READPROFILE(1)						      General Commands Manual						    READPROFILE(1)

NAME

       readprofile - a tool to read kernel profiling information

SYNOPSIS

       readprofile [options]

VERSION

       This manpage documents version 2.0 of the program.

DESCRIPTION

       The  readprofile  command uses the /proc/profile information to print ascii data on standard output.  The output is organized in three col-
       umns: the first is the number of clock ticks, the second is the name of the C function in the kernel where those many ticks  occurred,  and
       the third is the normalized `load' of the procedure, calculated as a ratio between the number of ticks and the length of the procedure. The
       output is filled with blanks to ease readability.

       Available command line options are the following:

       -m mapfile
	      Specify a mapfile, which by default is /usr/src/linux/System.map.  You should specify the map file on cmdline if your current kernel
	      isn't the last one you compiled, or if you keep System.map elsewhere. If the name of the map file ends with `.gz' it is decompressed
	      on the fly.

       -p pro-file
	      Specify a different profiling buffer, which by default is /proc/profile.	Using a different  pro-file  is  useful  if  you  want	to
	      `freeze'	the kernel profiling at some time and read it later. The /proc/profile file can be copied using `cat' or `cp'. There is no
	      more support for compressed profile buffers, like in readprofile-1.1, because the program needs to know the size of  the	buffer	in
	      advance.

       -i     Info.  This makes readprofile only print the profiling step used by the kernel.  The profiling step is the resolution of the profil-
	      ing buffer, and is chosen during kernel configuration (through `make config'), or in the kernel's command line.  If the  -t  (terse)
	      switch is used together with -i only the decimal number is printed.

       -a     Print all symbols in the mapfile. By default the procedures with 0 reported ticks are not printed.

       -b     Print individual histogram-bin counts.

       -r     Reset  the  profiling  buffer. This can only be invoked by root, because /proc/profile is readable by everybody but writable only by
	      the superuser. However, you can make readprofile setuid 0, in order to reset the buffer without gaining privileges.

       -M multiplier
	      On some architectures it is possible to alter the frequency at which the kernel delivers profiling interrupts  to  each  CPU.   This
	      option  allows  you to set the frequency, as a multiplier of the system clock frequency, HZ.  This is supported on i386-SMP (2.2 and
	      2.4 kernel) and also on sparc-SMP and sparc64-SMP (2.4 kernel).  This option also resets the profiling buffer,  and  requires  supe-
	      ruser privileges.

       -v     Verbose.	The output is organized in four columns and filled with blanks.  The first column is the RAM address of a kernel function,
	      the second is the name of the function, the third is the number of clock ticks and the last is the normalized load.

       -V     Version. This makes readprofile print its version number and exit.

EXAMPLES

       Browse the profiling buffer ordering by clock ticks:
	  readprofile | sort -nr | less

       Print the 20 most loaded procedures:
	  readprofile | sort -nr +2 | head -20

       Print only filesystem profile:
	  readprofile | grep _ext2

       Look at all the kernel information, with ram addresses"
	  readprofile -av | less

       Browse a `freezed' profile buffer for a non current kernel:
	  readprofile -p ~/profile.freeze -m /zImage.map.gz

       Request profiling at 2kHz per CPU, and reset the profiling buffer
	  sudo readprofile -M 20

BUGS

       readprofile only works with an 1.3.x or newer kernel, because /proc/profile changed in the step from 1.2 to 1.3

       This program only works with ELF kernels. The change for a.out kernels is trivial, and left as an exercise to the a.out user.

       To enable profiling, the kernel must be rebooted, because no profiling module is available, and it wouldn't be easy  to	build.	To  enable
       profiling,  you	can specify "profile=2" (or another number) on the kernel commandline.	The number you specify is the two-exponent used as
       profiling step.

       Profiling is disabled when interrupts are inhibited. This means that many profiling ticks happen when interrupts are re-enabled. Watch  out
       for misleading information.

FILES

       /proc/profile		  A binary snapshot of the profiling buffer.
       /usr/src/linux/System.map  The symbol table for the kernel.
       /usr/src/linux/* 	  The program being profiled :-)

AVAILABILITY

       The readprofile command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

4th Berkeley Distribution					     May 1996							    READPROFILE(1)