Ubuntu Manpage: opcontrol - control OProfile profiling

Provided by: oprofile_0.9.9-0ubuntu8_amd64

NAME

       opcontrol - control OProfile profiling

SYNOPSIS

       opcontrol [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

       opcontrol  can  be  used  to  start profiling, end a profiling session, dump profile data, and set up the
       profiling parameters.

OPTIONS

--help / -?
Show help message.

--version / -v
Show version.

--list-events / -l
Shows the monitorable events.

--init Load the OProfile module if required and make the OProfile driver interface available.

--setup
Followed by list options for profiling setup. Store setup in ~root/.oprofile/daemonrc. Optional.

--status
Show configuration information.

--start-daemon
Start the oprofile daemon without starting profiling.

--start / -s
Start data collection with either arguments provided by --setup or with information saved in
~root/.oprofile/daemonrc.

--dump / -d
Force a flush of the collected profiling data to the daemon.

--stop / -t
Stop data collection.

--shutdown / -h
Stop data collection and kill the daemon.

--reset
Clear out data from current session, but leaves saved sessions.

--save=sessionname
Save data from current session to sessionname.

--deinit
Shut down daemon. Unload the oprofile module and oprofilefs.

--session-dir=dir_path
Use sample database out of directory dir_path instead of the default location (/var/lib/oprofile).

--buffer-size=num
Set kernel buffer to num samples. The buffer watershed needs to be tweaked when changing this
value. Rules: A non-zero value goes into effect after a '--shutdown/start' sequence. A value of
zero sets this parameter back to default value, but does not go into effect until after
'--deinit/init' sequence.

--buffer-watershed=num
Set kernel buffer watershed to num samples. When buffer-size - buffer-watershed free entries
remain in the kernel buffer, data will be flushed to the daemon. Most useful values are in the
range [0.25 - 0.5] * buffer-size. Same rules as defined for buffer-size.

--cpu-buffer-size=num
Set kernel per-cpu buffer to num samples. If you profile at high rate it can help to increase this
if the log file show excessive count of sample lost cpu buffer overflow. Same rules as defined for
buffer-size.

--event / -e [event|"default"]
Specify an event to measure for the hardware performance counters, or "default" for the default
event. The event is of the form "CPU_CLK_UNHALTED:30000:0:1:1" where the numeric values are count,
unit mask, kernel-space counting, user-space counting, respectively. Note that this over-rides
all previous events selected; if you want to profile with two or more events simultaneously, you
must specify them on the same opcontrol invocation. You can specify unit mask values using either
a numerical value (hex values must begin with "0x") or a symbolic name (if the name=<um_name>
field is shown in the ophelp output). For some named unit masks, the hex value is not unique;
thus, OProfile tools enforce specifying such unit masks value by name.

--separate / -p [none,lib,kernel,thread,cpu,all]
Separate samples based on the given separator. 'lib' separates dynamically linked library samples
per application. 'kernel' separates kernel and kernel module samples per application; 'kernel'
implies 'library'. 'thread' gives separation for each thread and task. 'cpu' separates for each
CPU. 'all' implies all of the above options and 'none' turns off separation.

--callgraph / -c [#depth]
Enable callgraph sample collection with a maximum depth. Use 0 to disable callgraph profiling.
This option is available on x86 using a 2.6+ kernel with callgraph support enabled. It is also
available on PowerPC using a 2.6.17+ kernel.

--image / -i [name,name...|"all"]
Only profile the given absolute paths to binaries, or "all" to profile everything (the default).

--vmlinux=file
vmlinux kernel image.

--no-vmlinux
Use this when you don't have a kernel vmlinux file, and you don't want to profile the kernel.

--verbose / -V [options]
Be verbose in the daemon log. This has a high overhead.

--kernel-range=start,end
Set kernel range vma address in hexadecimal.

OPTIONS (specific to Xen)

       --xen=file
              Xen image

       --active-domains=<list>
              List of domain ids participating in a multi-domain profiling session. If more than one  domain  is
              specified  in <list> they should be separated using commas. This option can only be used in domain
              0 which is the only domain that can coordinate a multi-domain profiling session. Including  domain
              0  in  the  list  of  active  domains  is  optional.  (e.g.  --active-domains=2,5,6  and --active-
              domains=0,2,5,6 are equivalent)

OPTIONS (specific to System z)

       --s390hwsampbufsize=num
              Number of 2MB areas used per CPU for storing sample data.  The best size  for  the  sample  memory
              depends  on the particular system and the workload to be measured.  Providing the sampler with too
              little memory results in lost samples. Reserving too much system memory for  the  sampler  impacts
              the overall performance and, hence, also the workload to be measured.

ENVIRONMENT

       No special environment variables are recognised by opcontrol.

FILES

       /root/.oprofile/daemonrc
              Configuration file for opcontrol

       /var/lib/oprofile/samples/
              The location of the generated sample files.

VERSION

       This man page is current for oprofile-0.9.9.