Finding CPU utilization and CPU cycles

Question

My program is in C++ and I have one server listening to a number of clients. Clients send small packets to server. I'm running my code on Ubuntu.

I want to measure the CPU utilization and possibly total number of CPU cycles on both sides, ideally with a breakdown on cycles/utilization spent on networking (all the way from NIC to the user space and vice versa), kernel space, user space, context switches, etc.

I did some search, but I couldn't figure out whether it should be done inside my C++ code or an external profiler should be used, or perhaps some other way.

Please edit your question to motivate it. Why do you ask? Why common profiling & benchmarking techniques are not enough? What exactly did you try? — Basile Starynkevitch, Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 17:03
@BasileStarynkevitch I think I motivated it enough in my question (the second paragraph). If by common profiling you mean information retrievable from /proc, then it does not give detailed cost breakdown for networking/.... — narengi, Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 18:30

Basile Starynkevitch · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-26 05:54:26Z

1

Your best friend/helper in this case is the /proc file system in Linux. In /proc you will find CPU usage, memory usage, power usage etc. Have a look at this link

http://www.linuxhowtos.org/System/procstat.htm

Even you can check each process cpu usage by looking at the files /proc/process_id/stat.

edited Mar 26, 2015 at 5:54

Basile Starynkevitch

1

answered Mar 26, 2015 at 4:29

Yasir Majeed

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Also, a process can query its own status using /proc/self/stat
– Basile Starynkevitch
Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 5:50
@BasileStarynkevitch Thank you both for the tip. However, as far as I know, /proc is considered course-grained profiling and does not give detailed information about cpu cycles and also how it's distributed among networking/user space/etc, right?
– narengi
Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 17:00
You could perhaps use oprofile; but please explain exactly why do you ask, etc...
– Basile Starynkevitch
Commented Mar 26, 2015 at 17:03

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Blacktempel · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-26 06:38:10Z

0

Take a look at the RDTSCP instruction and some other ways to measure performacnce metrics. System simulators like SniperSim, Gem5 etc. can also give total cycle count of your running program ( however, they may not be very accurate - there are some conditions that need to be met (core frequencies are same etc.))

edited Mar 26, 2015 at 6:38

Blacktempel

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answered Mar 26, 2015 at 5:28

user3875690

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Basile Starynkevitch · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-26 19:50:00Z

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As I commented, you probably should consider using oprofile. I am not very familiar with it (and it may be complex to use, and require system-wide configuration)

answered Mar 26, 2015 at 19:50

Basile Starynkevitch

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