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Profile CLI

profilecli is a command-line utility that enables various productivity flows such as:

  • Interacting with a running Pyroscope server to upload profiles, query data, and more
  • Inspecting Parquet files

Hint: Use the help command (profilecli help) to get a full list of capabilities as well as additional help information.

Install Profile CLI

You can install Profile CLI using a package or by compiling the code.

Install using a package

On macOS, you can install Profile CLI using HomeBrew:

bash 
brew install pyroscope-io/brew/profilecli

For other platforms, you can manually download the profilecli release asset for your operating system and architecture and make it executable.

For example, for Linux with the AMD64 architecture:

  1. Download and extract the package (archive).

    bash 
    curl -fL https://github.com/grafana/pyroscope/releases/download/v1.1.5/profilecli_1.1.5_linux_amd64.tar.gz | tar xvz

  2. Make profilecli executable:

    bash 
    chmod +x profilecli

  3. Optional: Make profilecli reachable from anywhere:

    bash 
    sudo mv profilecli /usr/local/bin

Build from source code

To build from source code, you must have:

  • Go installed (> 1.19).
  • Either $GOPATH or $GOBIN configured and added to your PATH environment variable.

To build the source code:

  1. Clone the repository.

    bash 
    git clone git@github.com:grafana/pyroscope.git

  2. Run the Go install command to build and install the package.

    bash 
    cd pyroscope
go install ./cmd/profilecli

    The command places the profilecli executable in $GOPATH/bin/ (or $GOBIN/) and make it available to use.

Common flags and environment variables

The profilecli commands that interact with a Pyroscope server require a server URL and optionally authentication details. These can be provided as command-line flags or environment variables.

  1. Server URL

    default: http://localhost:4040

    The --url flag specifies the server against which the command will run. If using Grafana Cloud, an example URL could be https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net. For local instances, the URL could look like http://localhost:4040.

  2. Authentication details.

    default: <empty>

    If using Grafana Cloud or authentication is enabled on your Pyroscope server, you will need to provide a username and password using the --username and --password flags respectively. For Grafana Cloud, the username will be the Stack ID and the password the generated API token.

Environment variable naming

You can use environment variables to avoid passing flags to the command every time you use it, or to protect sensitive information. Environment variables have a PROFILECLI_ prefix. Here is an example of providing the server URL and credentials for the profilecli tool:

bash 
export PROFILECLI_URL=<pyroscope_server_url>
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=<username>
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=<password>
# now we can run a profilecli command without specifying the url or credentials:
profilecli <command>

Caution

If you’re querying data from Cloud Profiles, be sure to use the url of your Cloud Profiles server in PROFILECLI_URL (e.g. https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net) and not the url of your Grafana Cloud tenant (e.g. <your tenant>.grafana.net).

Uploading a profile to a Pyroscope server using profilecli

Using profilecli streamlines the process of uploading profiles to Pyroscope, making it a convenient alternative to manual HTTP requests.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure you have profilecli installed on your system by following the installation steps above.
  • Have a profile file ready for upload. Note that you can only upload pprof files at this time.

Upload steps

  1. Identify the pprof file.

    • Path to your pprof file: path/to/your/pprof-file.pprof

  2. Optional: Specify any extra labels.

    • You can add additional labels to your uploaded profile using the --extra-labels flag.
    • You can provide the name of the application that the profile was captured from via the service_name label (defaults to profilecli-upload). This will be useful when querying the data via profilecli or the UI.
    • You can use the flag multiple times to add several labels.

  3. Construct and execute the Upload command.

    • Here’s a basic command template:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=<pyroscope_server_url>
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=<username>
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=<password>

profilecli upload --extra-labels=<label_name>=<label_value> <pprof_file_path>

    • Example command:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=my_username
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=my_password

profilecli upload path/to/your/pprof-file.pprof

    • Example command with extra labels:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=my_username
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=my_password

profilecli upload \
    --extra-labels=service_name=my_application_name \
    --extra-labels=cluster=us-east \
    path/to/your/pprof-file.pprof

  4. Check for successful upload.

    • After running the command, you should see a confirmation message indicating a successful upload. If there are any issues, profilecli provides error messages to help you troubleshoot.

Querying a Pyroscope server using profilecli

You can use the profilecli query command to look up the available profiles on a Pyroscope server and read actual profile data. This can be useful for debugging purposes or for integrating profiling in CI pipelines (for example to facilitate profile-guided optimization).

Looking up available profiles on a Pyroscope server

You can use the profilecli query series command to look up the available profiles on a Pyroscope server. By default, it queries the last hour of data, though this can be controlled with the --from and --to flags. You can narrow the results down with the --query flag. See profilecli help query series for more information.

Query series steps

  1. Optional: Specify a Query and a Time Range.

    • You can provide a label selector using the --query flag, for example: --query='{service_name="my_application_name"}'.
    • You can provide a custom time range using the --from and --to flags, for example, --from="now-3h" --to="now".

  2. Construct and execute the Query Series command.

    • Here’s a basic command template:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=<pyroscope_server_url>
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=<username>
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=<password>

profilecli query series --query='{<label_name>="<label_value>"}'

    • Example command:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=my_username
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=my_password

profilecli query series --query='{service_name="my_application_name"}'

    • Example output:

      json 
      {
    "__name__":"memory",
    "__period_type__":"space",
    "__period_unit__":"bytes",
    "__profile_type__":"memory:inuse_objects:count:space:bytes",
    "__service_name__":"my_application_name",
    "__type__":"inuse_objects",
    "__unit__":"count",
    "cluster":"eu-west-1",
    "service_name":"my_application_name"
 }

Reading a raw profile from a Pyroscope server

You can use the profilecli query merge command to retrieve a merged (aggregated) profile from a Pyroscope server. The command merges all samples found in the profile store for the specified query and time range. By default it looks for samples within the last hour, though this can be controlled with the --from and --to flags. The source data can be narrowed down with the --query flag in the same way as with the series command.

Query merge steps

  1. Specify optional flags.

    • You can provide a label selector using the --query flag, for example, --query='{service_name="my_application_name"}'.
    • You can provide a custom time range using the --from and --to flags, for example, --from="now-3h" --to="now".
    • You can specify the profile type via the --profile-type flag. The available profile types are listed in the output of the profilecli query series command.

  2. Construct and execute the Query Merge command.

    • Here’s a basic command template:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=<pyroscope_server_url>
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=<username>
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=<password>

profilecli query merge \
    --profile-type=<profile_type> \
    --query='{<label_name>="<label_value>"' \
    --from="<from>" --to="<to>"

    • Example command:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=my_username
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=my_password

profilecli query merge \
    --profile-type=memory:inuse_space:bytes:space:bytes \
    --query='{service_name="my_application_name"}' \
    --from="now-1h" --to="now"

    • Example output:

      bash 
      level=info msg="query aggregated profile from profile store" url=http://localhost:4040 from=2023-12-11T13:38:33.115683-04:00 to=2023-12-11T14:38:33.115684-04:00 query={} type=memory:inuse_space:bytes:space:bytes
PeriodType: space bytes
Period: 524288
Time: 2023-12-11 13:59:59.999 -0400 AST
Duration: 59m5
Samples:
inuse_space/bytes[dflt]
  115366240: 107 13 14 15 16 17 1 2 3
...

Exporting a profile for Go PGO

You can use the profilecli query go-pgo command to retrieve an aggregated profile from a Pyroscope server for use with Go PGO. Profiles retrieved with profilecli query merge include all samples found in the profile store, resulting in a large profile size. The profile size may cause issues with network transfer and slow down the PGO process. In contrast, profiles retrieved with profilecli query go-pgo include only the information used in Go PGO, making them significantly smaller and more efficient to handle. By default, it looks for samples within the last hour, though this can be controlled with the --from and --to flags. The source data can be narrowed down with the --query flag in the same way as with the query command.

  1. Specify optional flags.

    • You can provide a label selector using the --query flag, for example, --query='{service_name="my_application_name"}'.
    • You can provide a custom time range using the --from and --to flags, for example, --from="now-3h" --to="now".
    • You can specify the profile type via the --profile-type flag. The available profile types are listed in the output of the profilecli query series command.
    • You can specify the number of leaf locations to keep via the --keep-locations flag. The default value is 5. The Go compiler does not use the full stack trace. Reducing the number helps to minimize the profile size.
    • You can specify whether the callee aggregation should be used via the --aggregate-callees flag. By default, samples are aggregated by the leaf location, ignoring callee line number. Go compiler ignores this information.

  2. Construct and execute the command.

    • Example command:

      bash 
      export PROFILECLI_URL=https://profiles-prod-001.grafana.net
export PROFILECLI_USERNAME=my_username
export PROFILECLI_PASSWORD=my_password

profilecli query go-pgo \
    --query='{service_name="my_service"}' \
    --from="now-1h" --to="now"

    • Example output:

      bash 
      level=info msg="querying pprof profile for Go PGO" url=https://localhost:4040 query="{service_name=\"my_service\"}" from=2024-06-20T12:32:20+08:00 to=2024-06-20T15:24:40+08:00 type=process_cpu:cpu:nanoseconds:cpu:nanoseconds output="pprof=default.pgo" keep-locations=5 aggregate-callees=true
# By default, the profile is saved to the current directory as `default.pgo`