29.2. Configuring OProfile

Before OProfile can be run, it must be configured. At a minimum, selecting to monitor the kernel (or selecting not to monitor the kernel) is required. The following sections describe how to use the opcontrol utility to configure OProfile. As the opcontrol commands are executed, the setup options are saved to the /root/.oprofile/daemonrc file.

29.2.1. Specifying the Kernel

First, configure whether OProfile should monitor the kernel. This is the only configuration option that is required before starting OProfile. All others are optional.
To monitor the kernel, execute the following command as root: 
~]# opcontrol --setup --vmlinux=/usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/`uname -r`/vmlinux

Important

The debuginfo package for the kernel must be installed (which contains the uncompressed kernel) in order to monitor the kernel.
To configure OProfile not to monitor the kernel, execute the following command as root: 
~]# opcontrol --setup --no-vmlinux
This command also loads the oprofile kernel module, if it is not already loaded, and creates the /dev/oprofile/ directory, if it does not already exist. See Section 29.6, “Understanding /dev/oprofile/” for details about this directory.
Setting whether samples should be collected within the kernel only changes what data is collected, not how or where the collected data is stored. To generate different sample files for the kernel and application libraries, see Section 29.2.3, “Separating Kernel and User-space Profiles”.