profiler(ADM)


profiler: prfld, prfstat, prfdc, prfsnap, prfpr -- UNIX system profiler

Synopsis

/usr/sbin/prfld [system_namelist]

/usr/sbin/prfstat [off | on [system_namelist]]

/usr/sbin/prfdc file [period [off_hour [system_namelist]]]

/usr/sbin/prfsnap file [system_namelist]

/usr/sbin/prfpr [-P processor_id[, . . . ] | ALL] [-t] file [cutoff]

Description

prfld, prfstat, prfdc, prfsnap, and prfpr form a system of programs to facilitate an activity study of the UNIX operating system.

prfld is used to initialize the recording mechanism in the system. It generates a table containing the starting address of each system subroutine as extracted from the system_namelist and the modules in /etc/conf/mod.d. It locks all currently loaded modules into memory. It is no longer necessary to use prfld, as this is done automatically by prfstat on, prfsnap, and prfdc. To unlock modules after profiling activities are complete, be sure to run prfstat off.

prfstat is used to enable or disable the sampling mechanism. Profiler overhead is less than 4% as calculated for 3000 text addresses. prfstat will also reveal the number of text addresses being measured.

prfdc and prfsnap perform the data collection function of the profiler by copying the current value of all the text address counters to a file where the data can be analyzed. prfdc will store the counters into file every period minutes and will turn off at off_hour. The valid values for off_hour are 0-24; the default value is 17. Data collection never stops when off_hour is set to 24. The default period is 10. prfsnap collects data at the time of invocation only, appending the counter values to file.

prfpr formats the data collected by prfdc or prfsnap. Each text address is converted to the nearest text symbol and is printed if the percent activity for that range is greater than cutoff. cutoff can be any decimal value greater than or equal to zero and less than, or equal to, 100. The -t option reports time in clock ticks instead of in percentages. The -P option allows the user to examine the data for each of one or more specified processors, or for all processors. When the -P option is not used, aggregate profiling information is displayed.

Files


/dev/prf
interface to profile data and text addresses

/stand/unix
default system namelist file for non-loadable modules

/etc/conf/mod.d/*
system namelists for loadable modules

© 2005 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 - 02 June 2005