ORBIT

Orbit, the Open Runtime Binary Instrumentation Tool is a standalone native application profiler for Windows and Linux. It supports native applications written in languages such as C, C++, Rust, or Go. Its main purpose is to help developers identify the performance bottlenecks of a complex application. Orbit can be also used to visualize the execution flow of such applications.

The key differentiator with many existing tools is that no alteration to the target process is necessary. Orbit does not require you to change a single line of code. It doesn't require you to recompile or even relaunch the application you want to profile. Everything is done seamlessly, right when you need it. It requires zero integration time and zero iteration time.

Orbit combines sampling and dynamic instrumentation to optimize the profiling workflow. Sampling can quickly identify interesting functions to instrument. Dynamic instrumentation results in exact function entry and exit information which is presented in the form of per-thread hierarchical call graphs. Manual instrumentation markers can be added to the source code and further allows for value-tracking. Scheduling events are also shown to visualize when a thread was running and on what core. Furthermore, Orbit visualizes thread dependencies, showing which thread got blocked or unblocked by which other thread. For AMD GPUs, the submission, scheduling and hardware execution timings of a job is visualized. Additional GPU data, such as Vulkan debug markers can be retrieved using Orbit's Vulkan layer. Memory consumption and page-fault information is visualized as well.

An introduction to Orbit's key features can be found in the following YouTube video:

Features

• Dynamic Instrumentation (no code change required)
• Callstack Sampling
• Wine/Proton Mixed-Callstack Profiling
• Thread Scheduling and Dependency Tracing
• Memory Tracing
• GPU Driver Tracepoints (AMD only)
• Vulkan Debug Label and Command Buffer Tracing (AMD only)
• Manual Instrumentation
• Source Code and Disassembly View
• Remote Profiling
• Debug Symbol Parsing (ELF, DWARF, PE and PDB)
• Full Serialization of Captured Data

Note

Orbit's focus has shifted to the Linux version. Windows local profiling is currently only supported partially and major features, such as dynamic instrumentation, are not yet implemented. It is possible however to profile Linux executables from a Windows UI instance. For Windows local profiling, you can still use the released binaries, but please note that they are deprecated and mostly undocumented.

Build

Please have a look at the first three sections of our development documentation. It describes how to build Orbit and which compilers, platforms, and tools are supported and needed.

Workflow

Note An extensive documentation of the usage of Orbit can be found in our usage documentation.

The following describes the basic workflow of Orbit:

1. Select a process in the list of currently running processes in the connection setup dialog, and click Start Session.
2. The list of loaded modules will appear at the top of the Symbols tab.
3. Orbit tries to automatically retrieve debug information of the modules. See here on how to load symbols for modules Orbit failed to load. For successfully loaded module symbols, the Functions tab will get populated.
4. Select functions you wish to dynamically instrument in the Functions tab by Right-Click and choosing Hook.
5. Start profiling by pressing F5. To stop profiling, press F5 again. You can either zoom time using W and S or Ctrl + the scroll wheel. You can also Ctrl+Right-Click and drag to zoom to a specific time range. To scale the UI, press Ctrl + +/-. Press SPACE to see the last 2 seconds of capture.
6. You can select sections of the per-thread sampling event track to get a sampling report of your selection.

Presets

Once you have loaded the debug information for your modules and have chosen functions of interest to dynamically instrument, you can save your profiling preset so that you won't have to do this manually again. To save a preset, go to File > Save Preset

Feedback

Questions and comments are more than welcome: please open an issue.

About

Orbit was created by Pierric Gimmig, but is now developed and maintained by a team of engineers at Google. The current maintainers are:

• @akopich
• @antonrohr
• @beckerhe
• @danielfenner
• @dimitry-
• @dpallotti
• @florian-kuebler
• @karupayun
• @pierricgimmig
• @reichlfl
• @ronaldfw
• @vickyliu-go4it
• @vwbaker

License

License (BSD 2-clause)

Copyright (c) 2020 The Orbit Authors. All rights reserved.

BSD 2-Clause License

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
  list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
  and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.