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 43When reading or writing, the values are read from the system and user 44configuration files by default, and options '--system' and '--user' 45can be used to tell the command to read from or write to only that location. 46 47Syntax 48~~~~~~ 49 50The file consist of sections. A section starts with its name 51surrounded by square brackets and continues till the next section 52begins. Each variable must be in a section, and have the form 53'name = value', for example: 54 55 [section] 56 name1 = value1 57 name2 = value2 58 59Section names are case sensitive and can contain any characters except 60newline (double quote `"` and backslash have to be escaped as `\"` and `\\`, 61respectively). Section headers can't span multiple lines. 62 63Example 64~~~~~~~ 65 66Given a $HOME/.perfconfig like this: 67 68# 69# This is the config file, and 70# a '#' and ';' character indicates a comment 71# 72 73 [colors] 74 # Color variables 75 top = red, default 76 medium = green, default 77 normal = lightgray, default 78 selected = white, lightgray 79 jump_arrows = blue, default 80 addr = magenta, default 81 root = white, blue 82 83 [tui] 84 # Defaults if linked with libslang 85 report = on 86 annotate = on 87 top = on 88 89 [buildid] 90 # Default, disable using /dev/null 91 dir = ~/.debug 92 93 [annotate] 94 # Defaults 95 hide_src_code = false 96 use_offset = true 97 jump_arrows = true 98 show_nr_jumps = false 99 100 [help] 101 # Format can be man, info, web or html 102 format = man 103 autocorrect = 0 104 105 [ui] 106 show-headers = true 107 108 [call-graph] 109 # fp (framepointer), dwarf 110 record-mode = fp 111 print-type = graph 112 order = caller 113 sort-key = function 114 115 [report] 116 # Defaults 117 sort-order = comm,dso,symbol 118 percent-limit = 0 119 queue-size = 0 120 children = true 121 group = true 122 123You can hide source code of annotate feature setting the config to false with 124 125 % perf config annotate.hide_src_code=true 126 127If you want to add or modify several config items, you can do like 128 129 % perf config ui.show-headers=false kmem.default=slab 130 131To modify the sort order of report functionality in user config file(i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do 132 133 % perf config --user report sort-order=srcline 134 135To change colors of selected line to other foreground and background colors 136in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do 137 138 % perf config --system colors.selected=yellow,green 139 140To query the record mode of call graph, do 141 142 % perf config call-graph.record-mode 143 144If you want to know multiple config key/value pairs, you can do like 145 146 % perf config report.queue-size call-graph.order report.children 147 148To query the config value of sort order of call graph in user config file (i.e. `~/.perfconfig`), do 149 150 % perf config --user call-graph.sort-order 151 152To query the config value of buildid directory in system config file (i.e. `$(sysconf)/perfconfig`), do 153 154 % perf config --system buildid.dir 155 156Variables 157~~~~~~~~~ 158 159colors.*:: 160 The variables for customizing the colors used in the output for the 161 'report', 'top' and 'annotate' in the TUI. They should specify the 162 foreground and background colors, separated by a comma, for example: 163 164 medium = green, lightgray 165 166 If you want to use the color configured for you terminal, just leave it 167 as 'default', for example: 168 169 medium = default, lightgray 170 171 Available colors: 172 red, yellow, green, cyan, gray, black, blue, 173 white, default, magenta, lightgray 174 175 colors.top:: 176 'top' means a overhead percentage which is more than 5%. 177 And values of this variable specify percentage colors. 178 Basic key values are foreground-color 'red' and 179 background-color 'default'. 180 colors.medium:: 181 'medium' means a overhead percentage which has more than 0.5%. 182 Default values are 'green' and 'default'. 183 colors.normal:: 184 'normal' means the rest of overhead percentages 185 except 'top', 'medium', 'selected'. 186 Default values are 'lightgray' and 'default'. 187 colors.selected:: 188 This selects the colors for the current entry in a list of entries 189 from sub-commands (top, report, annotate). 190 Default values are 'black' and 'lightgray'. 191 colors.jump_arrows:: 192 Colors for jump arrows on assembly code listings 193 such as 'jns', 'jmp', 'jane', etc. 194 Default values are 'blue', 'default'. 195 colors.addr:: 196 This selects colors for addresses from 'annotate'. 197 Default values are 'magenta', 'default'. 198 colors.root:: 199 Colors for headers in the output of a sub-commands (top, report). 200 Default values are 'white', 'blue'. 201 202tui.*, gtk.*:: 203 Subcommands that can be configured here are 'top', 'report' and 'annotate'. 204 These values are booleans, for example: 205 206 [tui] 207 top = true 208 209 will make the TUI be the default for the 'top' subcommand. Those will be 210 available if the required libs were detected at tool build time. 211 212buildid.*:: 213 buildid.dir:: 214 Each executable and shared library in modern distributions comes with a 215 content based identifier that, if available, will be inserted in a 216 'perf.data' file header to, at analysis time find what is needed to do 217 symbol resolution, code annotation, etc. 218 219 The recording tools also stores a hard link or copy in a per-user 220 directory, $HOME/.debug/, of binaries, shared libraries, /proc/kallsyms 221 and /proc/kcore files to be used at analysis time. 222 223 The buildid.dir variable can be used to either change this directory 224 cache location, or to disable it altogether. If you want to disable it, 225 set buildid.dir to /dev/null. The default is $HOME/.debug 226 227annotate.*:: 228 These options work only for TUI. 229 These are in control of addresses, jump function, source code 230 in lines of assembly code from a specific program. 231 232 annotate.hide_src_code:: 233 If a program which is analyzed has source code, 234 this option lets 'annotate' print a list of assembly code with the source code. 235 For example, let's see a part of a program. There're four lines. 236 If this option is 'true', they can be printed 237 without source code from a program as below. 238 239 │ push %rbp 240 │ mov %rsp,%rbp 241 │ sub $0x10,%rsp 242 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx 243 244 But if this option is 'false', source code of the part 245 can be also printed as below. Default is 'false'. 246 247 │ struct rb_node *rb_next(const struct rb_node *node) 248 │ { 249 │ push %rbp 250 │ mov %rsp,%rbp 251 │ sub $0x10,%rsp 252 │ struct rb_node *parent; 253 │ 254 │ if (RB_EMPTY_NODE(node)) 255 │ mov (%rdi),%rdx 256 │ return n; 257 258 annotate.use_offset:: 259 Basing on a first address of a loaded function, offset can be used. 260 Instead of using original addresses of assembly code, 261 addresses subtracted from a base address can be printed. 262 Let's illustrate an example. 263 If a base address is 0XFFFFFFFF81624d50 as below, 264 265 ffffffff81624d50 <load0> 266 267 an address on assembly code has a specific absolute address as below 268 269 ffffffff816250b8:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi 270 271 but if use_offset is 'true', an address subtracted from a base address is printed. 272 Default is true. This option is only applied to TUI. 273 274 368:│ mov 0x8(%r14),%rdi 275 276 annotate.jump_arrows:: 277 There can be jump instruction among assembly code. 278 Depending on a boolean value of jump_arrows, 279 arrows can be printed or not which represent 280 where do the instruction jump into as below. 281 282 │ ┌──jmp 1333 283 │ │ xchg %ax,%ax 284 │1330:│ mov %r15,%r10 285 │1333:└─→cmp %r15,%r14 286 287 If jump_arrow is 'false', the arrows isn't printed as below. 288 Default is 'false'. 289 290 │ ↓ jmp 1333 291 │ xchg %ax,%ax 292 │1330: mov %r15,%r10 293 │1333: cmp %r15,%r14 294 295 annotate.show_linenr:: 296 When showing source code if this option is 'true', 297 line numbers are printed as below. 298 299 │1628 if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) { 300 │ ↓ jne 508 301 │1628 data->id = *array; 302 │1629 array++; 303 │1630 } 304 305 However if this option is 'false', they aren't printed as below. 306 Default is 'false'. 307 308 │ if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) { 309 │ ↓ jne 508 310 │ data->id = *array; 311 │ array++; 312 │ } 313 314 annotate.show_nr_jumps:: 315 Let's see a part of assembly code. 316 317 │1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp) 318 319 If use this, the number of branches jumping to that address can be printed as below. 320 Default is 'false'. 321 322 │1 1382: movb $0x1,-0x270(%rbp) 323 324 annotate.show_total_period:: 325 To compare two records on an instruction base, with this option 326 provided, display total number of samples that belong to a line 327 in assembly code. If this option is 'true', total periods are printed 328 instead of percent values as below. 329 330 302 │ mov %eax,%eax 331 332 But if this option is 'false', percent values for overhead are printed i.e. 333 Default is 'false'. 334 335 99.93 │ mov %eax,%eax 336 337 annotate.offset_level:: 338 Default is '1', meaning just jump targets will have offsets show right beside 339 the instruction. When set to '2' 'call' instructions will also have its offsets 340 shown, 3 or higher will show offsets for all instructions. 341 342hist.*:: 343 hist.percentage:: 344 This option control the way to calculate overhead of filtered entries - 345 that means the value of this option is effective only if there's a 346 filter (by comm, dso or symbol name). Suppose a following example: 347 348 Overhead Symbols 349 ........ ....... 350 33.33% foo 351 33.33% bar 352 33.33% baz 353 354 This is an original overhead and we'll filter out the first 'foo' 355 entry. The value of 'relative' would increase the overhead of 'bar' 356 and 'baz' to 50.00% for each, while 'absolute' would show their 357 current overhead (33.33%). 358 359ui.*:: 360 ui.show-headers:: 361 This option controls display of column headers (like 'Overhead' and 'Symbol') 362 in 'report' and 'top'. If this option is false, they are hidden. 363 This option is only applied to TUI. 364 365call-graph.*:: 366 When sub-commands 'top' and 'report' work with -g/—-children 367 there're options in control of call-graph. 368 369 call-graph.record-mode:: 370 The record-mode can be 'fp' (frame pointer), 'dwarf' and 'lbr'. 371 The value of 'dwarf' is effective only if perf detect needed library 372 (libunwind or a recent version of libdw). 373 'lbr' only work for cpus that support it. 374 375 call-graph.dump-size:: 376 The size of stack to dump in order to do post-unwinding. Default is 8192 (byte). 377 When using dwarf into record-mode, the default size will be used if omitted. 378 379 call-graph.print-type:: 380 The print-types can be graph (graph absolute), fractal (graph relative), 381 flat and folded. This option controls a way to show overhead for each callchain 382 entry. Suppose a following example. 383 384 Overhead Symbols 385 ........ ....... 386 40.00% foo 387 | 388 ---foo 389 | 390 |--50.00%--bar 391 | main 392 | 393 --50.00%--baz 394 main 395 396 This output is a 'fractal' format. The 'foo' came from 'bar' and 'baz' exactly 397 half and half so 'fractal' shows 50.00% for each 398 (meaning that it assumes 100% total overhead of 'foo'). 399 400 The 'graph' uses absolute overhead value of 'foo' as total so each of 401 'bar' and 'baz' callchain will have 20.00% of overhead. 402 If 'flat' is used, single column and linear exposure of call chains. 403 'folded' mean call chains are displayed in a line, separated by semicolons. 404 405 call-graph.order:: 406 This option controls print order of callchains. The default is 407 'callee' which means callee is printed at top and then followed by its 408 caller and so on. The 'caller' prints it in reverse order. 409 410 If this option is not set and report.children or top.children is 411 set to true (or the equivalent command line option is given), 412 the default value of this option is changed to 'caller' for the 413 execution of 'perf report' or 'perf top'. Other commands will 414 still default to 'callee'. 415 416 call-graph.sort-key:: 417 The callchains are merged if they contain same information. 418 The sort-key option determines a way to compare the callchains. 419 A value of 'sort-key' can be 'function' or 'address'. 420 The default is 'function'. 421 422 call-graph.threshold:: 423 When there're many callchains it'd print tons of lines. So perf omits 424 small callchains under a certain overhead (threshold) and this option 425 control the threshold. Default is 0.5 (%). The overhead is calculated 426 by value depends on call-graph.print-type. 427 428 call-graph.print-limit:: 429 This is a maximum number of lines of callchain printed for a single 430 histogram entry. Default is 0 which means no limitation. 431 432report.*:: 433 report.sort_order:: 434 Allows changing the default sort order from "comm,dso,symbol" to 435 some other default, for instance "sym,dso" may be more fitting for 436 kernel developers. 437 report.percent-limit:: 438 This one is mostly the same as call-graph.threshold but works for 439 histogram entries. Entries having an overhead lower than this 440 percentage will not be printed. Default is '0'. If percent-limit 441 is '10', only entries which have more than 10% of overhead will be 442 printed. 443 444 report.queue-size:: 445 This option sets up the maximum allocation size of the internal 446 event queue for ordering events. Default is 0, meaning no limit. 447 448 report.children:: 449 'Children' means functions called from another function. 450 If this option is true, 'perf report' cumulates callchains of children 451 and show (accumulated) total overhead as well as 'Self' overhead. 452 Please refer to the 'perf report' manual. The default is 'true'. 453 454 report.group:: 455 This option is to show event group information together. 456 Example output with this turned on, notice that there is one column 457 per event in the group, ref-cycles and cycles: 458 459 # group: {ref-cycles,cycles} 460 # ======== 461 # 462 # Samples: 7K of event 'anon group { ref-cycles, cycles }' 463 # Event count (approx.): 6876107743 464 # 465 # Overhead Command Shared Object Symbol 466 # ................ ....... ................. ................... 467 # 468 99.84% 99.76% noploop noploop [.] main 469 0.07% 0.00% noploop ld-2.15.so [.] strcmp 470 0.03% 0.00% noploop [kernel.kallsyms] [k] timerqueue_del 471 472top.*:: 473 top.children:: 474 Same as 'report.children'. So if it is enabled, the output of 'top' 475 command will have 'Children' overhead column as well as 'Self' overhead 476 column by default. 477 The default is 'true'. 478 479man.*:: 480 man.viewer:: 481 This option can assign a tool to view manual pages when 'help' 482 subcommand was invoked. Supported tools are 'man', 'woman' 483 (with emacs client) and 'konqueror'. Default is 'man'. 484 485 New man viewer tool can be also added using 'man.<tool>.cmd' 486 or use different path using 'man.<tool>.path' config option. 487 488pager.*:: 489 pager.<subcommand>:: 490 When the subcommand is run on stdio, determine whether it uses 491 pager or not based on this value. Default is 'unspecified'. 492 493kmem.*:: 494 kmem.default:: 495 This option decides which allocator is to be analyzed if neither 496 '--slab' nor '--page' option is used. Default is 'slab'. 497 498record.*:: 499 record.build-id:: 500 This option can be 'cache', 'no-cache' or 'skip'. 501 'cache' is to post-process data and save/update the binaries into 502 the build-id cache (in ~/.debug). This is the default. 503 But if this option is 'no-cache', it will not update the build-id cache. 504 'skip' skips post-processing and does not update the cache. 505 506diff.*:: 507 diff.order:: 508 This option sets the number of columns to sort the result. 509 The default is 0, which means sorting by baseline. 510 Setting it to 1 will sort the result by delta (or other 511 compute method selected). 512 513 diff.compute:: 514 This options sets the method for computing the diff result. 515 Possible values are 'delta', 'delta-abs', 'ratio' and 516 'wdiff'. Default is 'delta'. 517 518SEE ALSO 519-------- 520linkperf:perf[1] 521