Linux Kernel CPU Profiling

The Linux Kernel CPU profiler can be enabled in observe-agent to collect machine level CPU statistics. Our profiler internally leverages eBPF to collect stats so enabling this adds minimal amount of latency on your overall system.

info

Since the profiler internally uses eBPF it needs your cluster to be running with a Linux kernel version >= 4.9

Getting Started

Ensure that ObserveNow Profiling is enabled for your stack. This sets up the profiling server along with a username and password to login.

Login to the profiling server with your credentials, and then navigate to Settings -> API keys -> Add API Key and create a new API Key with following config:

Name: ObserveAgentKey
Role: Agent
Valid for: 0 # No expiry

Make sure you copy the API Key created and add the following YAML snippet to the agent's values.yaml and run the agent based on these instructions.

pyroscope-ebpf:
  enabled: true
  args:
    - "ebpf"
    - "--application-name"
    - "agent.ebpf"
    - "--server-address"
    - "<ADD_SERVER_ENDPOINT_HERE>"
    - "--auth-token"
    - "<ADD_APIKEY_HERE>"

You should see kernel-level CPU statistics start getting pushed to your profiling server within a few minutes.

For more pyroscope options, visit this repo