Set Up Remote Linux* Target

Use Intel® VTune™ Profiler on a Windows* or Linux* host system to analyze code performance on remote Linux systems.

To analyze applications on a remote Linux target (regular or embedded systems), you can run VTune Profiler:

Use Remote CLI or GUI

Minimum disk space needed on the target system: ~25 MB

This mode is recommended for most cross-development scenarios supported by the VTune Profiler, especially if your target system is resource-constrained (insufficient disk space, memory, or CPU power) or if you use a highly customized Linux target system.

To collect data on a remote Linux system:

1. Install VTune Profiler

Install the full-scale VTune Profiler product on the host system.

2. Prepare your target system for analysis

  1. For embedded Linux systems, set up a password-less SSH access to the target using RSA keys. For other systems, the VTune Profiler GUI generates and deploys a key.

  2. Install the VTune Profiler 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 Profiler installation directory on the remote system option in the WHERE pane (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.

3. Configure and run remote analysis

  1. On your host system, open the VTune Profiler GUI and select Configure Analysis.

  2. In the Where pane, specify the target install directory.

  3. In the What pane, specify your target application on the remote system. Make sure to specify search directories for symbol/source files required for finalization on the host.

  4. In the How pane, choose and configure an analysis type.

  5. Start the analysis.

VTune Profiler runs your application on the target and collects profiling data. When the analysis is completed, VTune Profilercopies the results and binary files to the host system and finalizes the data.

You can also run this data collection from the command line.

4. View results

View the collected data on the host. You can also import results from a previous data collection.

Use the Native CLI

Minimum disk space needed on the target system: ~200 MB disk space.

Use this mode to profile applications on regular Linux target systems. In this mode, you install the full-scale VTune Profiler product on a host system. You install the command line interface of VTune Profiler, vtune on the target system. You can then run native data collection directly on the target.

This figure shows an overview of the remote analysis that is run with vtune directly on the target system:

In the native usage mode, workflow steps to configure and run analysis on a remote system are similar to the remote collectors mode.

Use Native Sampling Collector (SEP)

The Sampling collector (SEP) is a command-line tool for hardware event-based sampling analysis that you can use for resource-restricted systems. SEP is a part of the VTune Profiler package. The SEP package contains both sep utilities and the sepdk source code (for pax.ko and sep4_x.ko) which are necessary to build the sampling drivers.

To use SEP,

  1. Extract the SEP package from the vtune_profiler_target_sep_x86.tgz or vtune_profiler_target_sep_x86_64.tgz file.
  2. Build the driver.
  3. Upload the driver and sep utilities to the target.
  4. Use the command line to collect the event-based sampling performance data.

You can find more information in the Sampling Enabling Product User's Guide.

Note

VTune Profiler also provides the sepdk sources for building sampling drivers. If VTune Profiler uses the same driver as SEP, the source code for sepdk may be identical to the source code provided in the SEP package. VTune Profilersepdk sources also include the event-based stack sampling data collector that is not part of the SEP package.

See Also