Intel® VTune™ Amplifier

Linux* System Setup for Remote Analysis

Note

The installation package for macOS* does not contain collectors for a Linux* target. The collectors can be obtained through the Linux installation package. Refer to the installation guide for Linux OS for additional configuration details, including information about the sampling and power drivers.

You can collect data remotely on a remote Linux* system by specifying the system as the analysis target in Intel® VTune™ Amplifier. VTune Amplifier will automatically install the appropriate collectors on the target system when you switch away from the Analysis Target tab. Specify a location for the install using the VTune Amplifier installation directory on the remote system field under the Advanced settings.

If the collectors are not automatically installed or you get an error message, use the following steps to manually prepare for data collection on a remote Linux system:

  1. Install the VTune Amplifier collector on the target system.

  2. Build and install sampling drivers. (Optional).

  3. Set up SSH access to the target system.

Note

The automatic installation on the remote Linux system does not build and install the sampling drivers. Driverless sampling data collection is based on the Linux Perf* tool functionality, which has a limited scope of analysis options. To collect advanced hardware event-based sampling data, manually install the sampling driver.

Installing the VTune Amplifier Collectors on the Target Device Manually

Use the following steps to set up analysis on a target regular or embedded Linux target system.

  1. Download and extract the Linux installation package.

  2. Copy the required target package archive to the target device using ftp, sftp, or scp. The following target packages are available:

    • <install_dir>/target/linux/vtune_amplifier_target_sep_x86.tgz - provides hardware event-based sampling collector only (SEP) for x86 systems

    • <install_dir>/target/linux/vtune_amplifier_target_sep_x86_64.tgz - provides hardware event-based sampling collector only (SEP) for 64-bit systems

    • <install_dir>/target/linux/vtune_amplifier_target_x86.tgz - provides all VTune Amplifier collectors for x86 systems

    • <install_dir>/target/linux/vtune_amplifier_target_x86_64.tgz - provides all VTune Amplifier collectors for 64-bit systems

    Note

    • Use both *_x86 and *_x86_64 packages if you plan to run and analyze 32-bit processes on 64-bit systems.

  3. On the target device, unpack the product package to the /opt/intel directory:

    target> tar -zxvf <target_package>.tgz

    VTune Amplifier target package is located in the newly created directory /opt/intel/vtune_amplifier_<version>_for_systems.<package_num>.

When collecting data remotely, the VTune Amplifier looks for the collectors on the target device in its default location: /opt/intel/vtune_amplifier_<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 and need to specify another temporary directory, make sure to configure your target properties in the Analysis Target tab as follows:

Alternatively, use the-target-install-dir and -target-tmp-dir options from the amplxe-cl command line.

Building and Installing the Drivers Manually

Note

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.

    Note

    • 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 Advanced Hotspots, General 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 Amplifier as well. For more information, see the Tutorial: Troubleshooting and Tips topic at https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page.

  2. Copy the <install_dir>/sepdk folder to the /opt/intel/vtune_amplifier_<version> directory on the target device.

    You may choose another directory if this location is not accessible/does not exist or you can mount those folders via NFS.

  3. 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.

Note

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.

See Also