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

The debuginfo package 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. Refer to "Understanding /dev/oprofile/" for details about this directory.

Even if OProfile is configured not to profile the kernel, the SMP kernel still must be running so that the oprofile module can be loaded from it.

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, refer to "Separating Kernel and User-space Profiles".