|  | 
 | 		------------------------------ | 
 | 		****** perf by examples ****** | 
 | 		------------------------------ | 
 |  | 
 | [ From an e-mail by Ingo Molnar, http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/8/4/346 ] | 
 |  | 
 |  | 
 | First, discovery/enumeration of available counters can be done via | 
 | 'perf list': | 
 |  | 
 | titan:~> perf list | 
 |   [...] | 
 |   kmem:kmalloc                             [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:kmem_cache_alloc                    [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:kmalloc_node                        [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:kmem_cache_alloc_node               [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:kfree                               [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:kmem_cache_free                     [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_page_free_direct                 [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_pagevec_free                     [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_page_alloc                       [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_page_alloc_zone_locked           [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain                  [Tracepoint event] | 
 |   kmem:mm_page_alloc_extfrag               [Tracepoint event] | 
 |  | 
 | Then any (or all) of the above event sources can be activated and | 
 | measured. For example the page alloc/free properties of a 'hackbench | 
 | run' are: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~> perf stat -e kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain -e kmem:mm_page_alloc | 
 |  -e kmem:mm_pagevec_free -e kmem:mm_page_free_direct ./hackbench 10 | 
 |  Time: 0.575 | 
 |  | 
 |  Performance counter stats for './hackbench 10': | 
 |  | 
 |           13857  kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain | 
 |           27576  kmem:mm_page_alloc | 
 |            6025  kmem:mm_pagevec_free | 
 |           20934  kmem:mm_page_free_direct | 
 |  | 
 |     0.613972165  seconds time elapsed | 
 |  | 
 | You can observe the statistical properties as well, by using the | 
 | 'repeat the workload N times' feature of perf stat: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~> perf stat --repeat 5 -e kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain -e | 
 |    kmem:mm_page_alloc -e kmem:mm_pagevec_free -e | 
 |    kmem:mm_page_free_direct ./hackbench 10 | 
 |  Time: 0.627 | 
 |  Time: 0.644 | 
 |  Time: 0.564 | 
 |  Time: 0.559 | 
 |  Time: 0.626 | 
 |  | 
 |  Performance counter stats for './hackbench 10' (5 runs): | 
 |  | 
 |           12920  kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain    ( +-   3.359% ) | 
 |           25035  kmem:mm_page_alloc         ( +-   3.783% ) | 
 |            6104  kmem:mm_pagevec_free       ( +-   0.934% ) | 
 |           18376  kmem:mm_page_free_direct   ( +-   4.941% ) | 
 |  | 
 |     0.643954516  seconds time elapsed   ( +-   2.363% ) | 
 |  | 
 | Furthermore, these tracepoints can be used to sample the workload as | 
 | well. For example the page allocations done by a 'git gc' can be | 
 | captured the following way: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf record -f -e kmem:mm_page_alloc -c 1 ./git gc | 
 |  Counting objects: 1148, done. | 
 |  Delta compression using up to 2 threads. | 
 |  Compressing objects: 100% (450/450), done. | 
 |  Writing objects: 100% (1148/1148), done. | 
 |  Total 1148 (delta 690), reused 1148 (delta 690) | 
 |  [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.267 MB perf.data (~11679 samples) ] | 
 |  | 
 | To check which functions generated page allocations: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf report | 
 |  # Samples: 10646 | 
 |  # | 
 |  # Overhead          Command               Shared Object | 
 |  # ........  ...............  .......................... | 
 |  # | 
 |     23.57%       git-repack  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |     21.81%              git  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |     14.59%              git  ./git | 
 |     11.79%       git-repack  ./git | 
 |      7.12%              git  /lib64/ld-2.5.so | 
 |      3.16%       git-repack  /lib64/libpthread-2.5.so | 
 |      2.09%       git-repack  /bin/bash | 
 |      1.97%               rm  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |      1.39%               mv  /lib64/ld-2.5.so | 
 |      1.37%               mv  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |      1.12%       git-repack  /lib64/ld-2.5.so | 
 |      0.95%               rm  /lib64/ld-2.5.so | 
 |      0.90%  git-update-serv  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |      0.73%  git-update-serv  /lib64/ld-2.5.so | 
 |      0.68%             perf  /lib64/libpthread-2.5.so | 
 |      0.64%       git-repack  /usr/lib64/libz.so.1.2.3 | 
 |  | 
 | Or to see it on a more finegrained level: | 
 |  | 
 | titan:~/git> perf report --sort comm,dso,symbol | 
 | # Samples: 10646 | 
 | # | 
 | # Overhead          Command               Shared Object  Symbol | 
 | # ........  ...............  ..........................  ...... | 
 | # | 
 |      9.35%       git-repack  ./git                       [.] insert_obj_hash | 
 |      9.12%              git  ./git                       [.] insert_obj_hash | 
 |      7.31%              git  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] memcpy | 
 |      6.34%       git-repack  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] _int_malloc | 
 |      6.24%       git-repack  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] memcpy | 
 |      5.82%       git-repack  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] __GI___fork | 
 |      5.47%              git  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] _int_malloc | 
 |      2.99%              git  /lib64/libc-2.5.so          [.] memset | 
 |  | 
 | Furthermore, call-graph sampling can be done too, of page | 
 | allocations - to see precisely what kind of page allocations there | 
 | are: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf record -f -g -e kmem:mm_page_alloc -c 1 ./git gc | 
 |  Counting objects: 1148, done. | 
 |  Delta compression using up to 2 threads. | 
 |  Compressing objects: 100% (450/450), done. | 
 |  Writing objects: 100% (1148/1148), done. | 
 |  Total 1148 (delta 690), reused 1148 (delta 690) | 
 |  [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.963 MB perf.data (~42069 samples) ] | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf report -g | 
 |  # Samples: 10686 | 
 |  # | 
 |  # Overhead          Command               Shared Object | 
 |  # ........  ...............  .......................... | 
 |  # | 
 |     23.25%       git-repack  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |                 | | 
 |                 |--50.00%-- _int_free | 
 |                 | | 
 |                 |--37.50%-- __GI___fork | 
 |                 |          make_child | 
 |                 | | 
 |                 |--12.50%-- ptmalloc_unlock_all2 | 
 |                 |          make_child | 
 |                 | | 
 |                  --6.25%-- __GI_strcpy | 
 |     21.61%              git  /lib64/libc-2.5.so | 
 |                 | | 
 |                 |--30.00%-- __GI_read | 
 |                 |          | | 
 |                 |           --83.33%-- git_config_from_file | 
 |                 |                     git_config | 
 |                 |                     | | 
 |    [...] | 
 |  | 
 | Or you can observe the whole system's page allocations for 10 | 
 | seconds: | 
 |  | 
 | titan:~/git> perf stat -a -e kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain -e | 
 | kmem:mm_page_alloc -e kmem:mm_pagevec_free -e | 
 | kmem:mm_page_free_direct sleep 10 | 
 |  | 
 |  Performance counter stats for 'sleep 10': | 
 |  | 
 |          171585  kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain | 
 |          322114  kmem:mm_page_alloc | 
 |           73623  kmem:mm_pagevec_free | 
 |          254115  kmem:mm_page_free_direct | 
 |  | 
 |    10.000591410  seconds time elapsed | 
 |  | 
 | Or observe how fluctuating the page allocations are, via statistical | 
 | analysis done over ten 1-second intervals: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf stat --repeat 10 -a -e kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain -e | 
 |    kmem:mm_page_alloc -e kmem:mm_pagevec_free -e | 
 |    kmem:mm_page_free_direct sleep 1 | 
 |  | 
 |  Performance counter stats for 'sleep 1' (10 runs): | 
 |  | 
 |           17254  kmem:mm_page_pcpu_drain    ( +-   3.709% ) | 
 |           34394  kmem:mm_page_alloc         ( +-   4.617% ) | 
 |            7509  kmem:mm_pagevec_free       ( +-   4.820% ) | 
 |           25653  kmem:mm_page_free_direct   ( +-   3.672% ) | 
 |  | 
 |     1.058135029  seconds time elapsed   ( +-   3.089% ) | 
 |  | 
 | Or you can annotate the recorded 'git gc' run on a per symbol basis | 
 | and check which instructions/source-code generated page allocations: | 
 |  | 
 |  titan:~/git> perf annotate __GI___fork | 
 |  ------------------------------------------------ | 
 |   Percent |      Source code & Disassembly of libc-2.5.so | 
 |  ------------------------------------------------ | 
 |           : | 
 |           : | 
 |           :      Disassembly of section .plt: | 
 |           :      Disassembly of section .text: | 
 |           : | 
 |           :      00000031a2e95560 <__fork>: | 
 |  [...] | 
 |      0.00 :        31a2e95602:   b8 38 00 00 00          mov    $0x38,%eax | 
 |      0.00 :        31a2e95607:   0f 05                   syscall | 
 |     83.42 :        31a2e95609:   48 3d 00 f0 ff ff       cmp    $0xfffffffffffff000,%rax | 
 |      0.00 :        31a2e9560f:   0f 87 4d 01 00 00       ja     31a2e95762 <__fork+0x202> | 
 |      0.00 :        31a2e95615:   85 c0                   test   %eax,%eax | 
 |  | 
 | ( this shows that 83.42% of __GI___fork's page allocations come from | 
 |   the 0x38 system call it performs. ) | 
 |  | 
 | etc. etc. - a lot more is possible. I could list a dozen of | 
 | other different usecases straight away - neither of which is | 
 | possible via /proc/vmstat. | 
 |  | 
 | /proc/vmstat is not in the same league really, in terms of | 
 | expressive power of system analysis and performance | 
 | analysis. | 
 |  | 
 | All that the above results needed were those new tracepoints | 
 | in include/tracing/events/kmem.h. | 
 |  | 
 | 	Ingo | 
 |  | 
 |  |