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