---
name: "oprofile"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "oprofile"
version: "0.9.6-1.1+squeeze2"
release: "Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/oprofile"
---

# oprofile(1)

a system-wide profiler

## NAME

oprofile - a system-wide profiler

## SYNOPSIS

**opcontrol** \[ *options* \]\
 **opreport** \[ *options* \] \[ profile specification \]\
 **opannotate** \[ *options* \] \[ profile specification \]\
 **oparchive** \[ *options* \] \[ profile specification \]\
 **opgprof** \[ *options* \] \[ profile specification \]\

## DESCRIPTION

OProfile is a profiling system for systems running Linux 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6. Profiling runs transparently in the background and profile data can be collected at any time. OProfile makes use of the hardware performance counters provided on Intel, AMD, and other processors, and uses a timer-interrupt based mechanism on CPUs without counters. OProfile can profile the whole system in high detail.\
 For a gentle guide to using OProfile, please read the HTML documentation listed in SEE ALSO.\

## OPCONTROL

**opcontrol** is used for starting and stopping the OProfile daemon, and providing set-up parameters.

## OPREPORT

**opreport** gives image and symbol-based profile summaries for the whole system or a subset of binary images.

## OPANNOTATE

**opannotate** can produce annotated source or mixed source and assembly output.

## OPARCHIVE

**oparchive** produces oprofile archive for offline analysis

## OPGPROF

**opgprof** can produce a gprof-format profile for a single binary.

## PROFILE SPECIFICATIONS

All of the post-profiling tools can take profile specifications, which is some combination of the following parameters. Enclosing part of a profile specification in curly braces { } can be used for differential profiles with **opreport** ; the braces **must** be surrounded by whitespace.

- **archive:***archive*

  Path to the archive to inspect, as generated by **oparchive**\

- **session:***sessionlist*

  A comma-separated list of session names to resolve in. Absence of this tag, unlike all others, means "the current session", equivalent to specifying "session:current".\

- **session-exclude:***sessionlist*

  A comma-separated list of sessions to exclude.\

- **image:***imagelist*

  A comma-separated list of image names to resolve. Each entry may be relative path, glob-style name, or full path, e.g. opreport 'image:/usr/bin/oprofiled,\*op\*,./oprofpp'\

- **image-exclude:***imagelist*

  Same as image:, but the matching images are excluded.\

- **lib-image:***imagelist*

  Same as image:, but only for images that are for a particular primary binary image (namely, an application). This only makes sense to use if you're using --separate. This includes kernel modules and the kernel when using --separate=kernel.\

- **lib-image-exclude:***imagelist*

  Same as \<option\>lib-image:\</option\>, but the matching images are excluded.\

- **event:***eventname*

  The symbolic event name to match on, e.g. event:DATA\_MEM\_REFS.\

- **count:***eventcount*

  The event count to match on, e.g. event:DATA\_MEM\_REFS count:30000.\

- **unit-mask:***maskvalue*

  The unit mask value of the event to match on, e.g. unit-mask:1.\

- **cpu:***cpulist*

  Only consider profiles for the given numbered CPU (starting from zero). This is only useful when using CPU profile separation.\

- **tgid:***pidlist*

  Only consider profiles for the given task groups. Unless some program is using threads, the task group ID of a process is the same as its process ID. This option corresponds to the POSIX notion of a thread group. This is only useful when using per-process profile separation.\

- **tid:***tidlist*

  Only consider profiles for the given threads. When using recent thread libraries, all threads in a process share the same task group ID, but have different thread IDs. You can use this option in combination with tgid: to restrict the results to particular threads within a process. This is only useful when using per-process profile separation.

## ENVIRONMENT

No special environment variables are recognised by oprofile.

## FILES

- *$HOME/.oprofile/*

  Configuration files

- */root/.oprofile/daemonrc*

  Configuration file for opcontrol

- */usr/share/oprofile/*

  Event description files used by OProfile.

- */var/lib/oprofile/samples/oprofiled.log*

  The user-space daemon logfile.

- */var/lib/oprofile/opdev, /var/lib/oprofile/ophashmapdev, /var/lib/oprofile/opnotedev*

  The device files for communication with the Linux 2.4 kernel module.

- */dev/oprofile*

  The device filesystem for communication with the Linux 2.6 kernel module.

- */var/lib/oprofile/samples/*

  The location of the generated sample files.

## VERSION

- This man page is current for oprofile-0.9.6.

  ## SEE ALSO

**/usr/share/doc/oprofile/,** **[opcontrol(1)](/opcontrol/1.md),** **[opreport(1)](/opreport/1.md),** **[opannotate(1)](/opannotate/1.md),** **[oparchive(1)](/oparchive/1.md),** **[opgprof(1)](/opgprof/1.md),** **[gprof(1)](/gprof/1.md),** **[readprofile(1)](/readprofile/1.md),** **CPU vendor architecture manuals**

## COPYRIGHT

oprofile is Copyright (C) 1998-2004 University of Manchester, UK, John Levon, and others. OProfile is released under the GNU General Public License, Version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

## AUTHORS

John Levon \<levon@movementarian.org\> is the primary author. See the documentation for other contributors.