Google Cloud Python profiling agent

Python profiling agent for Google Cloud Profiler.

See Google Cloud Profiler profiling Python code for detailed documentation.

Supported OS

Linux. Profiling Python applications is supported for Linux kernels whose standard C library is implemented with glibc or with musl. For configuration information specific to Linux Alpine kernels, see Running on Linux Alpine.

Supported Python Versions

Python >= 3.7 and <= 3.11

Installation & usage

1. Install the profiler package using PyPI:

   pip3 install google-cloud-profiler

2. Enable the profiler in your application:

   import googlecloudprofiler
   
   def main():
       # Profiler initialization. It starts a daemon thread which continuously
       # collects and uploads profiles. Best done as early as possible.
       try:
           googlecloudprofiler.start(
               service='hello-profiler',
               service_version='1.0.1',
               # verbose is the logging level. 0-error, 1-warning, 2-info,
               # 3-debug. It defaults to 0 (error) if not set.
               verbose=3,
               # project_id must be set if not running on GCP.
               # project_id='my-project-id',
           )
       except (ValueError, NotImplementedError) as exc:
           print(exc)  # Handle errors here

Installation on Linux Alpine

The Python profiling agent has a native component. The base Alpine image for Python does not have all dependencies required to build this native component installed. To build the Python profiling agent on Alpine, one must install the package build-base.

To use the Python profiling agent on Alpine without installing additional dependencies on to the final Alpine image, one can use a two-stage build and compile the Python profiling agent in the first stage.

Here is an example of a Docker image that uses a multi-stage build to compile and install the Python profiling agent:

FROM python:3.7-alpine as builder

# Install build-base to allow for compilation of the profiling agent.
RUN apk add --update --no-cache build-base

# Compile the profiling agent, generating wheels for it.
RUN pip3 wheel --wheel-dir=/tmp/wheels google-cloud-profiler


FROM python:3.7-alpine

# Copy over the directory containing wheels for the profiling agent.
COPY --from=builder /tmp/wheels /tmp/wheels

# Install the profiling agent.
RUN pip3 install --no-index --find-links=/tmp/wheels google-cloud-profiler

# Install any other required modules or dependencies, and copy an app which
# enables the profiler as described in "Enable the profiler in your
# application".
COPY ./bench.py .

# Run the application when the docker image is run, using either CMD (as is done
# here) or ENTRYPOINT.
CMD python3 -u bench.py

Troubleshooting

Resource temporarily unavailable errors with Python

If you see the following log entries after enabling the Profiler:

BlockingIOError: [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable
Exception ignored when trying to write to the signal wakeup fd

see https://cloud.google.com/profiler/docs/troubleshooting#python-blocking for the cause and the workaround.