[:port].

When you run an analysis, the VTune Amplifier attaches to the process and starts collecting data. To detach from the process, click the button on the command toolbar. The process will keep running but the analysis will be stopped.

Basic Options

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To Do This

Process name

Identify the executable to analyze by its name.

PID

Identify the executable to analyze by its process ID (PID).

Browse button

Open the Select Process dialog box that provides a list of currently available processes to attach to. As soon as you select a process of interest in the Select Process dialog box and click OK, the VTune Amplifier automatically populates the Process name and PID fields with the data for the selected process.

Managed code profiling mode menu

Select a profiling mode for managed code. Managed mode attributes data to managed source and only collects managed portion. Native mode collects everything but does not attribute data to managed source. Mixed mode collects everything and attributes data to managed source where appropriate.

Automatically resume collection after (sec)

Specify the time that should elapse before the data collection is resumed. When this options is used, the collection starts in the paused mode automatically.

Automatically stop collection after (sec)

Set the duration of data collection in seconds starting from the target run. This is useful if you want to exclude some post-processing activities from the analysis results.

Advanced Options

Use the Advanced section to provide more details on your target configuration.

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To Do This

VTune Amplifier installation directory on the remote system

Specify a path to the VTune Amplifier on the remote system. If the default location is used, this path is automatically supplied.

Note

This option is available for the remote (Linux or Android) target types.

Temporary directory on the remote system

Specify a path to the /tmp directory on the remote system where performance results are temporarily stored.

Note

This option is available for the remote (Linux or Android) target types.

Analyze child processes check box

Collect data on processes launched by the target process. Use this option when profiling an application with the script.

Modify button

Click the Modify button to open the Per-process Configuration dialog box and specify child processes to analyze. For example, if your target application calls shell or makes processes, you can choose to exclude them from analysis and focus only on the processes you develop.

This option is not applicable to hardware event-based analysis types.

Duration time estimate menu

Estimate the application duration time. This value affects the size of collected data. For long running targets, sampling interval is increased to reduce the result size. For hardware event-based sampling analysis types, the VTune Amplifier uses this estimate to apply a multiplier to the configured sample after value.

Analyze system-wide check box

Enable analyzing all processes running on the system. When disabled, only the target process is analyzed.

Limit collected data by section

If the amount of raw collected data is very large and takes long to process, use any of the following options to limit the collected data size:

  • Result size from collection start, MB: Set the maximum possible result size (in MB) to collect. VTune Amplifier will start collecting data from the beginning of the target execution and suspend data collection when the specified limit for the result size is reached. For unlimited data size, specify 0.

  • Time from collection end, sec: Set the timer enabling the analysis only for the last seconds before the target run or collection is terminated. For example, if you specified 2 seconds as a time limit, the VTune Amplifier starts the data collection from the very beginning but saves the collected data only for the last 2 seconds before you terminate the collection.

Note

The size of data stored in the result directory may not exactly match the specified result size due to the following reasons:

  • The collected data may slightly exceed the limit since the VTune Amplifier only checks the data size periodically.

  • During finalization, the VTune Amplifier loads the raw data into a database with additional information about source and binary files.

CPU mask

Specify CPU(s) to collect data on (for example: 2-8,10,12-14). This option is applicable to hardware event-based analysis types only.

Custom collector

Provide a command line for launching an external collection tool, if any. You can later import the custom collection data (time intervals and counters) in a CSV format to a VTune Amplifier result. Click the Modify button to add a path to your external collector.

Result location options

Select where you want to store your result file. By default, the result is stored in the project directory.

Analyze KVM guest OS check box

Enable KVM guest system profiling with the VTune Amplifier. For proper kernel symbol resolution, make sure to specify:

  • a local path to the /proc/kallsyms file copied from the guest OS

  • a local path to the /proc/modules file copied from the guest OS

Support Limitations

For driverless event-based sampling data collection, VTune Amplifier supports local and remote Launch Application, Attach to Process and Profile System target types but their support fully depends on the Linux Perf profiling credentials specified in the /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid file and managed by the administrator of your system using root privileges. For more information see the perf_event related configuration files topic at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/perf_event_open.2.html. By default, only profiling of user processes at the both user and kernel spaces is permitted.

What's Next

Click the Choose Analysis button on the right to switch to the Analysis Type tab for selecting, configuring, and launching an analysis. The Analysis Type tab displays analysis types applicable to the specified target type.

Note

You can launch an analysis only for an accessible target. For an arbitrary target, you can only generate a command line configuration, save it to the buffer and later launch it on the intended host.

See Also