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<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="platdev">
<title>Platform Development with Poky</title>
<section id="platdev-appdev">
<title>Software development</title>
<para>
Poky supports several methods of software development. You can use the method that is
best for you. This chapter describes each development method.
</para>
<section id="platdev-appdev-external-sdk">
<title>External Development Using the Poky SDK</title>
<para>
The meta-toolchain and meta-toolchain-sdk targets (<link linkend='ref-images'>see
the images section</link>) build tarballs that contain toolchains and
libraries suitable for application development outside of Poky. These tarballs
unpack into the
<filename class="directory">/opt/poky</filename> directory and contain
a setup script (e.g.
<filename>/opt/poky/environment-setup-i586-poky-linux</filename>, which
you can source to initialize a suitable environment. Sourcing these adds the
compiler, QEMU scripts, QEMU binary, a special version of pkgconfig and other
useful utilities to the PATH variable. Variables to assist pkgconfig and
autotools are also set so that, for example, configure can find pre-generated test
results for tests that need target hardware on which to run.
</para>
<para>
Using the toolchain with autotool-enabled packages is straightforward - just pass the
appropriate host option to configure as in the following example:
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ ./configure --host=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi
</literallayout>
For other projects it is usually a case of ensuring the cross tools are used:
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
CC=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc and LD=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-ld
</literallayout>
</para>
</section>
<section id="using-the-eclipse-and-anjuta-plug-ins">
<title>Using the Eclipse and Anjuta Plug-ins</title>
<para>
Yocto Project supports both Anjuta and Eclipse IDE plug-ins to make developing software
easier for the application developer. The plug-ins provide capability
extensions to the graphical IDE allowing for cross compilation,
deployment and execution of the output in a QEMU emulation session.
Support of these plug-ins also supports cross debugging and
profiling. Additionally, the Eclipse plug-in provides a suite of tools
that allows the developer to perform remote profiling, tracing, collection of
power data, collection of latency data and collection of performance data.
</para>
<section id="the-eclipse-plug-in">
<title>The Eclipse Plug-in</title>
<para>
To use the Eclipse plug-in, a toolchain and SDK built by Poky is required along with
the Eclipse Framework (Helios 3.6).
To install the plug-in you need to be in the Eclipse IDE and select
the following menu:
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
Help -> Install New Software
</literallayout>
Specify the target URL as http://yocto./download (real link needed).
</para>
<para>
If you want to download the source code for the plug-in you can find it in the Poky
git repository, which has a web interface, and is located at
<ulink url="http://git.pokylinux.org/cgit.cgi/eclipse-poky"></ulink>.
</para>
<section id="installing-and-setting-up-the-eclipse-ide">
<title>Installing and Setting up the Eclipse IDE</title>
<para>
If you don't have the Eclipse IDE (Helios 3.6) on your system you need to
download and install it from <ulink url="http://www.eclipse.org/downloads"></ulink>.
Choose the Eclipse Classic, which contains the Eclipse Platform, Java Development
Tools (JDT), and the Plug-in Development Environment.
</para>
<para>
NOTE: Due to the Java Virtual Machine's garbage collection (GC) process the
permanent generation space (PermGen) is not cleaned up. This space is used
to store meta-data descriptions of classes. The default value is set too small
and it could trigger an out of memory error like the following:
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
Java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space
</literallayout>
This error causes the applications to hang.
</para>
<para>
To fix this issue you can use the <command>-vmargs</command>
option when you start Eclipse to increase the size of the permenant generation space:
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
Eclipse -vmargs -XX:PermSize=256M
</literallayout>
</para>
<para>
The Eclipse plug-in depends several Eclipse projects plug-ins:
Eclipse C/C++ Development Tools (CDT), Autotools support for CDT (Incubation) and Target
Management (RSE).
</para>
<para>
After installing Eclipse and bringing up the IDE for the first
time you need to be sure the following four sites are available by adding them.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>CDT - http://download.eclipse.org/tools/cdt/releases/helios</listitem>
<listitem>Helios - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios</listitem>
<listitem>Target Management
3.2 Updates - http://download.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/updates/3.2</listitem>
<listitem>The Eclipse Project Updates -
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Once these sites are available do the following:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>Use the "Work with:" drop down list and
select "All Available Sites--"</listitem>
<listitem><emphasis>For CDT and Autotools support:</emphasis> Expand the
"Programming Languages" list and select "Autotools support for CDT
(Incubation)" and "C/C++ Development Tools". Click "Next" and complete
the update.</listitem>
<listitem><emphasis>For RSE support:</emphasis> Select "TM and
RSE Main Features". Click "Next" and complete the update.</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
<section id="installing-the-yocto-plug-in">
<title>Installing the Yocto Plug-in</title>
<para>
Once you have the Eclipse IDE installed and configure you need to install the
Yocto plug-in. You do this similar to installing the Eclipse plug-ins in the
previous section.
</para>
<para>
Do the following to install the Yocto plug-in into the Eclipse IDE:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>Select the "Help -> Install New Software" item.</listitem>
<listitem>In the "Work with:" area click "Add..." and enter the URL for
the Yocto plug-in (we need to supply this URL).</listitem>
<listitem>Finish out the installation of the update similar to any other
Eclipse plug-in.</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
<section id="configuring-yocto-eclipse-plug-in">
<title>Configuring Yocto Eclipse plug-in</title>
<para>
To configure the Yocto Eclipse plug-in you need to select the mode and then the
architecture with which you will be working. Start by selecting "Preferences"
from the "Window" menu and then selecting "Yocto SDK".
</para>
<para>
If you normally will use an installed Yocto
SDK (under /opt/poky) select “SDK Root Mode”. Otherwise, if your crosstool chain
and sysroot are within your poky tree, select “Poky Tree Mode”.
If you are in SDK Root Mode you will need to provide your poky tree path, for
example, $&lt;Poky_tree&gt;/build/.
</para>
<para>
Now you need to select the architecture.
Use the drop down list and select the architecture that youll be primarily
working against.
For target option, select your typical target QEMU vs External HW. If you
choose QEMU, youll need to specify your QEMU kernel file with full path and the
rootfs mount point. Yocto QEMU boots off user mode NFS, Please refer to QEMU
section for how to set it up. (Section TBD)
</para>
<para>
Save all your settings and they become your defaults for every new Yocto project
created using the Eclipse IDE.
</para>
</section>
<section id="using-the-yocto-eclipse-plug-in">
<title>Using the Yocto Eclipse Plug-in</title>
<para>
As an example, this section shows you how to cross-compile a Yocto C autotools
based project, deploy it into QEMU, and then run the debugger against it.
You need to configure the project, trigger <command> autogen.sh</command>, build
the image, start QEMU, and then debug.
</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>Creating a Yocto Autotools Based Project Using a Template:
Get to the Wizard selection by selecting the File -> New -> Project
menu. Expand "C/C++" and select "C Project". Click "Next" and select a template
to start with, for example "Hello World ANSI C Project". Complete the steps
to create a new Yocto autotools based project using this template.</listitem>
<listitem>Specify Specific Toolchain Configurations: By default the project
uses the Yocto preferences settings as defined using the procedure in
<link linkend="configuring-yocto-eclipse-plug-in"> the previous section</link>.
If there are any specific setup requirements for the newly created project
you need to reconfigure the Yocto plug-in through the menu selection
Project -> Invoke Yocto Tools -> Reconfigure Yocto. Use this dialogue
to specify specific toolchain and QEMU setups for the project.</listitem>
<listitem>Building the Project: Trigger <command>autogen.sh</command> through
Project -> Reconfigure Project. Then build the project using
Project -> Build.</listitem>
<listitem>Starting QEMU: Use the Run -> External Tools menu and see if there is
a QEMU instance for the desired target. If there is click on the instance
to start QEMU. If your target is not there then click "External Tools
Configuration". You should find an instance of QEMU for your architecture
under the entry under "Program". After the boot completes you are ready to
deploy the image into QEMU.</listitem>
<listitem>Debugging: To bring up your remote debugging configuration in the
right-hand window highlight your project in “Project Explorer”, select
the Run -> Debug Configurations menu item and expand “C/C++ Remote Application”.
Next, select projectname_ gdb_target-poky-linux.
You need to be sure that there is an
entry for the remote target you want to deploy and cross debug with. If there
is no entry then click "New..." to bring up the wizard. Using the wizard
select TCF and enter the IP address of you remote target in the
“Host name:” field. Back in the remote debug configure window,
you need to specify the absolute path for the program on the remote target
in the “Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++ Application” field. By default,
the program deploys into the remote target. If you don't want this then check
“Skip download to target path”. Finally, click "Debug” to start the remote
debugging session.</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="using-yocto-eclipse-plug-in-remote-tools-suite">
<title>Using Yocto Eclipse plug-in Remote Tools Suite</title>
<para>
Remote tools let you do things like perform system profiling, kernel tracing,
examine power consumption, and so forth. To see and access the remote tools use the
Window -> YoctoTools menu.
</para>
<para>
Once you pick a tool you need to configure it for the remote target. Every tool
needs to have the connection configured. You have to select an existing TCF-based
RSE connection to the remote target. If one does not exist you need to create one
by clicking "New"
</para>
<para>
Here are some specifics about the remote tools:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>Oprofile: Selecting this tool causes the oprofile-server on the remote
target to launch on the local host machine. To use the oprofile the oprofile-viewer
must be installed on the local host machine and the oprofile-server must be
installed on the remote target.</listitem>
<listitem>lttng: Selecting this tool runs ustrace on the remote target, transfers
the output data back to the local host machine and uses lttv-gui to graphically
display the output. To use this tool the lttv-gui must be installed on the
local host machine. See <ulink url="http://lttng.org/files/ust/manual/ust.html">
</ulink> for information on how to use <command>lttng</command> to trace an
application.
<para>
For "Application" you must supply the absolute path name to the application to
be traced by user mode lttng. For example, typing <command>/path/to/foo"
</command> triggers <command>usttrace /path/to/foo</command> on the
remote target to trace the program <command>/path/to/foo</command>.
</para>
<para>
"Argument" is passed to "usttrace" running on the remote target.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>powertop: Selecting this tool runs <command>powertop</command> on the
remote target machine and displays the result in a new view called "powertop".
<para>
"Time to gather data(sec):" is the time passed in seconds before data is
gathered from the remote target for analysis.
</para>
<para>
"show pids in wakeups list:" corresponds to the <command>-p</command>
argument passed to <command>powertop</command>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>latencytop and perf: The <command>latencytop</command> identifies
system latency, while <command>perf</command> monitors the system's performance
counter registers. Selecting either of these tools causes an RSE
terminal view to appear in which you can run the tools. Both tools refresh the
entire screen to display results while they run.</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="external-development-using-the-anjuta-plug-in">
<title>External Development Using the Anjuta Plug-in</title>
<para>
(Note: We will stop Anjuta plug-in support after Yocto project 0.9 release. Its source
code can be downloaded from git respository listed below, and free for the community to
continue supporting it moving forward.)
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="platdev-appdev-qemu">
<title>Developing externally in QEMU</title>
<para>
Running Poky QEMU images is covered in the <link
linkend='intro-quickstart-qemu'>Running an Image</link> section.
</para>
<para>
Poky's QEMU images contain a complete native toolchain. This means
that applications can be developed within QEMU in the same was as a
normal system. Using qemux86 on an x86 machine is fast since the
guest and host architectures match, qemuarm is slower but gives
faithful emulation of ARM specific issues. To speed things up these
images support using distcc to call a cross-compiler outside the
emulated system too. If <command>runqemu</command> was used to start
QEMU, and distccd is present on the host system, any bitbake cross
compiling toolchain available from the build system will automatically
be used from within qemu simply by calling distcc
(<command>export CC="distcc"</command> can be set in the enviroment).
Alterntatively, if a suitable SDK/toolchain is present in
<filename class="directory">/opt/poky</filename> it will also
automatically be used.
</para>
<para>
There are several options for connecting into the emulated system.
QEMU provides a framebuffer interface which has standard consoles
available. There is also a serial connection available which has a
console to the system running on it and IP networking as standard.
The images have a dropbear ssh server running with the root password
disabled allowing standard ssh and scp commands to work. The images
also contain an NFS server exporting the guest's root filesystem
allowing that to be made available to the host.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-appdev-insitu">
<title>Developing in Poky directly</title>
<para>
Working directly in Poky is a fast and effective development technique.
The idea is that you can directly edit files in
<glossterm><link linkend='var-WORKDIR'>WORKDIR</link></glossterm>
or the source directory <glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm>
and then force specific tasks to rerun in order to test the changes.
An example session working on the matchbox-desktop package might
look like this:
</para>
<para>
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ bitbake matchbox-desktop
$ sh
$ cd tmp/work/armv5te-poky-linux-gnueabi/matchbox-desktop-2.0+svnr1708-r0/
$ cd matchbox-desktop-2
$ vi src/main.c
$ exit
$ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c compile -f
$ bitbake matchbox-desktop
</literallayout>
</para>
<para>
Here, we build the package, change into the work directory for the package,
change a file, then recompile the package. Instead of using sh like this,
you can also use two different terminals. The risk with working like this
is that a command like unpack could wipe out the changes you've made to the
work directory so you need to work carefully.
</para>
<para>
It is useful when making changes directly to the work directory files to do
so using quilt as detailed in the <link linkend='usingpoky-modifying-packages-quilt'>
modifying packages with quilt</link> section. The resulting patches can be copied
into the recipe directory and used directly in the <glossterm><link
linkend='var-SRC_URI'>SRC_URI</link></glossterm>.
</para>
<para>
For a review of the skills used in this section see Sections <link
linkend="usingpoky-components-bitbake">2.1.1</link> and <link
linkend="usingpoky-debugging-taskrunning">2.4.2</link>.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-appdev-devshell">
<title>Developing with 'devshell'</title>
<para>
When debugging certain commands or even to just edit packages, the
'devshell' can be a useful tool. To start it you run a command like:
</para>
<para>
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
$ bitbake matchbox-desktop -c devshell
</literallayout>
</para>
<para>
which will open a terminal with a shell prompt within the Poky
environment. This means PATH is setup to include the cross toolchain,
the pkgconfig variables are setup to find the right .pc files,
configure will be able to find the Poky site files etc. Within this
environment, you can run configure or compile command as if they
were being run by Poky itself. You are also changed into the
source (<glossterm><link linkend='var-S'>S</link></glossterm>)
directory automatically. When finished with the shell just exit it
or close the terminal window.
</para>
<para>
The default shell used by devshell is the gnome-terminal. Other
forms of terminal can also be used by setting the <glossterm>
<link linkend='var-TERMCMD'>TERMCMD</link></glossterm> and <glossterm>
<link linkend='var-TERMCMDRUN'>TERMCMDRUN</link></glossterm> variables
in local.conf. For examples of the other options available, see
<filename>meta/conf/bitbake.conf</filename>. An external shell is
launched rather than opening directly into the original terminal
window to make interaction with bitbakes multiple threads easier
and also allow a client/server split of bitbake in the future
(devshell will still work over X11 forwarding or similar).
</para>
<para>
It is worth remembering that inside devshell you need to use the full
compiler name such as <command>arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc</command>
instead of just <command>gcc</command> and the same applies to other
applications from gcc, bintuils, libtool etc. Poky will have setup
environmental variables such as CC to assist applications, such as make,
find the correct tools.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-appdev-srcrev">
<title>Developing within Poky with an external SCM based package</title>
<para>
If you're working on a recipe which pulls from an external SCM it
is possible to have Poky notice new changes added to the
SCM and then build the latest version. This only works for SCMs
where its possible to get a sensible revision number for changes.
Currently it works for svn, git and bzr repositories.
</para>
<para>
To enable this behaviour it is simply a case of adding <glossterm>
<link linkend='var-SRCREV'>SRCREV</link></glossterm>_pn-<glossterm>
<link linkend='var-PN'>PN</link></glossterm> = "${AUTOREV}" to
local.conf where <glossterm><link linkend='var-PN'>PN</link></glossterm>
is the name of the package for which you want to enable automatic source
revision updating.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug">
<title>Debugging with GDB Remotely</title>
<para>
<ulink url="http://sourceware.org/gdb/">GDB</ulink> (The GNU Project Debugger)
allows you to examine running programs to understand and fix problems and
also to perform postmortem style analsys of program crashes. It is available
as a package within poky and installed by default in sdk images. It works best
when -dbg packages for the application being debugged are installed as the
extra symbols give more meaningful output from GDB.
</para>
<para>
Sometimes, due to memory or disk space constraints, it is not possible
to use GDB directly on the remote target to debug applications. This is
due to the fact that
GDB needs to load the debugging information and the binaries of the
process being debugged. GDB then needs to perform many
computations to locate information such as function names, variable
names and values, stack traces, etc. even before starting the debugging
process. This places load on the target system and can alter the
characteristics of the program being debugged.
</para>
<para>
This is where GDBSERVER comes into play as it runs on the remote target
and does not load any debugging information from the debugged process.
Instead, the debugging information processing is done by a GDB instance
running on a distant computer - the host GDB. The host GDB then sends
control commands to GDBSERVER to make it stop or start the debugged
program, as well as read or write some memory regions of that debugged
program. All the debugging information loading and processing as well
as the heavy debugging duty is done by the host GDB, giving the
GDBSERVER running on the target a chance to remain small and fast.
</para>
<para>
As the host GDB is responsible for loading the debugging information and
doing the necessary processing to make actual debugging happen, the
user has to make sure it can access the unstripped binaries complete
with their debugging information and compiled with no optimisations. The
host GDB must also have local access to all the libraries used by the
debugged program. On the remote target the binaries can remain stripped
as GDBSERVER does not need any debugging information there. However they
must also be compiled without optimisation matching the host's binaries.
</para>
<para>
The binary being debugged on the remote target machine is hence referred
to as the 'inferior' in keeping with GDB documentation and terminology.
Further documentation on GDB, is available on
<ulink url="http://sourceware.org/gdb/documentation/">on their site</ulink>.
</para>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdbserver">
<title>Launching GDBSERVER on the target</title>
<para>
First, make sure gdbserver is installed on the target. If not,
install the gdbserver package (which needs the libthread-db1
package).
</para>
<para>
To launch GDBSERVER on the target and make it ready to "debug" a
program located at <emphasis>/path/to/inferior</emphasis>, connect
to the target and launch:
<programlisting>$ gdbserver localhost:2345 /path/to/inferior</programlisting>
After that, gdbserver should be listening on port 2345 for debugging
commands coming from a remote GDB process running on the host computer.
Communication between the GDBSERVER and the host GDB will be done using
TCP. To use other communication protocols please refer to the
GDBSERVER documentation.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb">
<title>Launching GDB on the host computer</title>
<para>
Running GDB on the host computer takes a number of stages, described in the
following sections.
</para>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb-buildcross">
<title>Build the cross GDB package</title>
<para>
A suitable gdb cross binary is required which runs on your host computer but
knows about the the ABI of the remote target. This can be obtained from
the the Poky toolchain, e.g.
<filename>/opt/poky/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/armv5te-poky-linux-gnueabi/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gdb</filename>
which "x86_64" is the host architecture, "arm" is the target architecture and "linux-gnueabi" the target ABI.
</para>
<para>
Alternatively this can be built directly by Poky. To do this you would build
the gdb-cross package so for example you would run:
<programlisting>bitbake gdb-cross</programlisting>
Once built, the cross gdb binary can be found at
<programlisting>tmp/sysroots/&lt;host-arch&gt;/usr/bin/\
&lt;target-arch&gt;-poky-&lt;target-abi&gt;/&lt;target-arch&gt;-poky-&lt;target-abi&gt;-gdb </programlisting>
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb-inferiorbins">
<title>Making the inferior binaries available</title>
<para>
The inferior binary needs to be available to GDB complete with all debugging
symbols in order to get the best possible results along with any libraries
the inferior depends on and their debugging symbols. There are a number of
ways this can be done.
</para>
<para>
Perhaps the easiest is to have an 'sdk' image corresponding to the plain
image installed on the device. In the case of 'pky-image-sato',
'poky-image-sdk' would contain suitable symbols. The sdk images already
have the debugging symbols installed so its just a question expanding the
archive to some location and telling GDB where this is.
</para>
<para>
Alternatively, poky can build a custom directory of files for a specific
debugging purpose by reusing its tmp/rootfs directory, on the host computer
in a slightly different way to normal. This directory contains the contents
of the last built image. This process assumes the image running on the
target was the last image to be built by Poky, the package <emphasis>foo</emphasis>
contains the inferior binary to be debugged has been built without without
optimisation and has debugging information available.
</para>
<para>
Firstly you want to install the <emphasis>foo</emphasis> package to tmp/rootfs
by doing:
</para>
<programlisting>tmp/sysroots/i686-linux/usr/bin/opkg-cl -f \
tmp/work/&lt;target-abi&gt;/poky-image-sato-1.0-r0/opkg.conf -o \
tmp/rootfs/ update</programlisting>
<para>
then,
</para>
<programlisting>tmp/sysroots/i686-linux/usr/bin/opkg-cl -f \
tmp/work/&lt;target-abi&gt;/poky-image-sato-1.0-r0/opkg.conf \
-o tmp/rootfs install foo
tmp/sysroots/i686-linux/usr/bin/opkg-cl -f \
tmp/work/&lt;target-abi&gt;/poky-image-sato-1.0-r0/opkg.conf \
-o tmp/rootfs install foo-dbg</programlisting>
<para>
which installs the debugging information too.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb-launchhost">
<title>Launch the host GDB</title>
<para>
To launch the host GDB, run the cross gdb binary identified above with
the inferior binary specified on the commandline:
<programlisting>&lt;target-arch&gt;-poky-&lt;target-abi&gt;-gdb rootfs/usr/bin/foo</programlisting>
This loads the binary of program <emphasis>foo</emphasis>
as well as its debugging information. Once the gdb prompt
appears, you must instruct GDB to load all the libraries
of the inferior from tmp/rootfs:
<programlisting>set solib-absolute-prefix /path/to/tmp/rootfs</programlisting>
where <filename>/path/to/tmp/rootfs</filename> must be
the absolute path to <filename>tmp/rootfs</filename> or wherever the
binaries with debugging information are located.
</para>
<para>
Now, tell GDB to connect to the GDBSERVER running on the remote target:
<programlisting>target remote remote-target-ip-address:2345</programlisting>
Where remote-target-ip-address is the IP address of the
remote target where the GDBSERVER is running. 2345 is the
port on which the GDBSERVER is running.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb-using">
<title>Using the Debugger</title>
<para>
Debugging can now proceed as normal, as if the debugging were being done on the
local machine, for example to tell GDB to break in the <emphasis>main</emphasis>
function, for instance:
<programlisting>break main</programlisting>
and then to tell GDB to "continue" the inferior execution,
<programlisting>continue</programlisting>
</para>
<para>
For more information about using GDB please see the
project's online documentation at <ulink
url="http://sourceware.org/gdb/download/onlinedocs/"/>.
</para>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="platdev-oprofile">
<title>Profiling with OProfile</title>
<para>
<ulink url="http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/">OProfile</ulink> is a
statistical profiler well suited to finding performance
bottlenecks in both userspace software and the kernel. It provides
answers to questions like "Which functions does my application spend
the most time in when doing X?". Poky is well integrated with OProfile
to make profiling applications on target hardware straightforward.
</para>
<para>
To use OProfile you need an image with OProfile installed. The easiest
way to do this is with "tools-profile" in <glossterm><link
linkend='var-IMAGE_FEATURES'>IMAGE_FEATURES</link></glossterm>. You also
need debugging symbols to be available on the system where the analysis
will take place. This can be achieved with "dbg-pkgs" in <glossterm><link
linkend='var-IMAGE_FEATURES'>IMAGE_FEATURES</link></glossterm> or by
installing the appropriate -dbg packages. For
successful call graph analysis the binaries must preserve the frame
pointer register and hence should be compiled with the
"-fno-omit-framepointer" flag. In Poky this can be achieved with
<glossterm><link linkend='var-SELECTED_OPTIMIZATION'>SELECTED_OPTIMIZATION
</link></glossterm> = "-fexpensive-optimizations -fno-omit-framepointer
-frename-registers -O2" or by setting <glossterm><link
linkend='var-DEBUG_BUILD'>DEBUG_BUILD</link></glossterm> = "1" in
local.conf (the latter will also add extra debug information making the
debug packages large).
</para>
<section id="platdev-oprofile-target">
<title>Profiling on the target</title>
<para>
All the profiling work can be performed on the target device. A
simple OProfile session might look like:
</para>
<para>
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
# opcontrol --reset
# opcontrol --start --separate=lib --no-vmlinux -c 5
[do whatever is being profiled]
# opcontrol --stop
$ opreport -cl
</literallayout>
</para>
<para>
Here, the reset command clears any previously profiled data,
OProfile is then started. The options used to start OProfile mean
dynamic library data is kept separately per application, kernel
profiling is disabled and callgraphing is enabled up to 5 levels
deep. To profile the kernel, you would specify the
<parameter>--vmlinux=/path/to/vmlinux</parameter> option (the vmlinux file is usually in
<filename class="directory">/boot/</filename> in Poky and must match the running kernel). The profile is
then stopped and the results viewed with opreport with options
to see the separate library symbols and callgraph information.
</para>
<para>
Callgraphing means OProfile not only logs infomation about which
functions time is being spent in but also which functions
called those functions (their parents) and which functions that
function calls (its children). The higher the callgraphing depth,
the more accurate the results but this also increased the loging
overhead so it should be used with caution. On ARM, binaries need
to have the frame pointer enabled for callgraphing to work (compile
with the gcc option -fno-omit-framepointer).
</para>
<para>
For more information on using OProfile please see the OProfile
online documentation at <ulink
url="http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/docs/"/>.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-oprofile-oprofileui">
<title>Using OProfileUI</title>
<para>
A graphical user interface for OProfile is also available. You can
either use prebuilt Debian packages from the <ulink
url='http://debian.o-hand.com/'>OpenedHand repository</ulink> or
download and build from svn at
http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/oprofileui/trunk/. If the
"tools-profile" image feature is selected, all necessary binaries
are installed onto the target device for OProfileUI interaction.
</para>
<!-- DISBALED, Need a more 'contexual' shot?
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="screenshots/ss-oprofile-viewer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<caption>
<para>OProfileUI Viewer showing an application being profiled on a remote device</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
-->
<para>
In order to convert the data in the sample format from the target
to the host the <filename>opimport</filename> program is needed.
This is not included in standard Debian OProfile packages but an
OProfile package with this addition is also available from the <ulink
url='http://debian.o-hand.com/'>OpenedHand repository</ulink>.
We recommend using OProfile 0.9.3 or greater. Other patches to
OProfile may be needed for recent OProfileUI features, but Poky
usually includes all needed patches on the target device. Please
see the <ulink
url='http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/oprofileui/trunk/README'>
OProfileUI README</ulink> for up to date information, and the
<ulink url="http://labs.o-hand.com/oprofileui">OProfileUI website
</ulink> for more information on the OProfileUI project.
</para>
<section id="platdev-oprofile-oprofileui-online">
<title>Online mode</title>
<para>
This assumes a working network connection with the target
hardware. In this case you just need to run <command>
"oprofile-server"</command> on the device. By default it listens
on port 4224. This can be changed with the <parameter>--port</parameter> command line
option.
</para>
<para>
The client program is called <command>oprofile-viewer</command>. The
UI is relatively straightforward, the key functionality is accessed
through the buttons on the toolbar (which are duplicated in the
menus.) These buttons are:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Connect - connect to the remote host, the IP address or hostname for the
target can be supplied here.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Disconnect - disconnect from the target.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Start - start the profiling on the device.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Stop - stop the profiling on the device and download the data to the local
host. This will generate the profile and show it in the viewer.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Download - download the data from the target, generate the profile and show it
in the viewer.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Reset - reset the sample data on the device. This will remove the sample
information that was collected on a previous sampling run. Ensure you do this
if you do not want to include old sample information.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Save - save the data downloaded from the target to another directory for later
examination.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Open - load data that was previously saved.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
The behaviour of the client is to download the complete 'profile archive' from
the target to the host for processing. This archive is a directory containing
the sample data, the object files and the debug information for said object
files. This archive is then converted using a script included in this
distribution ('oparchconv') that uses 'opimport' to convert the archive from
the target to something that can be processed on the host.
</para>
<para>
Downloaded archives are kept in /tmp and cleared up when they are no longer in
use.
</para>
<para>
If you wish to profile into the kernel, this is possible, you just need to ensure
a vmlinux file matching the running kernel is available. In Poky this is usually
located in /boot/vmlinux-KERNELVERSION, where KERNEL-version is the version of
the kernel e.g. 2.6.23. Poky generates separate vmlinux packages for each kernel
it builds so it should be a question of just ensuring a matching package is
installed (<command> opkg install kernel-vmlinux</command>. These are automatically
installed into development and profiling images alongside OProfile. There is a
configuration option within the OProfileUI settings page where the location of
the vmlinux file can be entered.
</para>
<para>
Waiting for debug symbols to transfer from the device can be slow and it's not
always necessary to actually have them on device for OProfile use. All that is
needed is a copy of the filesystem with the debug symbols present on the viewer
system. The <link linkend='platdev-gdb-remotedebug-launch-gdb'>GDB remote debug
section</link> covers how to create such a directory with Poky and the location
of this directory can again be specified in the OProfileUI settings dialog. If
specified, it will be used where the file checksums match those on the system
being profiled.
</para>
</section>
<section id="platdev-oprofile-oprofileui-offline">
<title>Offline mode</title>
<para>
If no network access to the target is available an archive for processing in
'oprofile-viewer' can be generated with the following set of command.
</para>
<para>
<literallayout class='monospaced'>
# opcontrol --reset
# opcontrol --start --separate=lib --no-vmlinux -c 5
[do whatever is being profiled]
# opcontrol --stop
# oparchive -o my_archive
</literallayout>
</para>
<para>
Where my_archive is the name of the archive directory where you would like the
profile archive to be kept. The directory will be created for you. This can
then be copied to another host and loaded using 'oprofile-viewer''s open
functionality. The archive will be converted if necessary.
</para>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</chapter>
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