Inferno

Description

Inferno is a flamegraph generator for native (C/C++) Android apps. It was originally written to profile and improve surfaceflinger performance (Android compositor) but it can be used for any native Android application . You can see a sample report generated with Inferno here. Report are self-contained in HTML so they can be exchanged easily.

Notice there is no concept of time in a flame graph since all callstack are merged together. As a result, the width of a flamegraph represents 100% of the number of samples and the height is related to the number of functions on the stack when sampling occurred.

In the flamegraph featured above you can see the main thread of SurfaceFlinger. It is immediatly apparent that most of the CPU time is spent processing messages android::SurfaceFlinger::onMessageReceived. The most expensive task is to ask the screen to be refreshed as android::DisplayDevice::prepare shows in orange . This graphic division helps to see what part of the program is costly and where a developer's effort to improve performances should go.

Example of bottleneck

A flamegraph give you instant vision on the CPU cycles cost centers but it can also be used to find specific offenders. To find them, look for plateaus. It is easier to see an example:

In the previous flamegraph, two plateaus (due to android::BufferQueueCore::validateConsistencyLocked) are immediately apparent.

How it works

Inferno relies on simpleperf to record the callstack of a native application thousands of times per second. Simpleperf takes care of unwinding the stack either using frame pointer (recommended) or dwarf. At the end of the recording simpleperf also symbolize all IPs automatically. The record are aggregated and dumps dumped to a file perf.data. This file is pulled from the Android device and processed on the host by Inferno. The callstacks are merged together to visualize in which part of an app the CPU cycles are spent.

How to use it

Open a terminal and from simpleperf/scripts directory type:

./inferno.sh  (on Linux/Mac)
inferno.bat (on Windows)

Inferno will collect data, process them and automatically open your web browser to display the HTML report.

Parameters

You can select how long to sample for, the color of the node and many other things. Use -h to get a list of all supported parameters.

./inferno.sh -h

Troubleshooting

Messy flame graph

A healthy flame graph features a single call site at its base (see here). If you don't see a unique call site like _start or _start_thread at the base from which all flames originate, something went wrong. : Stack unwinding may fail to reach the root callsite. These incomplete callstack are impossible to merge properly. By default Inferno asks simpleperf to unwind the stack via the kernel and frame pointers. Try to perform unwinding with dwarf -du, you can further tune this setting.

No flames

If you see no flames at all or a mess of 1 level flame without a common base, this may be because you compiled without frame pointers. Make sure there is no -fomit-frame-pointer in your build config. Alternatively, ask simpleperf to collect data with dward unwinding -du.

High percentage of lost samples

If simpleperf reports a lot of lost sample it is probably because you are unwinding with dwarf. Dwarf unwinding involves copying the stack before it is processed. Try to use frame pointer unwinding which can be done by the kernel and it much faster.

The cost of frame pointer is negligible on arm64 parameter but considerable on arm 32-bit arch (due to register pressure). Use a 64-bit build for better profiling.

run-as: package not debuggable

If you cannot run as root, make sure the app is debuggable otherwise simpleperf will not be able to profile it.