Building and Managing the Sampling Driver

Intel® VTune™ Amplifier uses a sampling driver to enable the hardware event-based sampling analysis. The sampling driver is installed by default during product installation.

If the driver was not properly installed or unavailable for the current system, the VTune Amplifier cannot run a hardware event-based sampling analysis type, displays an error message, and automatically enables a driverless event-based sampling collection with a limited set of analysis options. But you still may build and load the sampling driver as a root user after product installation and enable a full-scale sampling collection.

To verify the sampling driver is installed correctly on a Microsoft Windows* OS:

Open the command prompt as an administrator and run the amplxe-sepreg utility located at <install_dir>\bin32 .

To make sure your system meets all the requirements necessary for the hardware event-based sampling collection, enter:

> amplxe-sepreg -c

This command performs the following dependency checks required to install the sampling driver:

• platform, architecture, and OS environment

• availability of the sampling driver binaries: sep3drv.sys and sepdal.sys

• administrative privileges

• 32/64-bit installation

To check whether the sampling driver is loaded, enter:

> amplxe-sepreg -s

If the sampling driver is not installed but the system is supported by the VTune Amplifier, execute the following command with the administrative privileges to install the driver:

> amplxe-sepreg -i

To verify the sampling driver is installed correctly on a Linux* OS:

./rmmod-sep3 -s

To verify the sampling driver is configured properly on Linux:

1. Make sure the kernel version is 2.6.28 or later.

2. Make sure the following options are enabled in the kernel configuration for hardware event-based sampling (EBS) collection:

   • CONFIG_MODULES=y

   • CONFIG_MODULE_UNLOAD=y

   • CONFIG_PROFILING=y

   • CONFIG_OPROFILE=m (or CONFIG_OPROFILE=y)

   • CONFIG_HAVE_OPROFILE=y

3. Make sure that following options are enabled in the kernel configuration for EBS collection with stacks:

   • CONFIG_MODULES=y

   • CONFIG_SMP=y

   • CONFIG_MODULE_UNLOAD=y

   • CONFIG_KPROBES=y

   • CONFIG_RING_BUFFER=y

   • CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS=y (optional but recommended)

   • CONFIG_FRAME_POINTER=y (optional but recommended for kernel stack analysis)

To build the sampling driver as RPM using build services as Open Build Service (OBS):

use the sepdk.spec file located at the <install_dir>/sepdk/src directory.