OProfile is a low-overhead, transparent system-wide profiler for Linux, capable of instruction-grain profiling of all processes, shared libraries, the kernel and device drivers, via the hardware performance counters.
It consists of a kernel driver and a daemon for collecting sample data, and several post-profiling tools for turning data into information.
OProfile leverages the hardware performance counters of the CPU to enable profiling of a wide variety of interesting statistics, which can also be used for basic time-spent profiling. All code is profiled: hardware and software interrupt handlers, kernel modules, the kernel, shared libraries, and applications.
Key Features
- System-wide profiling.
- Performance counter support.
- Call-graph support.
- Low overhead.
- Post-profile analysis.
- System support.
- Support for dynamically compiled (JIT) code.
- operf program that allows non-root users to profile a specified individual process.
Website: oprofile.sourceforge.net
Support: Documentation
Developer: John Levon, Philippe Elie, Maynard Johnson
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
OProfile is written in C and C++. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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