Use this configuration to specify a particular process to attach to and analyze with the Intel® VTune™ Amplifier on the local host system.
When you run an analysis, the VTune Amplifier attaches to the process and starts collecting data. To detach from the process, click the
button on the
command toolbar. The process will keep running but the analysis will be stopped.
You can use the VTune Amplifier to profile the Windows kernel-mode process and analyze all privileged resource operations (for example, memory management, paging) it is responsible for or to explore your multithreaded kernel-mode drivers running in the context of this process. If you are a driver developer, this option can help you profile asynchronous driver threads and identify system resource utilization issues (for example, issues caused by frequent page allocations). To analyze the system process, run the VTune Amplifier with administrative privileges and configure the analysis target to attach to PID 4. In case of event-based call stack collection, call stacks will show kernel-mode functions only (because of the absence of the user-mode context).
To access the analysis target configuration:
Open the Analysis Target window.
From the left pane, select the local host target system.
Select the Attach to Process target type.
Note
To create a command line configuration for a target not accessible from the current host, click the Arbitrary Targets toggle button at the bottom of the left pane. Make sure to choose an operating system your target will be running with: Windows or GNU/Linux and a hardware platform.
Basic Options
Use This |
To Do This |
|---|---|
Inherit settings from Visual Studio project check box (Visual Studio* IDE only) |
Enable/disable using the project currently opened in Visual Studio* and its current configuration settings as a target configuration. Checking this check box makes all other target configuration settings unavailable for editing. |
Process name |
Identify the executable to analyze by its name. |
PID |
Identify the executable to analyze by its process ID (PID). |
Managed code profiling mode menu |
Select a profiling mode for managed code. Managed mode attributes data to managed source and only collects managed portion. Native mode collects everything but does not attribute data to managed source. Mixed mode collects everything and attributes data to managed source where appropriate. |
Automatically resume collection after (sec) |
Specify the time that should elapse before the data collection is resumed. When this options is used, the collection starts in the paused mode automatically. |
Automatically stop collection after (sec) |
Set the duration of data collection in seconds starting from the target run. This is useful if you want to exclude some post-processing activities from the analysis results. |
Advanced Options
Use the Advanced section to provide more details on your target configuration.
Use This |
To Do This |
|---|---|
Analyze child processes check box |
Collect data on processes launched by the target process. Use this option when profiling an application with the script. Selecting this option enables the Per-process Configuration where you can specify child processes to analyze. For example, if your target application calls shell or makes processes, you can choose to exclude them from analysis and focus only on the processes you develop. The Default process configuration represents how all processes should be analyzed. This line cannot be removed, but can be customized. Depending on your choice, you may include/exclude from the data collection specific processes (self value) and the child processes they spawn (children value). This option is not applicable to hardware event-based analysis types. |
Duration time estimate menu (deprecated) |
NoteThis option is deprecated. Use the CPU sampling interval option on the Analysis Type configuration pane instead. Estimate the application duration time. This value affects the size of collected data. For long running targets, sampling interval is increased to reduce the result size. For hardware event-based sampling analysis types, the VTune Amplifier uses this estimate to apply a multiplier to the configured sample after value. |
Analyze system-wide check box |
Enable analyzing all processes running on the system. When disabled, only the target process is analyzed. On Windows, this option is applicable to hardware event-based sampling analysis types only. |
Limit collected data by section |
If the amount of raw collected data is very large and takes long to process, use any of the following options to limit the collected data size:
NoteThe size of data stored in the result directory may not exactly match the specified result size due to the following reasons:
|
CPU mask |
Specify CPU(s) to collect data on (for example: 2-8,10,12-14). This option is applicable to hardware event-based analysis types only. |
Custom collector |
Provide a command line for launching an external collection tool, if any. You can later import the custom collection data (time intervals and counters) in a CSV format to a VTune Amplifier result. |
Result location options |
Select where you want to store your result file. By default, the result is stored in the project directory. |
Analyze KVM guest OS check box (Linux only) |
Enable KVM guest system profiling. For proper kernel symbol resolution, make sure to specify:
|
Tip
To focus on analyzing particular processes, you may collect data on all processes (without selecting the Attach to Process target type) and then filter the collected results as follows:
From the Grouping drop-down menu in the Bottom-up pane, select the grouping by Process, for example: Process/Function/Thread/Call Stack.
In the grid, right-click the process you are interested in and select the Filter In by Selection option from the context menu.
VTune Amplifier updates the grid to provide data for the selected process only.
From the Grouping drop-down menu, select any other grouping level you need, for example: Function/Call Stack.
VTune Amplifier groups the data for the selected process according to the granularity you specified.
Support Limitations
VTune Amplifier provides limited support for profiling Windows* services. For details, see Profiling Windows Services article on the web.
For driverless event-based sampling data collection, VTune Amplifier supports local and remote Launch Application, Attach to Process and Profile System target types but their support fully depends on the Linux Perf profiling credentials specified in the /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid file and managed by the administrator of your system using root privileges. For more information see the perf_event related configuration files topic at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/perf_event_open.2.html. By default, only profiling of user processes at the both user and kernel spaces is permitted.
What's Next
Click the Choose Analysis button on the right to switch to the Analysis Type tab for selecting, configuring, and launching an analysis. The Analysis Type tab displays analysis types applicable to the specified target type.
Note
You can launch an analysis only for targets accessible from the current host. For an arbitrary target, you can only generate a command line configuration, save it to the buffer and later launch it on the intended host.