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1perf-config(1)
2==============
3
4NAME
5----
6perf-config - Get and set variables in a configuration file.
7
8SYNOPSIS
9--------
10[verse]
11'perf config' [<file-option>] [section.name[=value] ...]
12or
13'perf config' [<file-option>] -l | --list
14
15DESCRIPTION
16-----------
17You can manage variables in a configuration file with this command.
18
19OPTIONS
20-------
21
22-l::
23--list::
24 Show current config variables, name and value, for all sections.
25
26--user::
27 For writing and reading options: write to user
28 '$HOME/.perfconfig' file or read it.
29
30--system::
31 For writing and reading options: write to system-wide
32 '$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig' or read it.
33
34CONFIGURATION FILE
35------------------
36
37The perf configuration file contains many variables to change various
38aspects of each of its tools, including output, disk usage, etc.
39The '$HOME/.perfconfig' file is used to store a per-user configuration.
40The file '$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig' can be used to
41store a system-wide default configuration.
42
43One an disable reading config files by setting the PERF_CONFIG environment
44variable to /dev/null, or provide an alternate config file by setting that
45variable.
46
47When reading or writing, the values are read from the system and user
48configuration files by default, and options '--system' and '--user'
49can be used to tell the command to read from or write to only that location.
50
51Syntax
52~~~~~~
53
54The file consist of sections. A section starts with its name
55surrounded by square brackets and continues till the next section
56begins. Each variable must be in a section, and have the form
57'name = value', for example:
58
59 [section]
60 name1 = value1
61 name2 = value2
62
63Section names are case sensitive and can contain any characters except
64newline (double quote `"` and backslash have to be escaped as `\"` and `\\`,
65respectively). Section headers can't span multiple lines.
66
67Example
68~~~~~~~
69
70Given a $HOME/.perfconfig like this:
71
72#
73# This is the config file, and
74# a '#' and ';' character indicates a comment
75#
76
77 [colors]
78 # Color variables
79 top = red, default
80 medium = green, default
81 normal = lightgray, default
82 selected = white, lightgray
83 jump_arrows = blue, default
84 addr = magenta, default
85 root = white, blue
86
87 [tui]
88 # Defaults if linked with libslang
89 report = on
90 annotate = on
91 top = on
92
93 [buildid]
94 # Default, disable using /dev/null
95 dir = ~/.debug
96
97 [annotate]
98 # Defaults
99 hide_src_code = false
100 use_offset = true
101 jump_arrows = true
102 show_nr_jumps = false
103
104 [help]
105 # Format can be man, info, web or html
106 format = man
107 autocorrect = 0
108
109 [ui]
110 show-headers = true
111
112 [call-graph]
113 # fp (framepointer), dwarf
114 record-mode = fp
115 print-type = graph
116 order = caller
117 sort-key = function
118
119 [report]
120 # Defaults
121 sort_order = comm,dso,symbol
122 percent-limit = 0
123 queue-size = 0
124 children = true
125 group = true
126 skip-empty = true
127
128 [llvm]
129 dump-obj = true
130 clang-opt = -g
131
132You can hide source code of annotate feature setting the config to false with
133
134 % perf config annotate.hide_src_code=true
135
136If you want to add or modify several config items, you can do like
137
138 % perf config ui.show-headers=false kmem.default=slab
139
140To modify the sort order of report functionality in user config file(i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do
141
142 % perf config --user report.sort-order=srcline
143
144To change colors of selected line to other foreground and background colors
145in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do
146
147 % perf config --system colors.selected=yellow,green
148
149To query the record mode of call graph, do
150
151 % perf config call-graph.record-mode
152
153If you want to know multiple config key/value pairs, you can do like
154
155 % perf config report.queue-size call-graph.order report.children
156
157To query the config value of sort order of call graph in user config file (i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do
158
159 % perf config --user call-graph.sort-order
160
161To query the config value of buildid directory in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do
162
163 % perf config --system buildid.dir
164
165Variables
166~~~~~~~~~
167
168colors.*::
169 The variables for customizing the colors used in the output for the
170 'report', 'top' and 'annotate' in the TUI. They should specify the
171 foreground and background colors, separated by a comma, for example:
172
173 medium = green, lightgray
174
175 If you want to use the color configured for you terminal, just leave it
176 as 'default', for example:
177
178 medium = default, lightgray
179
180 Available colors:
181 red, yellow, green, cyan, gray, black, blue,
182 white, default, magenta, lightgray
183
184 colors.top::
185 'top' means a overhead percentage which is more than 5%.
186 And values of this variable specify percentage colors.
187 Basic key values are foreground-color 'red' and
188 background-color 'default'.
189 colors.medium::
190 'medium' means a overhead percentage which has more than 0.5%.
191 Default values are 'green' and 'default'.
192 colors.normal::
193 'normal' means the rest of overhead percentages
194 except 'top', 'medium', 'selected'.
195 Default values are 'lightgray' and 'default'.
196 colors.selected::
197 This selects the colors for the current entry in a list of entries
198 from sub-commands (top, report, annotate).
199 Default values are 'black' and 'lightgray'.
200 colors.jump_arrows::
201 Colors for jump arrows on assembly code listings
202 such as 'jns', 'jmp', 'jane', etc.
203 Default values are 'blue', 'default'.
204 colors.addr::
205 This selects colors for addresses from 'annotate'.
206 Default values are 'magenta', 'default'.
207 colors.root::
208 Colors for headers in the output of a sub-commands (top, report).
209 Default values are 'white', 'blue'.
210
211core.*::
212 core.proc-map-timeout::
213 Sets a timeout (in milliseconds) for parsing /proc/<pid>/maps files.
214 Can be overridden by the --proc-map-timeout option on supported
215 subcommands. The default timeout is 500ms.
216
217tui.*, gtk.*::
218 Subcommands that can be configured here are 'top', 'report' and 'annotate'.
219 These values are booleans, for example:
220
221 [tui]
222 top = true
223
224 will make the TUI be the default for the 'top' subcommand. Those will be
225 available if the required libs were detected at tool build time.
226
227buildid.*::
228 buildid.dir::
229 Each executable and shared library in modern distributions comes with a
230 content based identifier that, if available, will be inserted in a
231 'perf.data' file header to, at analysis time find what is needed to do
232 symbol resolution, code annotation, etc.
233
234 The recording tools also stores a hard link or copy in a per-user
235 directory, $HOME/.debug/, of binaries, shared libraries, /proc/kallsyms
236 and /proc/kcore files to be used at analysis time.
237
238 The buildid.dir variable can be used to either change this directory
239 cache location, or to disable it altogether. If you want to disable it,
240 set buildid.dir to /dev/null. The default is $HOME/.debug
241
242buildid-cache.*::
243 buildid-cache.debuginfod=URLs
244 Specify debuginfod URLs to be used when retrieving perf.data binaries,
245 it follows the same syntax as the DEBUGINFOD_URLS variable, like:
246
247 buildid-cache.debuginfod=http://192.168.122.174:8002
248
249annotate.*::
250 These are in control of addresses, jump function, source code
251 in lines of assembly code from a specific program.
252
253 annotate.disassembler_style:
254 Use this to change the default disassembler style to some other value
255 supported by binutils, such as "intel", see the '-M' option help in the
256 'objdump' man page.
257
258 annotate.hide_src_code::
259 If a program which is analyzed has source code,
260 this option lets 'annotate' print a list of assembly code with the source code.
261 For example, let's see a part of a program. There're four lines.
262 If this option is 'true', they can be printed
263 without source code from a program as below.
264
265 │ push %rbp
266 │ mov %rsp,%rbp
267 │ sub $0x10,%rsp
268 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx
269
270 But if this option is 'false', source code of the part
271 can be also printed as below. Default is 'false'.
272
273 │ struct rb_node *rb_next(const struct rb_node *node)
274 │ {
275 │ push %rbp
276 │ mov %rsp,%rbp
277 │ sub $0x10,%rsp
278 │ struct rb_node *parent;
279 │
280 │ if (RB_EMPTY_NODE(node))
281 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx
282 │ return n;
283
284 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
285
286 annotate.use_offset::
287 Basing on a first address of a loaded function, offset can be used.
288 Instead of using original addresses of assembly code,
289 addresses subtracted from a base address can be printed.
290 Let's illustrate an example.
291 If a base address is 0XFFFFFFFF81624d50 as below,
292
293 ffffffff81624d50 <load0>
294
295 an address on assembly code has a specific absolute address as below
296
297 ffffffff816250b8:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi
298
299 but if use_offset is 'true', an address subtracted from a base address is printed.
300 Default is true. This option is only applied to TUI.
301
302 368:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi
303
304 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
305
306 annotate.jump_arrows::
307 There can be jump instruction among assembly code.
308 Depending on a boolean value of jump_arrows,
309 arrows can be printed or not which represent
310 where do the instruction jump into as below.
311
312 │ ┌──jmp 1333
313 │ │ xchg %ax,%ax
314 │1330:│ mov %r15,%r10
315 │1333:└─→cmp %r15,%r14
316
317 If jump_arrow is 'false', the arrows isn't printed as below.
318 Default is 'false'.
319
320 │ ↓ jmp 1333
321 │ xchg %ax,%ax
322 │1330: mov %r15,%r10
323 │1333: cmp %r15,%r14
324
325 This option works with tui browser.
326
327 annotate.show_linenr::
328 When showing source code if this option is 'true',
329 line numbers are printed as below.
330
331 │1628 if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
332 │ ↓ jne 508
333 │1628 data->id = *array;
334 │1629 array++;
335 │1630 }
336
337 However if this option is 'false', they aren't printed as below.
338 Default is 'false'.
339
340 │ if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
341 │ ↓ jne 508
342 │ data->id = *array;
343 │ array++;
344 │ }
345
346 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
347
348 annotate.show_nr_jumps::
349 Let's see a part of assembly code.
350
351 │1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
352
353 If use this, the number of branches jumping to that address can be printed as below.
354 Default is 'false'.
355
356 │1 1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
357
358 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
359
360 annotate.show_total_period::
361 To compare two records on an instruction base, with this option
362 provided, display total number of samples that belong to a line
363 in assembly code. If this option is 'true', total periods are printed
364 instead of percent values as below.
365
366 302 │ mov %eax,%eax
367
368 But if this option is 'false', percent values for overhead are printed i.e.
369 Default is 'false'.
370
371 99.93 │ mov %eax,%eax
372
373 This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
374
375 annotate.show_nr_samples::
376 By default perf annotate shows percentage of samples. This option
377 can be used to print absolute number of samples. Ex, when set as
378 false:
379
380 Percent│
381 74.03 │ mov %fs:0x28,%rax
382
383 When set as true:
384
385 Samples│
386 6 │ mov %fs:0x28,%rax
387
388 This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
389
390 annotate.offset_level::
391 Default is '1', meaning just jump targets will have offsets show right beside
392 the instruction. When set to '2' 'call' instructions will also have its offsets
393 shown, 3 or higher will show offsets for all instructions.
394
395 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
396
397 annotate.demangle::
398 Demangle symbol names to human readable form. Default is 'true'.
399
400 annotate.demangle_kernel::
401 Demangle kernel symbol names to human readable form. Default is 'true'.
402
403hist.*::
404 hist.percentage::
405 This option control the way to calculate overhead of filtered entries -
406 that means the value of this option is effective only if there's a
407 filter (by comm, dso or symbol name). Suppose a following example:
408
409 Overhead Symbols
410 ........ .......
411 33.33% foo
412 33.33% bar
413 33.33% baz
414
415 This is an original overhead and we'll filter out the first 'foo'
416 entry. The value of 'relative' would increase the overhead of 'bar'
417 and 'baz' to 50.00% for each, while 'absolute' would show their
418 current overhead (33.33%).
419
420ui.*::
421 ui.show-headers::
422 This option controls display of column headers (like 'Overhead' and 'Symbol')
423 in 'report' and 'top'. If this option is false, they are hidden.
424 This option is only applied to TUI.
425
426call-graph.*::
427 The following controls the handling of call-graphs (obtained via the
428 -g/--call-graph options).
429
430 call-graph.record-mode::
431 The mode for user space can be 'fp' (frame pointer), 'dwarf'
432 and 'lbr'. The value 'dwarf' is effective only if libunwind
433 (or a recent version of libdw) is present on the system;
434 the value 'lbr' only works for certain cpus. The method for
435 kernel space is controlled not by this option but by the
436 kernel config (CONFIG_UNWINDER_*).
437
438 call-graph.dump-size::
439 The size of stack to dump in order to do post-unwinding. Default is 8192 (byte).
440 When using dwarf into record-mode, the default size will be used if omitted.
441
442 call-graph.print-type::
443 The print-types can be graph (graph absolute), fractal (graph relative),
444 flat and folded. This option controls a way to show overhead for each callchain
445 entry. Suppose a following example.
446
447 Overhead Symbols
448 ........ .......
449 40.00% foo
450 |
451 ---foo
452 |
453 |--50.00%--bar
454 | main
455 |
456 --50.00%--baz
457 main
458
459 This output is a 'fractal' format. The 'foo' came from 'bar' and 'baz' exactly
460 half and half so 'fractal' shows 50.00% for each
461 (meaning that it assumes 100% total overhead of 'foo').
462
463 The 'graph' uses absolute overhead value of 'foo' as total so each of
464 'bar' and 'baz' callchain will have 20.00% of overhead.
465 If 'flat' is used, single column and linear exposure of call chains.
466 'folded' mean call chains are displayed in a line, separated by semicolons.
467
468 call-graph.order::
469 This option controls print order of callchains. The default is
470 'callee' which means callee is printed at top and then followed by its
471 caller and so on. The 'caller' prints it in reverse order.
472
473 If this option is not set and report.children or top.children is
474 set to true (or the equivalent command line option is given),
475 the default value of this option is changed to 'caller' for the
476 execution of 'perf report' or 'perf top'. Other commands will
477 still default to 'callee'.
478
479 call-graph.sort-key::
480 The callchains are merged if they contain same information.
481 The sort-key option determines a way to compare the callchains.
482 A value of 'sort-key' can be 'function' or 'address'.
483 The default is 'function'.
484
485 call-graph.threshold::
486 When there're many callchains it'd print tons of lines. So perf omits
487 small callchains under a certain overhead (threshold) and this option
488 control the threshold. Default is 0.5 (%). The overhead is calculated
489 by value depends on call-graph.print-type.
490
491 call-graph.print-limit::
492 This is a maximum number of lines of callchain printed for a single
493 histogram entry. Default is 0 which means no limitation.
494
495report.*::
496 report.sort_order::
497 Allows changing the default sort order from "comm,dso,symbol" to
498 some other default, for instance "sym,dso" may be more fitting for
499 kernel developers.
500 report.percent-limit::
501 This one is mostly the same as call-graph.threshold but works for
502 histogram entries. Entries having an overhead lower than this
503 percentage will not be printed. Default is '0'. If percent-limit
504 is '10', only entries which have more than 10% of overhead will be
505 printed.
506
507 report.queue-size::
508 This option sets up the maximum allocation size of the internal
509 event queue for ordering events. Default is 0, meaning no limit.
510
511 report.children::
512 'Children' means functions called from another function.
513 If this option is true, 'perf report' cumulates callchains of children
514 and show (accumulated) total overhead as well as 'Self' overhead.
515 Please refer to the 'perf report' manual. The default is 'true'.
516
517 report.group::
518 This option is to show event group information together.
519 Example output with this turned on, notice that there is one column
520 per event in the group, ref-cycles and cycles:
521
522 # group: {ref-cycles,cycles}
523 # ========
524 #
525 # Samples: 7K of event 'anon group { ref-cycles, cycles }'
526 # Event count (approx.): 6876107743
527 #
528 # Overhead Command Shared Object Symbol
529 # ................ ....... ................. ...................
530 #
531 99.84% 99.76% noploop noploop [.] main
532 0.07% 0.00% noploop ld-2.15.so [.] strcmp
533 0.03% 0.00% noploop [kernel.kallsyms] [k] timerqueue_del
534
535 report.skip-empty::
536 This option can change default stat behavior with empty results.
537 If it's set true, 'perf report --stat' will not show 0 stats.
538
539top.*::
540 top.children::
541 Same as 'report.children'. So if it is enabled, the output of 'top'
542 command will have 'Children' overhead column as well as 'Self' overhead
543 column by default.
544 The default is 'true'.
545
546 top.call-graph::
547 This is identical to 'call-graph.record-mode', except it is
548 applicable only for 'top' subcommand. This option ONLY setup
549 the unwind method. To enable 'perf top' to actually use it,
550 the command line option -g must be specified.
551
552man.*::
553 man.viewer::
554 This option can assign a tool to view manual pages when 'help'
555 subcommand was invoked. Supported tools are 'man', 'woman'
556 (with emacs client) and 'konqueror'. Default is 'man'.
557
558 New man viewer tool can be also added using 'man.<tool>.cmd'
559 or use different path using 'man.<tool>.path' config option.
560
561pager.*::
562 pager.<subcommand>::
563 When the subcommand is run on stdio, determine whether it uses
564 pager or not based on this value. Default is 'unspecified'.
565
566kmem.*::
567 kmem.default::
568 This option decides which allocator is to be analyzed if neither
569 '--slab' nor '--page' option is used. Default is 'slab'.
570
571record.*::
572 record.build-id::
573 This option can be 'cache', 'no-cache', 'skip' or 'mmap'.
574 'cache' is to post-process data and save/update the binaries into
575 the build-id cache (in ~/.debug). This is the default.
576 But if this option is 'no-cache', it will not update the build-id cache.
577 'skip' skips post-processing and does not update the cache.
578 'mmap' skips post-processing and reads build-ids from MMAP events.
579
580 record.call-graph::
581 This is identical to 'call-graph.record-mode', except it is
582 applicable only for 'record' subcommand. This option ONLY setup
583 the unwind method. To enable 'perf record' to actually use it,
584 the command line option -g must be specified.
585
586 record.aio::
587 Use 'n' control blocks in asynchronous (Posix AIO) trace writing
588 mode ('n' default: 1, max: 4).
589
590diff.*::
591 diff.order::
592 This option sets the number of columns to sort the result.
593 The default is 0, which means sorting by baseline.
594 Setting it to 1 will sort the result by delta (or other
595 compute method selected).
596
597 diff.compute::
598 This options sets the method for computing the diff result.
599 Possible values are 'delta', 'delta-abs', 'ratio' and
600 'wdiff'. Default is 'delta'.
601
602trace.*::
603 trace.add_events::
604 Allows adding a set of events to add to the ones specified
605 by the user, or use as a default one if none was specified.
606 The initial use case is to add augmented_raw_syscalls.o to
607 activate the 'perf trace' logic that looks for syscall
608 pointer contents after the normal tracepoint payload.
609
610 trace.args_alignment::
611 Number of columns to align the argument list, default is 70,
612 use 40 for the strace default, zero to no alignment.
613
614 trace.no_inherit::
615 Do not follow children threads.
616
617 trace.show_arg_names::
618 Should syscall argument names be printed? If not then trace.show_zeros
619 will be set.
620
621 trace.show_duration::
622 Show syscall duration.
623
624 trace.show_prefix::
625 If set to 'yes' will show common string prefixes in tables. The default
626 is to remove the common prefix in things like "MAP_SHARED", showing just "SHARED".
627
628 trace.show_timestamp::
629 Show syscall start timestamp.
630
631 trace.show_zeros::
632 Do not suppress syscall arguments that are equal to zero.
633
634 trace.tracepoint_beautifiers::
635 Use "libtraceevent" to use that library to augment the tracepoint arguments,
636 "libbeauty", the default, to use the same argument beautifiers used in the
637 strace-like sys_enter+sys_exit lines.
638
639ftrace.*::
640 ftrace.tracer::
641 Can be used to select the default tracer when neither -G nor
642 -F option is not specified. Possible values are 'function' and
643 'function_graph'.
644
645llvm.*::
646 llvm.clang-path::
647 Path to clang. If omit, search it from $PATH.
648
649 llvm.clang-bpf-cmd-template::
650 Cmdline template. Below lines show its default value. Environment
651 variable is used to pass options.
652 "$CLANG_EXEC -D__KERNEL__ -D__NR_CPUS__=$NR_CPUS "\
653 "-DLINUX_VERSION_CODE=$LINUX_VERSION_CODE " \
654 "$CLANG_OPTIONS $PERF_BPF_INC_OPTIONS $KERNEL_INC_OPTIONS " \
655 "-Wno-unused-value -Wno-pointer-sign " \
656 "-working-directory $WORKING_DIR " \
657 "-c \"$CLANG_SOURCE\" -target bpf $CLANG_EMIT_LLVM -O2 -o - $LLVM_OPTIONS_PIPE"
658
659 llvm.clang-opt::
660 Options passed to clang.
661
662 llvm.kbuild-dir::
663 kbuild directory. If not set, use /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build.
664 If set to "" deliberately, skip kernel header auto-detector.
665
666 llvm.kbuild-opts::
667 Options passed to 'make' when detecting kernel header options.
668
669 llvm.dump-obj::
670 Enable perf dump BPF object files compiled by LLVM.
671
672 llvm.opts::
673 Options passed to llc.
674
675samples.*::
676
677 samples.context::
678 Define how many ns worth of time to show
679 around samples in perf report sample context browser.
680
681scripts.*::
682
683 Any option defines a script that is added to the scripts menu
684 in the interactive perf browser and whose output is displayed.
685 The name of the option is the name, the value is a script command line.
686 The script gets the same options passed as a full perf script,
687 in particular -i perfdata file, --cpu, --tid
688
689convert.*::
690
691 convert.queue-size::
692 Limit the size of ordered_events queue, so we could control
693 allocation size of perf data files without proper finished
694 round events.
695stat.*::
696
697 stat.big-num::
698 (boolean) Change the default for "--big-num". To make
699 "--no-big-num" the default, set "stat.big-num=false".
700
701intel-pt.*::
702
703 intel-pt.cache-divisor::
704
705 intel-pt.mispred-all::
706 If set, Intel PT decoder will set the mispred flag on all
707 branches.
708
709 intel-pt.max-loops::
710 If set and non-zero, the maximum number of unconditional
711 branches decoded without consuming any trace packets. If
712 the maximum is exceeded there will be a "Never-ending loop"
713 error. The default is 100000.
714
715auxtrace.*::
716
717 auxtrace.dumpdir::
718 s390 only. The directory to save the auxiliary trace buffer
719 can be changed using this option. Ex, auxtrace.dumpdir=/tmp.
720 If the directory does not exist or has the wrong file type,
721 the current directory is used.
722
723daemon.*::
724
725 daemon.base::
726 Base path for daemon data. All sessions data are stored under
727 this path.
728
729session-<NAME>.*::
730
731 session-<NAME>.run::
732
733 Defines new record session for daemon. The value is record's
734 command line without the 'record' keyword.
735
736
737SEE ALSO
738--------
739linkperf:perf[1]
1perf-config(1)
2==============
3
4NAME
5----
6perf-config - Get and set variables in a configuration file.
7
8SYNOPSIS
9--------
10[verse]
11'perf config' [<file-option>] [section.name[=value] ...]
12or
13'perf config' [<file-option>] -l | --list
14
15DESCRIPTION
16-----------
17You can manage variables in a configuration file with this command.
18
19OPTIONS
20-------
21
22-l::
23--list::
24 Show current config variables, name and value, for all sections.
25
26--user::
27 For writing and reading options: write to user
28 '$HOME/.perfconfig' file or read it.
29
30--system::
31 For writing and reading options: write to system-wide
32 '$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig' or read it.
33
34CONFIGURATION FILE
35------------------
36
37The perf configuration file contains many variables to change various
38aspects of each of its tools, including output, disk usage, etc.
39The '$HOME/.perfconfig' file is used to store a per-user configuration.
40The file '$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig' can be used to
41store a system-wide default configuration.
42
43One an disable reading config files by setting the PERF_CONFIG environment
44variable to /dev/null, or provide an alternate config file by setting that
45variable.
46
47When reading or writing, the values are read from the system and user
48configuration files by default, and options '--system' and '--user'
49can be used to tell the command to read from or write to only that location.
50
51Syntax
52~~~~~~
53
54The file consist of sections. A section starts with its name
55surrounded by square brackets and continues till the next section
56begins. Each variable must be in a section, and have the form
57'name = value', for example:
58
59 [section]
60 name1 = value1
61 name2 = value2
62
63Section names are case sensitive and can contain any characters except
64newline (double quote `"` and backslash have to be escaped as `\"` and `\\`,
65respectively). Section headers can't span multiple lines.
66
67Example
68~~~~~~~
69
70Given a $HOME/.perfconfig like this:
71
72#
73# This is the config file, and
74# a '#' and ';' character indicates a comment
75#
76
77 [colors]
78 # Color variables
79 top = red, default
80 medium = green, default
81 normal = lightgray, default
82 selected = white, lightgray
83 jump_arrows = blue, default
84 addr = magenta, default
85 root = white, blue
86
87 [tui]
88 # Defaults if linked with libslang
89 report = on
90 annotate = on
91 top = on
92
93 [buildid]
94 # Default, disable using /dev/null
95 dir = ~/.debug
96
97 [annotate]
98 # Defaults
99 hide_src_code = false
100 use_offset = true
101 jump_arrows = true
102 show_nr_jumps = false
103
104 [help]
105 # Format can be man, info, web or html
106 format = man
107 autocorrect = 0
108
109 [ui]
110 show-headers = true
111
112 [call-graph]
113 # fp (framepointer), dwarf
114 record-mode = fp
115 print-type = graph
116 order = caller
117 sort-key = function
118
119 [report]
120 # Defaults
121 sort_order = comm,dso,symbol
122 percent-limit = 0
123 queue-size = 0
124 children = true
125 group = true
126 skip-empty = true
127
128
129You can hide source code of annotate feature setting the config to false with
130
131 % perf config annotate.hide_src_code=true
132
133If you want to add or modify several config items, you can do like
134
135 % perf config ui.show-headers=false kmem.default=slab
136
137To modify the sort order of report functionality in user config file(i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do
138
139 % perf config --user report.sort-order=srcline
140
141To change colors of selected line to other foreground and background colors
142in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do
143
144 % perf config --system colors.selected=yellow,green
145
146To query the record mode of call graph, do
147
148 % perf config call-graph.record-mode
149
150If you want to know multiple config key/value pairs, you can do like
151
152 % perf config report.queue-size call-graph.order report.children
153
154To query the config value of sort order of call graph in user config file (i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do
155
156 % perf config --user call-graph.sort-order
157
158To query the config value of buildid directory in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do
159
160 % perf config --system buildid.dir
161
162Variables
163~~~~~~~~~
164
165colors.*::
166 The variables for customizing the colors used in the output for the
167 'report', 'top' and 'annotate' in the TUI. They should specify the
168 foreground and background colors, separated by a comma, for example:
169
170 medium = green, lightgray
171
172 If you want to use the color configured for you terminal, just leave it
173 as 'default', for example:
174
175 medium = default, lightgray
176
177 Available colors:
178 red, yellow, green, cyan, gray, black, blue,
179 white, default, magenta, lightgray
180
181 colors.top::
182 'top' means a overhead percentage which is more than 5%.
183 And values of this variable specify percentage colors.
184 Basic key values are foreground-color 'red' and
185 background-color 'default'.
186 colors.medium::
187 'medium' means a overhead percentage which has more than 0.5%.
188 Default values are 'green' and 'default'.
189 colors.normal::
190 'normal' means the rest of overhead percentages
191 except 'top', 'medium', 'selected'.
192 Default values are 'lightgray' and 'default'.
193 colors.selected::
194 This selects the colors for the current entry in a list of entries
195 from sub-commands (top, report, annotate).
196 Default values are 'black' and 'lightgray'.
197 colors.jump_arrows::
198 Colors for jump arrows on assembly code listings
199 such as 'jns', 'jmp', 'jane', etc.
200 Default values are 'blue', 'default'.
201 colors.addr::
202 This selects colors for addresses from 'annotate'.
203 Default values are 'magenta', 'default'.
204 colors.root::
205 Colors for headers in the output of a sub-commands (top, report).
206 Default values are 'white', 'blue'.
207
208core.*::
209 core.proc-map-timeout::
210 Sets a timeout (in milliseconds) for parsing /proc/<pid>/maps files.
211 Can be overridden by the --proc-map-timeout option on supported
212 subcommands. The default timeout is 500ms.
213
214tui.*, gtk.*::
215 Subcommands that can be configured here are 'top', 'report' and 'annotate'.
216 These values are booleans, for example:
217
218 [tui]
219 top = true
220
221 will make the TUI be the default for the 'top' subcommand. Those will be
222 available if the required libs were detected at tool build time.
223
224buildid.*::
225 buildid.dir::
226 Each executable and shared library in modern distributions comes with a
227 content based identifier that, if available, will be inserted in a
228 'perf.data' file header to, at analysis time find what is needed to do
229 symbol resolution, code annotation, etc.
230
231 The recording tools also stores a hard link or copy in a per-user
232 directory, $HOME/.debug/, of binaries, shared libraries, /proc/kallsyms
233 and /proc/kcore files to be used at analysis time.
234
235 The buildid.dir variable can be used to either change this directory
236 cache location, or to disable it altogether. If you want to disable it,
237 set buildid.dir to /dev/null. The default is $HOME/.debug
238
239buildid-cache.*::
240 buildid-cache.debuginfod=URLs
241 Specify debuginfod URLs to be used when retrieving perf.data binaries,
242 it follows the same syntax as the DEBUGINFOD_URLS variable, like:
243
244 buildid-cache.debuginfod=http://192.168.122.174:8002
245
246annotate.*::
247 These are in control of addresses, jump function, source code
248 in lines of assembly code from a specific program.
249
250 annotate.disassemblers::
251 Choose the disassembler to use: "objdump", "llvm", "capstone",
252 if not specified it will first try, if available, the "llvm" one,
253 then, if it fails, "capstone", and finally the original "objdump"
254 based one.
255
256 Choosing a different one is useful when handling some feature that
257 is known to be best support at some point by one of the options,
258 to compare the output when in doubt about some bug, etc.
259
260 This can be a list, in order of preference, the first one that works
261 finishes the process.
262
263 annotate.addr2line::
264 addr2line binary to use for file names and line numbers.
265
266 annotate.objdump::
267 objdump binary to use for disassembly and annotations,
268 including in the 'perf test' command.
269
270 annotate.disassembler_style::
271 Use this to change the default disassembler style to some other value
272 supported by binutils, such as "intel", see the '-M' option help in the
273 'objdump' man page.
274
275 annotate.hide_src_code::
276 If a program which is analyzed has source code,
277 this option lets 'annotate' print a list of assembly code with the source code.
278 For example, let's see a part of a program. There're four lines.
279 If this option is 'true', they can be printed
280 without source code from a program as below.
281
282 │ push %rbp
283 │ mov %rsp,%rbp
284 │ sub $0x10,%rsp
285 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx
286
287 But if this option is 'false', source code of the part
288 can be also printed as below. Default is 'false'.
289
290 │ struct rb_node *rb_next(const struct rb_node *node)
291 │ {
292 │ push %rbp
293 │ mov %rsp,%rbp
294 │ sub $0x10,%rsp
295 │ struct rb_node *parent;
296 │
297 │ if (RB_EMPTY_NODE(node))
298 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx
299 │ return n;
300
301 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
302
303 annotate.use_offset::
304 Basing on a first address of a loaded function, offset can be used.
305 Instead of using original addresses of assembly code,
306 addresses subtracted from a base address can be printed.
307 Let's illustrate an example.
308 If a base address is 0XFFFFFFFF81624d50 as below,
309
310 ffffffff81624d50 <load0>
311
312 an address on assembly code has a specific absolute address as below
313
314 ffffffff816250b8:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi
315
316 but if use_offset is 'true', an address subtracted from a base address is printed.
317 Default is true. This option is only applied to TUI.
318
319 368:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi
320
321 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
322
323 annotate.jump_arrows::
324 There can be jump instruction among assembly code.
325 Depending on a boolean value of jump_arrows,
326 arrows can be printed or not which represent
327 where do the instruction jump into as below.
328
329 │ ┌──jmp 1333
330 │ │ xchg %ax,%ax
331 │1330:│ mov %r15,%r10
332 │1333:└─→cmp %r15,%r14
333
334 If jump_arrow is 'false', the arrows isn't printed as below.
335 Default is 'false'.
336
337 │ ↓ jmp 1333
338 │ xchg %ax,%ax
339 │1330: mov %r15,%r10
340 │1333: cmp %r15,%r14
341
342 This option works with tui browser.
343
344 annotate.show_linenr::
345 When showing source code if this option is 'true',
346 line numbers are printed as below.
347
348 │1628 if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
349 │ ↓ jne 508
350 │1628 data->id = *array;
351 │1629 array++;
352 │1630 }
353
354 However if this option is 'false', they aren't printed as below.
355 Default is 'false'.
356
357 │ if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
358 │ ↓ jne 508
359 │ data->id = *array;
360 │ array++;
361 │ }
362
363 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
364
365 annotate.show_nr_jumps::
366 Let's see a part of assembly code.
367
368 │1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
369
370 If use this, the number of branches jumping to that address can be printed as below.
371 Default is 'false'.
372
373 │1 1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
374
375 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
376
377 annotate.show_total_period::
378 To compare two records on an instruction base, with this option
379 provided, display total number of samples that belong to a line
380 in assembly code. If this option is 'true', total periods are printed
381 instead of percent values as below.
382
383 302 │ mov %eax,%eax
384
385 But if this option is 'false', percent values for overhead are printed i.e.
386 Default is 'false'.
387
388 99.93 │ mov %eax,%eax
389
390 This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
391
392 annotate.show_nr_samples::
393 By default perf annotate shows percentage of samples. This option
394 can be used to print absolute number of samples. Ex, when set as
395 false:
396
397 Percent│
398 74.03 │ mov %fs:0x28,%rax
399
400 When set as true:
401
402 Samples│
403 6 │ mov %fs:0x28,%rax
404
405 This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
406
407 annotate.offset_level::
408 Default is '1', meaning just jump targets will have offsets show right beside
409 the instruction. When set to '2' 'call' instructions will also have its offsets
410 shown, 3 or higher will show offsets for all instructions.
411
412 This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
413
414 annotate.demangle::
415 Demangle symbol names to human readable form. Default is 'true'.
416
417 annotate.demangle_kernel::
418 Demangle kernel symbol names to human readable form. Default is 'true'.
419
420hist.*::
421 hist.percentage::
422 This option control the way to calculate overhead of filtered entries -
423 that means the value of this option is effective only if there's a
424 filter (by comm, dso or symbol name). Suppose a following example:
425
426 Overhead Symbols
427 ........ .......
428 33.33% foo
429 33.33% bar
430 33.33% baz
431
432 This is an original overhead and we'll filter out the first 'foo'
433 entry. The value of 'relative' would increase the overhead of 'bar'
434 and 'baz' to 50.00% for each, while 'absolute' would show their
435 current overhead (33.33%).
436
437ui.*::
438 ui.show-headers::
439 This option controls display of column headers (like 'Overhead' and 'Symbol')
440 in 'report' and 'top'. If this option is false, they are hidden.
441 This option is only applied to TUI.
442
443call-graph.*::
444 The following controls the handling of call-graphs (obtained via the
445 -g/--call-graph options).
446
447 call-graph.record-mode::
448 The mode for user space can be 'fp' (frame pointer), 'dwarf'
449 and 'lbr'. The value 'dwarf' is effective only if libunwind
450 (or a recent version of libdw) is present on the system;
451 the value 'lbr' only works for certain cpus. The method for
452 kernel space is controlled not by this option but by the
453 kernel config (CONFIG_UNWINDER_*).
454
455 call-graph.dump-size::
456 The size of stack to dump in order to do post-unwinding. Default is 8192 (byte).
457 When using dwarf into record-mode, the default size will be used if omitted.
458
459 call-graph.print-type::
460 The print-types can be graph (graph absolute), fractal (graph relative),
461 flat and folded. This option controls a way to show overhead for each callchain
462 entry. Suppose a following example.
463
464 Overhead Symbols
465 ........ .......
466 40.00% foo
467 |
468 ---foo
469 |
470 |--50.00%--bar
471 | main
472 |
473 --50.00%--baz
474 main
475
476 This output is a 'fractal' format. The 'foo' came from 'bar' and 'baz' exactly
477 half and half so 'fractal' shows 50.00% for each
478 (meaning that it assumes 100% total overhead of 'foo').
479
480 The 'graph' uses absolute overhead value of 'foo' as total so each of
481 'bar' and 'baz' callchain will have 20.00% of overhead.
482 If 'flat' is used, single column and linear exposure of call chains.
483 'folded' mean call chains are displayed in a line, separated by semicolons.
484
485 call-graph.order::
486 This option controls print order of callchains. The default is
487 'callee' which means callee is printed at top and then followed by its
488 caller and so on. The 'caller' prints it in reverse order.
489
490 If this option is not set and report.children or top.children is
491 set to true (or the equivalent command line option is given),
492 the default value of this option is changed to 'caller' for the
493 execution of 'perf report' or 'perf top'. Other commands will
494 still default to 'callee'.
495
496 call-graph.sort-key::
497 The callchains are merged if they contain same information.
498 The sort-key option determines a way to compare the callchains.
499 A value of 'sort-key' can be 'function' or 'address'.
500 The default is 'function'.
501
502 call-graph.threshold::
503 When there're many callchains it'd print tons of lines. So perf omits
504 small callchains under a certain overhead (threshold) and this option
505 control the threshold. Default is 0.5 (%). The overhead is calculated
506 by value depends on call-graph.print-type.
507
508 call-graph.print-limit::
509 This is a maximum number of lines of callchain printed for a single
510 histogram entry. Default is 0 which means no limitation.
511
512report.*::
513 report.sort_order::
514 Allows changing the default sort order from "comm,dso,symbol" to
515 some other default, for instance "sym,dso" may be more fitting for
516 kernel developers.
517 report.percent-limit::
518 This one is mostly the same as call-graph.threshold but works for
519 histogram entries. Entries having an overhead lower than this
520 percentage will not be printed. Default is '0'. If percent-limit
521 is '10', only entries which have more than 10% of overhead will be
522 printed.
523
524 report.queue-size::
525 This option sets up the maximum allocation size of the internal
526 event queue for ordering events. Default is 0, meaning no limit.
527
528 report.children::
529 'Children' means functions called from another function.
530 If this option is true, 'perf report' cumulates callchains of children
531 and show (accumulated) total overhead as well as 'Self' overhead.
532 Please refer to the 'perf report' manual. The default is 'true'.
533
534 report.group::
535 This option is to show event group information together.
536 Example output with this turned on, notice that there is one column
537 per event in the group, ref-cycles and cycles:
538
539 # group: {ref-cycles,cycles}
540 # ========
541 #
542 # Samples: 7K of event 'anon group { ref-cycles, cycles }'
543 # Event count (approx.): 6876107743
544 #
545 # Overhead Command Shared Object Symbol
546 # ................ ....... ................. ...................
547 #
548 99.84% 99.76% noploop noploop [.] main
549 0.07% 0.00% noploop ld-2.15.so [.] strcmp
550 0.03% 0.00% noploop [kernel.kallsyms] [k] timerqueue_del
551
552 report.skip-empty::
553 This option can change default stat behavior with empty results.
554 If it's set true, 'perf report --stat' will not show 0 stats.
555
556top.*::
557 top.children::
558 Same as 'report.children'. So if it is enabled, the output of 'top'
559 command will have 'Children' overhead column as well as 'Self' overhead
560 column by default.
561 The default is 'true'.
562
563 top.call-graph::
564 This is identical to 'call-graph.record-mode', except it is
565 applicable only for 'top' subcommand. This option ONLY setup
566 the unwind method. To enable 'perf top' to actually use it,
567 the command line option -g must be specified.
568
569man.*::
570 man.viewer::
571 This option can assign a tool to view manual pages when 'help'
572 subcommand was invoked. Supported tools are 'man', 'woman'
573 (with emacs client) and 'konqueror'. Default is 'man'.
574
575 New man viewer tool can be also added using 'man.<tool>.cmd'
576 or use different path using 'man.<tool>.path' config option.
577
578pager.*::
579 pager.<subcommand>::
580 When the subcommand is run on stdio, determine whether it uses
581 pager or not based on this value. Default is 'unspecified'.
582
583kmem.*::
584 kmem.default::
585 This option decides which allocator is to be analyzed if neither
586 '--slab' nor '--page' option is used. Default is 'slab'.
587
588record.*::
589 record.build-id::
590 This option can be 'cache', 'no-cache', 'skip' or 'mmap'.
591 'cache' is to post-process data and save/update the binaries into
592 the build-id cache (in ~/.debug). This is the default.
593 But if this option is 'no-cache', it will not update the build-id cache.
594 'skip' skips post-processing and does not update the cache.
595 'mmap' skips post-processing and reads build-ids from MMAP events.
596
597 record.call-graph::
598 This is identical to 'call-graph.record-mode', except it is
599 applicable only for 'record' subcommand. This option ONLY setup
600 the unwind method. To enable 'perf record' to actually use it,
601 the command line option -g must be specified.
602
603 record.aio::
604 Use 'n' control blocks in asynchronous (Posix AIO) trace writing
605 mode ('n' default: 1, max: 4).
606
607 record.debuginfod::
608 Specify debuginfod URL to be used when cacheing perf.data binaries,
609 it follows the same syntax as the DEBUGINFOD_URLS variable, like:
610
611 http://192.168.122.174:8002
612
613 If the URLs is 'system', the value of DEBUGINFOD_URLS system environment
614 variable is used.
615
616diff.*::
617 diff.order::
618 This option sets the number of columns to sort the result.
619 The default is 0, which means sorting by baseline.
620 Setting it to 1 will sort the result by delta (or other
621 compute method selected).
622
623 diff.compute::
624 This options sets the method for computing the diff result.
625 Possible values are 'delta', 'delta-abs', 'ratio' and
626 'wdiff'. Default is 'delta'.
627
628trace.*::
629 trace.add_events::
630 Allows adding a set of events to add to the ones specified
631 by the user, or use as a default one if none was specified.
632 The initial use case is to add augmented_raw_syscalls.o to
633 activate the 'perf trace' logic that looks for syscall
634 pointer contents after the normal tracepoint payload.
635
636 trace.args_alignment::
637 Number of columns to align the argument list, default is 70,
638 use 40 for the strace default, zero to no alignment.
639
640 trace.no_inherit::
641 Do not follow children threads.
642
643 trace.show_arg_names::
644 Should syscall argument names be printed? If not then trace.show_zeros
645 will be set.
646
647 trace.show_duration::
648 Show syscall duration.
649
650 trace.show_prefix::
651 If set to 'yes' will show common string prefixes in tables. The default
652 is to remove the common prefix in things like "MAP_SHARED", showing just "SHARED".
653
654 trace.show_timestamp::
655 Show syscall start timestamp.
656
657 trace.show_zeros::
658 Do not suppress syscall arguments that are equal to zero.
659
660 trace.tracepoint_beautifiers::
661 Use "libtraceevent" to use that library to augment the tracepoint arguments,
662 "libbeauty", the default, to use the same argument beautifiers used in the
663 strace-like sys_enter+sys_exit lines.
664
665ftrace.*::
666 ftrace.tracer::
667 Can be used to select the default tracer when neither -G nor
668 -F option is not specified. Possible values are 'function' and
669 'function_graph'.
670
671samples.*::
672
673 samples.context::
674 Define how many ns worth of time to show
675 around samples in perf report sample context browser.
676
677scripts.*::
678
679 Any option defines a script that is added to the scripts menu
680 in the interactive perf browser and whose output is displayed.
681 The name of the option is the name, the value is a script command line.
682 The script gets the same options passed as a full perf script,
683 in particular -i perfdata file, --cpu, --tid
684
685convert.*::
686
687 convert.queue-size::
688 Limit the size of ordered_events queue, so we could control
689 allocation size of perf data files without proper finished
690 round events.
691stat.*::
692
693 stat.big-num::
694 (boolean) Change the default for "--big-num". To make
695 "--no-big-num" the default, set "stat.big-num=false".
696
697intel-pt.*::
698
699 intel-pt.cache-divisor::
700
701 intel-pt.mispred-all::
702 If set, Intel PT decoder will set the mispred flag on all
703 branches.
704
705 intel-pt.max-loops::
706 If set and non-zero, the maximum number of unconditional
707 branches decoded without consuming any trace packets. If
708 the maximum is exceeded there will be a "Never-ending loop"
709 error. The default is 100000.
710
711auxtrace.*::
712
713 auxtrace.dumpdir::
714 s390 only. The directory to save the auxiliary trace buffer
715 can be changed using this option. Ex, auxtrace.dumpdir=/tmp.
716 If the directory does not exist or has the wrong file type,
717 the current directory is used.
718
719itrace.*::
720
721 debug-log-buffer-size::
722 Log size in bytes to output when using the option --itrace=d+e
723 Refer 'itrace' option of linkperf:perf-script[1] or
724 linkperf:perf-report[1]. The default is 16384.
725
726daemon.*::
727
728 daemon.base::
729 Base path for daemon data. All sessions data are stored under
730 this path.
731
732session-<NAME>.*::
733
734 session-<NAME>.run::
735
736 Defines new record session for daemon. The value is record's
737 command line without the 'record' keyword.
738
739SEE ALSO
740--------
741linkperf:perf[1]