Profile .NET Core Application

Run dotTrace as a standalone application. The dotTrace Home window will open.

Add a run configuration - the configuration that tells dotTrace how to run the profiled application:

• Under Choose what you want to profile, New Process Run, click Add run configuration.

• In the New Run Configuration wizard, choose .NET Core Application and click Next.

• Specify application options:

  • Path to the application executable (if it's a self-contained deployment) or to a library file (if it's a framework-dependent deployment).

  • Command-line Arguments for the executable (if required).

  • A full path to the application Working directory (by default, it's the same directory where the executable is located).

  • Set environment variables lets you run the profiled application with specific environment variables. Each variable must be specified on a new line.

• Click Save.

Make sure the created run configuration is selected in the New Process Run list.

Under Choose how you want to profile it, specify profiling options:

• Profiling Type: typically, you should choose between Sampling (evaluate performance and determine slowest methods in your app) and Timeline (same as Sampling but with additional timeline data). Learn more about profiling types

• Optionally, if your application creates a number of processes and you want to profile only specific ones, configure process filters.

• If required, specify other profiling options.

If you want dotTrace to start collecting profiling data right after you start the session, under Run profiling, select Collect profiling data from start.

Click Start. This will start the profiling session.

Go through a particular workflow in your application (if you want to evaluate its performance) or reproduce a particular performance issue. Collect snapshots using the Get Snapshot button in the profiling controller window. Learn more about how to control the profiling session

After you collect the data, either close the profiled application or detach the profiler using the Detach button in the controller window.

Analyze the collected snapshots either in the Performance Viewer or Timeline Viewer (depends on the profiling type you select).

Download dotTrace command-line profiler.

Depending on the .NET Core version used by the profiled application, run one of the following:

• To profile a .NET Core 3.1 (or later) application MyApp:

  ./dotTrace.sh start --framework=NetCore --save-to=~/snapshots/snapshot.dtp ~/Projects/MyNetCoreApp/MyApp

• To profile a .NET Core 3.0 (or earlier) application MyApp:

  ./dotTrace.sh start --framework=NetCore --save-to=~/snapshots/snapshot.dtp --support-earlier-net-core ~/Projects/MyNetCoreApp/MyApp

Learn more about profiling with the command-line profiler.