PERF-RECORD(1)

NAME
perf-record - Run a command and record its profile into perf.data

SYNOPSIS

perf record [-e <EVENT> | --event=EVENT] [-l] [-a] <command>
perf record [-e <EVENT> | --event=EVENT] [-l] [-a] — <command> [<options>]

DESCRIPTION

This command runs a command and gathers a performance counter profile from it, into perf.data - without displaying anything.

This file can then be inspected later on, using perf report.

OPTIONS

<command>...
    Any command you can specify in a shell.

-e, --event=
    Select the PMU event. Selection can be:

        • a symbolic event name (use perf list to list all events)

        • a raw PMU event (eventsel+umask) in the form of rNNN where NNN is a hexadecimal event descriptor.

        • a symbolically formed PMU event like pmu/param1=0x3,param2/ where param1, param2, etc are defined as formats for the PMU in /sys/bus/event_sources/devices/<pmu>/format/*.

        • a symbolically formed event like pmu/config=M,config1=N,config3=K/

            where M, N, K are numbers (in decimal, hex, octal format). Acceptable
            values for each of 'config', 'config1' and 'config2' are defined by
            corresponding entries in /sys/bus/event_sources/devices/<pmu>/format/*
            param1 and param2 are defined as formats for the PMU in:
            /sys/bus/event_sources/devices/<pmu>/format/*

            There are also some params which are not defined in .../<pmu>/format/*.
            These params can be used to overload default config values per event.
            Here is a list of the params.
            - 'period': Set event sampling period
            - 'freq': Set event sampling frequency
            - 'time': Disable/enable time stamping. Acceptable values are 1 for
                      enabling time stamping. 0 for disabling time stamping.
                      The default is 1.
            - 'call-graph': Disable/enable callgraph. Acceptable str are "fp" for
                           FP mode, "dwarf" for DWARF mode, "lbr" for LBR mode and
                           "no" for disable callgraph.
            - 'stack-size': user stack size for dwarf mode
            Note: If user explicitly sets options which conflict with the params,
            the value set by the params will be overridden.

        • a hardware breakpoint event in the form of \mem:addr[/len][:access] where addr is the address in memory you want to break in. Access is the memory access type (read, write, execute) it can be passed as follows: \mem:addr[:[r][w][x]]. len is the range, number of bytes from specified addr, which the breakpoint will cover. If you want to profile read-write accesses in 0x1000, just set mem:0x1000:rw. If you want to profile write accesses in [0x1000~1008), just set mem:0x1000/8:w.

        • a group of events surrounded by a pair of brace ("{event1,event2,...}"). Each event is separated by commas and the group should be quoted to prevent the shell interpretation. You also need to use --group on "perf report" to view group events together.

--filter=<filter>
    Event filter. This option should follow a event selector (-e) which selects tracepoint event(s). Multiple --filter options are combined using &&.

--exclude-perf
    Don’t record events issued by perf itself. This option should follow a event selector (-e) which selects tracepoint event(s). It adds a filter expression common_pid != $PERFPID to filters. If other --filter exists, the new filter expression will be combined with them by &&.

-a, --all-cpus
    System-wide collection from all CPUs.

-p, --pid=
    Record events on existing process ID (comma separated list).

-t, --tid=
    Record events on existing thread ID (comma separated list). This option also disables inheritance by default. Enable it by adding --inherit.

-u, --uid=
    Record events in threads owned by uid. Name or number.

-r, --realtime=
    Collect data with this RT SCHED_FIFO priority.

--no-buffering
    Collect data without buffering.

-c, --count=
    Event period to sample.

-o, --output=
    Output file name.

-i, --no-inherit
    Child tasks do not inherit counters.

-F, --freq=
    Profile at this frequency.

-m, --mmap-pages=
    Number of mmap data pages (must be a power of two) or size specification with appended unit character - B/K/M/G. The size is rounded up to have nearest pages power of two value. Also, by adding a comma, the number of mmap pages for AUX area tracing can be specified.

--group
    Put all events in a single event group. This precedes the --event option and remains only for backward compatibility. See --event.

-g
    Enables call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording.

--call-graph
    Setup and enable call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording, implies -g.

        Allows specifying "fp" (frame pointer) or "dwarf"
        (DWARF's CFI - Call Frame Information) or "lbr"
        (Hardware Last Branch Record facility) as the method to collect
        the information used to show the call graphs.

        In some systems, where binaries are build with gcc
        --fomit-frame-pointer, using the "fp" method will produce bogus
        call graphs, using "dwarf", if available (perf tools linked to
        the libunwind library) should be used instead.
        Using the "lbr" method doesn't require any compiler options. It
        will produce call graphs from the hardware LBR registers. The
        main limition is that it is only available on new Intel
        platforms, such as Haswell. It can only get user call chain. It
        doesn't work with branch stack sampling at the same time.

-q, --quiet
    Don’t print any message, useful for scripting.

-v, --verbose
    Be more verbose (show counter open errors, etc).

-s, --stat
    Record per-thread event counts. Use it with perf report -T to see the values.

-d, --data
    Record the sample addresses.

-T, --timestamp
    Record the sample timestamps. Use it with perf report -D to see the timestamps, for instance.

-P, --period
    Record the sample period.

-n, --no-samples
    Don’t sample.

-R, --raw-samples
    Collect raw sample records from all opened counters (default for tracepoint counters).

-C, --cpu
    Collect samples only on the list of CPUs provided. Multiple CPUs can be provided as a comma-separated list with no space: 0,1. Ranges of CPUs are specified with -: 0-2. In per-thread mode with inheritance mode on (default), samples are captured only when the thread executes on the designated CPUs. Default is to monitor all CPUs.

-N, --no-buildid-cache
    Do not update the buildid cache. This saves some overhead in situations where the information in the perf.data file (which includes buildids) is sufficient.

-G name,..., --cgroup name,...
    monitor only in the container (cgroup) called "name". This option is available only in per-cpu mode. The cgroup filesystem must be mounted. All threads belonging to container "name" are monitored when they run on the monitored CPUs. Multiple cgroups can be provided. Each cgroup is applied to the corresponding event, i.e., first cgroup to first event, second cgroup to second event and so on. It is possible to provide an empty cgroup (monitor all the time) using, e.g., -G foo,,bar. Cgroups must have corresponding events, i.e., they always refer to events defined earlier on the command line.

-b, --branch-any
    Enable taken branch stack sampling. Any type of taken branch may be sampled. This is a shortcut for --branch-filter any. See --branch-filter for more infos.

-j, --branch-filter
    Enable taken branch stack sampling. Each sample captures a series of consecutive taken branches. The number of branches captured with each sample depends on the underlying hardware, the type of branches of interest, and the executed code. It is possible to select the types of branches captured by enabling filters. The following filters are defined:

        • any: any type of branches

        • any_call: any function call or system call

        • any_ret: any function return or system call return

        • ind_call: any indirect branch

        • u: only when the branch target is at the user level

        • k: only when the branch target is in the kernel

        • hv: only when the target is at the hypervisor level

        • in_tx: only when the target is in a hardware transaction

        • no_tx: only when the target is not in a hardware transaction

        • abort_tx: only when the target is a hardware transaction abort

        • cond: conditional branches

    The option requires at least one branch type among any, any_call, any_ret, ind_call, cond. The privilege levels may be omitted, in which case, the privilege levels of the associated event are applied to the branch filter. Both kernel (k) and hypervisor (hv) privilege levels are subject to permissions. When sampling on multiple events, branch stack sampling is enabled for all the sampling events. The sampled branch type is the same for all events. The various filters must be specified as a comma separated list: --branch-filter any_ret,u,k Note that this feature may not be available on all processors.

--weight
    Enable weightened sampling. An additional weight is recorded per sample and can be displayed with the weight and local_weight sort keys. This currently works for TSX abort events and some memory events in precise mode on modern Intel CPUs.

--transaction
    Record transaction flags for transaction related events.

--per-thread
    Use per-thread mmaps. By default per-cpu mmaps are created. This option overrides that and uses per-thread mmaps. A side-effect of that is that inheritance is automatically disabled. --per-thread is ignored with a warning if combined with -a or -C options.

-D, --delay=
    After starting the program, wait msecs before measuring. This is useful to filter out the startup phase of the program, which is often very different.

-I, --intr-regs
    Capture machine state (registers) at interrupt, i.e., on counter overflows for each sample. List of captured registers depends on the architecture. This option is off by default. It is possible to select the registers to sample using their symbolic names, e.g. on x86, ax, si. To list the available registers use --intr-regs=\?. To name registers, pass a comma separated list such as --intr-regs=ax,bx. The list of register is architecture dependent.

--running-time
    Record running and enabled time for read events (:S)

-k, --clockid
    Sets the clock id to use for the various time fields in the perf_event_type records. See clock_gettime(). In particular CLOCK_MONOTONIC and CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW are supported, some events might also allow CLOCK_BOOTTIME, CLOCK_REALTIME and CLOCK_TAI.

-S, --snapshot
    Select AUX area tracing Snapshot Mode. This option is valid only with an AUX area tracing event. Optionally the number of bytes to capture per snapshot can be specified. In Snapshot Mode, trace data is captured only when signal SIGUSR2 is received.

--proc-map-timeout
    When processing pre-existing threads /proc/XXX/mmap, it may take a long time, because the file may be huge. A time out is needed in such cases. This option sets the time out limit. The default value is 500 ms.

--switch-events
    Record context switch events i.e. events of type PERF_RECORD_SWITCH or PERF_RECORD_SWITCH_CPU_WIDE.

SEE ALSO

perf-stat(1), perf-list(1)