Loading...
1perf-top(1)
2===========
3
4NAME
5----
6perf-top - System profiling tool.
7
8SYNOPSIS
9--------
10[verse]
11'perf top' [-e <EVENT> | --event=EVENT] [<options>]
12
13DESCRIPTION
14-----------
15This command generates and displays a performance counter profile in real time.
16
17
18OPTIONS
19-------
20-a::
21--all-cpus::
22 System-wide collection. (default)
23
24-c <count>::
25--count=<count>::
26 Event period to sample.
27
28-C <cpu-list>::
29--cpu=<cpu>::
30Monitor only on the list of CPUs provided. Multiple CPUs can be provided as a
31comma-separated list with no space: 0,1. Ranges of CPUs are specified with -: 0-2.
32Default is to monitor all CPUS.
33
34-d <seconds>::
35--delay=<seconds>::
36 Number of seconds to delay between refreshes.
37
38-e <event>::
39--event=<event>::
40 Select the PMU event. Selection can be a symbolic event name
41 (use 'perf list' to list all events) or a raw PMU event in the form
42 of rN where N is a hexadecimal value that represents the raw register
43 encoding with the layout of the event control registers as described
44 by entries in /sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu/format/*.
45
46-E <entries>::
47--entries=<entries>::
48 Display this many functions.
49
50-f <count>::
51--count-filter=<count>::
52 Only display functions with more events than this.
53
54--group-sort-idx::
55 Sort the output by the event at the index n in group. If n is invalid,
56 sort by the first event. It can support multiple groups with different
57 amount of events. WARNING: This should be used on grouped events.
58
59-F <freq>::
60--freq=<freq>::
61 Profile at this frequency. Use 'max' to use the currently maximum
62 allowed frequency, i.e. the value in the kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate
63 sysctl.
64
65-i::
66--inherit::
67 Child tasks do not inherit counters.
68
69-k <path>::
70--vmlinux=<path>::
71 Path to vmlinux. Required for annotation functionality.
72
73--ignore-vmlinux::
74 Ignore vmlinux files.
75
76--kallsyms=<file>::
77 kallsyms pathname
78
79-m <pages>::
80--mmap-pages=<pages>::
81 Number of mmap data pages (must be a power of two) or size
82 specification with appended unit character - B/K/M/G. The
83 size is rounded up to have nearest pages power of two value.
84
85-p <pid>::
86--pid=<pid>::
87 Profile events on existing Process ID (comma separated list).
88
89-t <tid>::
90--tid=<tid>::
91 Profile events on existing thread ID (comma separated list).
92
93-u::
94--uid=::
95 Record events in threads owned by uid. Name or number.
96
97-r <priority>::
98--realtime=<priority>::
99 Collect data with this RT SCHED_FIFO priority.
100
101--sym-annotate=<symbol>::
102 Annotate this symbol.
103
104-K::
105--hide_kernel_symbols::
106 Hide kernel symbols.
107
108-U::
109--hide_user_symbols::
110 Hide user symbols.
111
112--demangle-kernel::
113 Demangle kernel symbols.
114
115-D::
116--dump-symtab::
117 Dump the symbol table used for profiling.
118
119-v::
120--verbose::
121 Be more verbose (show counter open errors, etc).
122
123-z::
124--zero::
125 Zero history across display updates.
126
127-s::
128--sort::
129 Sort by key(s): pid, comm, dso, symbol, parent, srcline, weight,
130 local_weight, abort, in_tx, transaction, overhead, sample, period.
131 Please see description of --sort in the perf-report man page.
132
133--fields=::
134 Specify output field - multiple keys can be specified in CSV format.
135 Following fields are available:
136 overhead, overhead_sys, overhead_us, overhead_children, sample and period.
137 Also it can contain any sort key(s).
138
139 By default, every sort keys not specified in --field will be appended
140 automatically.
141
142-n::
143--show-nr-samples::
144 Show a column with the number of samples.
145
146--show-total-period::
147 Show a column with the sum of periods.
148
149--dsos::
150 Only consider symbols in these dsos. This option will affect the
151 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
152
153--comms::
154 Only consider symbols in these comms. This option will affect the
155 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
156
157--symbols::
158 Only consider these symbols. This option will affect the
159 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
160
161-M::
162--disassembler-style=:: Set disassembler style for objdump.
163
164--prefix=PREFIX::
165--prefix-strip=N::
166 Remove first N entries from source file path names in executables
167 and add PREFIX. This allows to display source code compiled on systems
168 with different file system layout.
169
170--source::
171 Interleave source code with assembly code. Enabled by default,
172 disable with --no-source.
173
174--asm-raw::
175 Show raw instruction encoding of assembly instructions.
176
177-g::
178 Enables call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording.
179
180--call-graph [mode,type,min[,limit],order[,key][,branch]]::
181 Setup and enable call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording,
182 implies -g. See `--call-graph` section in perf-record and
183 perf-report man pages for details.
184
185--children::
186 Accumulate callchain of children to parent entry so that then can
187 show up in the output. The output will have a new "Children" column
188 and will be sorted on the data. It requires -g/--call-graph option
189 enabled. See the `overhead calculation' section for more details.
190 Enabled by default, disable with --no-children.
191
192--max-stack::
193 Set the stack depth limit when parsing the callchain, anything
194 beyond the specified depth will be ignored. This is a trade-off
195 between information loss and faster processing especially for
196 workloads that can have a very long callchain stack.
197
198 Default: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack when present, 127 otherwise.
199
200--ignore-callees=<regex>::
201 Ignore callees of the function(s) matching the given regex.
202 This has the effect of collecting the callers of each such
203 function into one place in the call-graph tree.
204
205--percent-limit::
206 Do not show entries which have an overhead under that percent.
207 (Default: 0).
208
209--percentage::
210 Determine how to display the overhead percentage of filtered entries.
211 Filters can be applied by --comms, --dsos and/or --symbols options and
212 Zoom operations on the TUI (thread, dso, etc).
213
214 "relative" means it's relative to filtered entries only so that the
215 sum of shown entries will be always 100%. "absolute" means it retains
216 the original value before and after the filter is applied.
217
218-w::
219--column-widths=<width[,width...]>::
220 Force each column width to the provided list, for large terminal
221 readability. 0 means no limit (default behavior).
222
223--proc-map-timeout::
224 When processing pre-existing threads /proc/XXX/mmap, it may take
225 a long time, because the file may be huge. A time out is needed
226 in such cases.
227 This option sets the time out limit. The default value is 500 ms.
228
229
230-b::
231--branch-any::
232 Enable taken branch stack sampling. Any type of taken branch may be sampled.
233 This is a shortcut for --branch-filter any. See --branch-filter for more infos.
234
235-j::
236--branch-filter::
237 Enable taken branch stack sampling. Each sample captures a series of consecutive
238 taken branches. The number of branches captured with each sample depends on the
239 underlying hardware, the type of branches of interest, and the executed code.
240 It is possible to select the types of branches captured by enabling filters.
241 For a full list of modifiers please see the perf record manpage.
242
243 The option requires at least one branch type among any, any_call, any_ret, ind_call, cond.
244 The privilege levels may be omitted, in which case, the privilege levels of the associated
245 event are applied to the branch filter. Both kernel (k) and hypervisor (hv) privilege
246 levels are subject to permissions. When sampling on multiple events, branch stack sampling
247 is enabled for all the sampling events. The sampled branch type is the same for all events.
248 The various filters must be specified as a comma separated list: --branch-filter any_ret,u,k
249 Note that this feature may not be available on all processors.
250
251--raw-trace::
252 When displaying traceevent output, do not use print fmt or plugins.
253
254--hierarchy::
255 Enable hierarchy output.
256
257--overwrite::
258 Enable this to use just the most recent records, which helps in high core count
259 machines such as Knights Landing/Mill, but right now is disabled by default as
260 the pausing used in this technique is leading to loss of metadata events such
261 as PERF_RECORD_MMAP which makes 'perf top' unable to resolve samples, leading
262 to lots of unknown samples appearing on the UI. Enable this if you are in such
263 machines and profiling a workload that doesn't creates short lived threads and/or
264 doesn't uses many executable mmap operations. Work is being planed to solve
265 this situation, till then, this will remain disabled by default.
266
267--force::
268 Don't do ownership validation.
269
270--num-thread-synthesize::
271 The number of threads to run when synthesizing events for existing processes.
272 By default, the number of threads equals to the number of online CPUs.
273
274--namespaces::
275 Record events of type PERF_RECORD_NAMESPACES and display it with the
276 'cgroup_id' sort key.
277
278-G name::
279--cgroup name::
280monitor only in the container (cgroup) called "name". This option is available only
281in per-cpu mode. The cgroup filesystem must be mounted. All threads belonging to
282container "name" are monitored when they run on the monitored CPUs. Multiple cgroups
283can be provided. Each cgroup is applied to the corresponding event, i.e., first cgroup
284to first event, second cgroup to second event and so on. It is possible to provide
285an empty cgroup (monitor all the time) using, e.g., -G foo,,bar. Cgroups must have
286corresponding events, i.e., they always refer to events defined earlier on the command
287line. If the user wants to track multiple events for a specific cgroup, the user can
288use '-e e1 -e e2 -G foo,foo' or just use '-e e1 -e e2 -G foo'.
289
290--all-cgroups::
291 Record events of type PERF_RECORD_CGROUP and display it with the
292 'cgroup' sort key.
293
294--switch-on EVENT_NAME::
295 Only consider events after this event is found.
296
297 E.g.:
298
299 Find out where broadcast packets are handled
300
301 perf probe -L icmp_rcv
302
303 Insert a probe there:
304
305 perf probe icmp_rcv:59
306
307 Start perf top and ask it to only consider the cycles events when a
308 broadcast packet arrives This will show a menu with two entries and
309 will start counting when a broadcast packet arrives:
310
311 perf top -e cycles,probe:icmp_rcv --switch-on=probe:icmp_rcv
312
313 Alternatively one can ask for a group and then two overhead columns
314 will appear, the first for cycles and the second for the switch-on event.
315
316 perf top -e '{cycles,probe:icmp_rcv}' --switch-on=probe:icmp_rcv
317
318 This may be interesting to measure a workload only after some initialization
319 phase is over, i.e. insert a perf probe at that point and use the above
320 examples replacing probe:icmp_rcv with the just-after-init probe.
321
322--switch-off EVENT_NAME::
323 Stop considering events after this event is found.
324
325--show-on-off-events::
326 Show the --switch-on/off events too. This has no effect in 'perf top' now
327 but probably we'll make the default not to show the switch-on/off events
328 on the --group mode and if there is only one event besides the off/on ones,
329 go straight to the histogram browser, just like 'perf top' with no events
330 explicitly specified does.
331
332--stitch-lbr::
333 Show callgraph with stitched LBRs, which may have more complete
334 callgraph. The option must be used with --call-graph lbr recording.
335 Disabled by default. In common cases with call stack overflows,
336 it can recreate better call stacks than the default lbr call stack
337 output. But this approach is not full proof. There can be cases
338 where it creates incorrect call stacks from incorrect matches.
339 The known limitations include exception handing such as
340 setjmp/longjmp will have calls/returns not match.
341
342ifdef::HAVE_LIBPFM[]
343--pfm-events events::
344Select a PMU event using libpfm4 syntax (see http://perfmon2.sf.net)
345including support for event filters. For example '--pfm-events
346inst_retired:any_p:u:c=1:i'. More than one event can be passed to the
347option using the comma separator. Hardware events and generic hardware
348events cannot be mixed together. The latter must be used with the -e
349option. The -e option and this one can be mixed and matched. Events
350can be grouped using the {} notation.
351endif::HAVE_LIBPFM[]
352
353INTERACTIVE PROMPTING KEYS
354--------------------------
355
356[d]::
357 Display refresh delay.
358
359[e]::
360 Number of entries to display.
361
362[E]::
363 Event to display when multiple counters are active.
364
365[f]::
366 Profile display filter (>= hit count).
367
368[F]::
369 Annotation display filter (>= % of total).
370
371[s]::
372 Annotate symbol.
373
374[S]::
375 Stop annotation, return to full profile display.
376
377[K]::
378 Hide kernel symbols.
379
380[U]::
381 Hide user symbols.
382
383[z]::
384 Toggle event count zeroing across display updates.
385
386[qQ]::
387 Quit.
388
389Pressing any unmapped key displays a menu, and prompts for input.
390
391include::callchain-overhead-calculation.txt[]
392
393SEE ALSO
394--------
395linkperf:perf-stat[1], linkperf:perf-list[1], linkperf:perf-report[1]
1perf-top(1)
2===========
3
4NAME
5----
6perf-top - System profiling tool.
7
8SYNOPSIS
9--------
10[verse]
11'perf top' [-e <EVENT> | --event=EVENT] [<options>]
12
13DESCRIPTION
14-----------
15This command generates and displays a performance counter profile in real time.
16
17
18OPTIONS
19-------
20-a::
21--all-cpus::
22 System-wide collection. (default)
23
24-c <count>::
25--count=<count>::
26 Event period to sample.
27
28-C <cpu-list>::
29--cpu=<cpu>::
30Monitor only on the list of CPUs provided. Multiple CPUs can be provided as a
31comma-separated list with no space: 0,1. Ranges of CPUs are specified with -: 0-2.
32Default is to monitor all CPUS.
33
34-d <seconds>::
35--delay=<seconds>::
36 Number of seconds to delay between refreshes.
37
38-e <event>::
39--event=<event>::
40 Select the PMU event. Selection can be a symbolic event name
41 (use 'perf list' to list all events) or a raw PMU
42 event (eventsel+umask) in the form of rNNN where NNN is a
43 hexadecimal event descriptor.
44
45-E <entries>::
46--entries=<entries>::
47 Display this many functions.
48
49-f <count>::
50--count-filter=<count>::
51 Only display functions with more events than this.
52
53--group::
54 Put the counters into a counter group.
55
56--group-sort-idx::
57 Sort the output by the event at the index n in group. If n is invalid,
58 sort by the first event. It can support multiple groups with different
59 amount of events. WARNING: This should be used on grouped events.
60
61-F <freq>::
62--freq=<freq>::
63 Profile at this frequency. Use 'max' to use the currently maximum
64 allowed frequency, i.e. the value in the kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate
65 sysctl.
66
67-i::
68--inherit::
69 Child tasks do not inherit counters.
70
71-k <path>::
72--vmlinux=<path>::
73 Path to vmlinux. Required for annotation functionality.
74
75--ignore-vmlinux::
76 Ignore vmlinux files.
77
78--kallsyms=<file>::
79 kallsyms pathname
80
81-m <pages>::
82--mmap-pages=<pages>::
83 Number of mmap data pages (must be a power of two) or size
84 specification with appended unit character - B/K/M/G. The
85 size is rounded up to have nearest pages power of two value.
86
87-p <pid>::
88--pid=<pid>::
89 Profile events on existing Process ID (comma separated list).
90
91-t <tid>::
92--tid=<tid>::
93 Profile events on existing thread ID (comma separated list).
94
95-u::
96--uid=::
97 Record events in threads owned by uid. Name or number.
98
99-r <priority>::
100--realtime=<priority>::
101 Collect data with this RT SCHED_FIFO priority.
102
103--sym-annotate=<symbol>::
104 Annotate this symbol.
105
106-K::
107--hide_kernel_symbols::
108 Hide kernel symbols.
109
110-U::
111--hide_user_symbols::
112 Hide user symbols.
113
114--demangle-kernel::
115 Demangle kernel symbols.
116
117-D::
118--dump-symtab::
119 Dump the symbol table used for profiling.
120
121-v::
122--verbose::
123 Be more verbose (show counter open errors, etc).
124
125-z::
126--zero::
127 Zero history across display updates.
128
129-s::
130--sort::
131 Sort by key(s): pid, comm, dso, symbol, parent, srcline, weight,
132 local_weight, abort, in_tx, transaction, overhead, sample, period.
133 Please see description of --sort in the perf-report man page.
134
135--fields=::
136 Specify output field - multiple keys can be specified in CSV format.
137 Following fields are available:
138 overhead, overhead_sys, overhead_us, overhead_children, sample and period.
139 Also it can contain any sort key(s).
140
141 By default, every sort keys not specified in --field will be appended
142 automatically.
143
144-n::
145--show-nr-samples::
146 Show a column with the number of samples.
147
148--show-total-period::
149 Show a column with the sum of periods.
150
151--dsos::
152 Only consider symbols in these dsos. This option will affect the
153 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
154
155--comms::
156 Only consider symbols in these comms. This option will affect the
157 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
158
159--symbols::
160 Only consider these symbols. This option will affect the
161 percentage of the overhead column. See --percentage for more info.
162
163-M::
164--disassembler-style=:: Set disassembler style for objdump.
165
166--prefix=PREFIX::
167--prefix-strip=N::
168 Remove first N entries from source file path names in executables
169 and add PREFIX. This allows to display source code compiled on systems
170 with different file system layout.
171
172--source::
173 Interleave source code with assembly code. Enabled by default,
174 disable with --no-source.
175
176--asm-raw::
177 Show raw instruction encoding of assembly instructions.
178
179-g::
180 Enables call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording.
181
182--call-graph [mode,type,min[,limit],order[,key][,branch]]::
183 Setup and enable call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording,
184 implies -g. See `--call-graph` section in perf-record and
185 perf-report man pages for details.
186
187--children::
188 Accumulate callchain of children to parent entry so that then can
189 show up in the output. The output will have a new "Children" column
190 and will be sorted on the data. It requires -g/--call-graph option
191 enabled. See the `overhead calculation' section for more details.
192 Enabled by default, disable with --no-children.
193
194--max-stack::
195 Set the stack depth limit when parsing the callchain, anything
196 beyond the specified depth will be ignored. This is a trade-off
197 between information loss and faster processing especially for
198 workloads that can have a very long callchain stack.
199
200 Default: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack when present, 127 otherwise.
201
202--ignore-callees=<regex>::
203 Ignore callees of the function(s) matching the given regex.
204 This has the effect of collecting the callers of each such
205 function into one place in the call-graph tree.
206
207--percent-limit::
208 Do not show entries which have an overhead under that percent.
209 (Default: 0).
210
211--percentage::
212 Determine how to display the overhead percentage of filtered entries.
213 Filters can be applied by --comms, --dsos and/or --symbols options and
214 Zoom operations on the TUI (thread, dso, etc).
215
216 "relative" means it's relative to filtered entries only so that the
217 sum of shown entries will be always 100%. "absolute" means it retains
218 the original value before and after the filter is applied.
219
220-w::
221--column-widths=<width[,width...]>::
222 Force each column width to the provided list, for large terminal
223 readability. 0 means no limit (default behavior).
224
225--proc-map-timeout::
226 When processing pre-existing threads /proc/XXX/mmap, it may take
227 a long time, because the file may be huge. A time out is needed
228 in such cases.
229 This option sets the time out limit. The default value is 500 ms.
230
231
232-b::
233--branch-any::
234 Enable taken branch stack sampling. Any type of taken branch may be sampled.
235 This is a shortcut for --branch-filter any. See --branch-filter for more infos.
236
237-j::
238--branch-filter::
239 Enable taken branch stack sampling. Each sample captures a series of consecutive
240 taken branches. The number of branches captured with each sample depends on the
241 underlying hardware, the type of branches of interest, and the executed code.
242 It is possible to select the types of branches captured by enabling filters.
243 For a full list of modifiers please see the perf record manpage.
244
245 The option requires at least one branch type among any, any_call, any_ret, ind_call, cond.
246 The privilege levels may be omitted, in which case, the privilege levels of the associated
247 event are applied to the branch filter. Both kernel (k) and hypervisor (hv) privilege
248 levels are subject to permissions. When sampling on multiple events, branch stack sampling
249 is enabled for all the sampling events. The sampled branch type is the same for all events.
250 The various filters must be specified as a comma separated list: --branch-filter any_ret,u,k
251 Note that this feature may not be available on all processors.
252
253--raw-trace::
254 When displaying traceevent output, do not use print fmt or plugins.
255
256--hierarchy::
257 Enable hierarchy output.
258
259--overwrite::
260 Enable this to use just the most recent records, which helps in high core count
261 machines such as Knights Landing/Mill, but right now is disabled by default as
262 the pausing used in this technique is leading to loss of metadata events such
263 as PERF_RECORD_MMAP which makes 'perf top' unable to resolve samples, leading
264 to lots of unknown samples appearing on the UI. Enable this if you are in such
265 machines and profiling a workload that doesn't creates short lived threads and/or
266 doesn't uses many executable mmap operations. Work is being planed to solve
267 this situation, till then, this will remain disabled by default.
268
269--force::
270 Don't do ownership validation.
271
272--num-thread-synthesize::
273 The number of threads to run when synthesizing events for existing processes.
274 By default, the number of threads equals to the number of online CPUs.
275
276--namespaces::
277 Record events of type PERF_RECORD_NAMESPACES and display it with the
278 'cgroup_id' sort key.
279
280--all-cgroups::
281 Record events of type PERF_RECORD_CGROUP and display it with the
282 'cgroup' sort key.
283
284--switch-on EVENT_NAME::
285 Only consider events after this event is found.
286
287 E.g.:
288
289 Find out where broadcast packets are handled
290
291 perf probe -L icmp_rcv
292
293 Insert a probe there:
294
295 perf probe icmp_rcv:59
296
297 Start perf top and ask it to only consider the cycles events when a
298 broadcast packet arrives This will show a menu with two entries and
299 will start counting when a broadcast packet arrives:
300
301 perf top -e cycles,probe:icmp_rcv --switch-on=probe:icmp_rcv
302
303 Alternatively one can ask for --group and then two overhead columns
304 will appear, the first for cycles and the second for the switch-on event.
305
306 perf top --group -e cycles,probe:icmp_rcv --switch-on=probe:icmp_rcv
307
308 This may be interesting to measure a workload only after some initialization
309 phase is over, i.e. insert a perf probe at that point and use the above
310 examples replacing probe:icmp_rcv with the just-after-init probe.
311
312--switch-off EVENT_NAME::
313 Stop considering events after this event is found.
314
315--show-on-off-events::
316 Show the --switch-on/off events too. This has no effect in 'perf top' now
317 but probably we'll make the default not to show the switch-on/off events
318 on the --group mode and if there is only one event besides the off/on ones,
319 go straight to the histogram browser, just like 'perf top' with no events
320 explicitely specified does.
321
322--stitch-lbr::
323 Show callgraph with stitched LBRs, which may have more complete
324 callgraph. The option must be used with --call-graph lbr recording.
325 Disabled by default. In common cases with call stack overflows,
326 it can recreate better call stacks than the default lbr call stack
327 output. But this approach is not full proof. There can be cases
328 where it creates incorrect call stacks from incorrect matches.
329 The known limitations include exception handing such as
330 setjmp/longjmp will have calls/returns not match.
331
332ifdef::HAVE_LIBPFM[]
333--pfm-events events::
334Select a PMU event using libpfm4 syntax (see http://perfmon2.sf.net)
335including support for event filters. For example '--pfm-events
336inst_retired:any_p:u:c=1:i'. More than one event can be passed to the
337option using the comma separator. Hardware events and generic hardware
338events cannot be mixed together. The latter must be used with the -e
339option. The -e option and this one can be mixed and matched. Events
340can be grouped using the {} notation.
341endif::HAVE_LIBPFM[]
342
343INTERACTIVE PROMPTING KEYS
344--------------------------
345
346[d]::
347 Display refresh delay.
348
349[e]::
350 Number of entries to display.
351
352[E]::
353 Event to display when multiple counters are active.
354
355[f]::
356 Profile display filter (>= hit count).
357
358[F]::
359 Annotation display filter (>= % of total).
360
361[s]::
362 Annotate symbol.
363
364[S]::
365 Stop annotation, return to full profile display.
366
367[K]::
368 Hide kernel symbols.
369
370[U]::
371 Hide user symbols.
372
373[z]::
374 Toggle event count zeroing across display updates.
375
376[qQ]::
377 Quit.
378
379Pressing any unmapped key displays a menu, and prompts for input.
380
381include::callchain-overhead-calculation.txt[]
382
383SEE ALSO
384--------
385linkperf:perf-stat[1], linkperf:perf-list[1], linkperf:perf-report[1]