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Intel SoC Watch TMPDIR no changing

SrcJimmy
Beginner
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I am using Intel VTune on a cluster node where all tools are imported via NFS from the frontend. This setup means the compute node cannot write to the installation directory.

However, when VTune is executed with the "analyze power usage" option, SoC Watch creates temporary files inside the VTune installation directory (where the socwatch executable resides). As mentioned, the compute node lacks write permissions for this directory, causing the collection to fail.

I have tried setting the TMPDIR environment variable, but this does not resolve the issue. When I ran the process with strace, I noticed that it executes a chdir command into the installation directory, even when TMPDIR is defined.

One possible solution is to perform a local installation, but it seems unreasonable that these temporary files cannot be redirected to another location.

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yuzhang3_intel
Moderator
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Where to store the VTune result data when profiling one application running on a compute node? Did you try the option of '-result-dir' to specify one place to store the profiling data? The SoCWatch .pwr file is also restored in the folder.

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SrcJimmy
Beginner
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I tried using the '-result-dir' option, and while the results are indeed stored in the specified directory, VTune still attempts to write a temporary file in the installation directory. This results in the following error:

 

vtune: Error: Intel SoC Watch reported error: Failed to initialize temporary file ./_892042_1804289383: errnum=30: Read-only file system

 

Using strace to investigate, I observed that the process attempts to create this temporary file in the current directory (.) after executing a chdir command at the start of the process:

 

892042 chdir("/opt/ohpc/pub/utils/vtune/2025.0.0/vtune/2025.0/socwatch/x64" <unfinished ...>
...
892042 openat(AT_FDCWD, "./_892042_1804289383", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = -1 EROFS (Read-only file system)

 

This behavior occurs even when '-result-dir' option and TMPDIR environment variable are set to a writable directory 

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yuzhang3_intel
Moderator
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I can reproduce the issue on a single machine with Linux if VTune is installed in the path of '/opt/intel/...'. If VTune is located in another local directory, it can work well. Need to do further investigation. 

 

BTW, where is the VTune profiling result stored in for your case?

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SrcJimmy
Beginner
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Thank you for your attention. I hope this issue can be resolved. In the meantime, I will proceed with a local installation as a workaround.

 

I did not specify a result folder, so the results are stored in the current directory by default.

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yuzhang3_intel
Moderator
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Just internally confirmed that the latest socwatch version has fixed the issue, it will put all temp files to temp folder. Thanks for reporting the issue. 

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SrcJimmy
Beginner
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Thank you very much for your support! I have the latest version of VTune installed, which included SoC Watch during installation. The socwatch version I have is 2024.6.0. I assume the version you mentioned has yet to be released?

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yuzhang3_intel
Moderator
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I verified the latest standalone socwatch release, which has fixed the issue, but the socwatch inside the current VTune package still has the issue. I have escalated the issue to the engineering team, not sure which VTune release will fix the issue.

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