From 32ecca8d7a3e2400805f8b5564a1b07e05cfcd54 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dmitry Vyukov Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:08:20 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] perf report: Add latency and parallelism profiling documentation Describe latency and parallelism profiling, related flags, and differences with the currently only supported CPU-consumption-centric profiling. Signed-off-by: Dmitry Vyukov Reviewed-by: Andi Kleen Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/a13f270ed33cedb03ce9ebf9ddbd064854ca0f19.1739437531.git.dvyukov@google.com Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim --- .../callchain-overhead-calculation.txt | 5 +- .../cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt | 85 +++++++++++++++++++ tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt | 49 +++++++---- tools/perf/Documentation/tips.txt | 4 + 4 files changed, 124 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) create mode 100644 tools/perf/Documentation/cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt index 1a757927195e..e0202bf5bd1a 100644 --- a/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/callchain-overhead-calculation.txt @@ -1,7 +1,8 @@ Overhead calculation -------------------- -The overhead can be shown in two columns as 'Children' and 'Self' when -perf collects callchains. The 'self' overhead is simply calculated by +The CPU overhead can be shown in two columns as 'Children' and 'Self' +when perf collects callchains (and corresponding 'Wall' columns for +wall-clock overhead). The 'self' overhead is simply calculated by adding all period values of the entry - usually a function (symbol). This is the value that perf shows traditionally and sum of all the 'self' overhead values should be 100%. diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..3b6d63705465 --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +CPU and latency overheads +------------------------- +There are two notions of time: wall-clock time and CPU time. +For a single-threaded program, or a program running on a single-core machine, +these notions are the same. However, for a multi-threaded/multi-process program +running on a multi-core machine, these notions are significantly different. +Each second of wall-clock time we have number-of-cores seconds of CPU time. +Perf can measure overhead for both of these times (shown in 'overhead' and +'latency' columns for CPU and wall-clock time correspondingly). + +Optimizing CPU overhead is useful to improve 'throughput', while optimizing +latency overhead is useful to improve 'latency'. It's important to understand +which one is useful in a concrete situation at hand. For example, the former +may be useful to improve max throughput of a CI build server that runs on 100% +CPU utilization, while the latter may be useful to improve user-perceived +latency of a single interactive program build. +These overheads may be significantly different in some cases. For example, +consider a program that executes function 'foo' for 9 seconds with 1 thread, +and then executes function 'bar' for 1 second with 128 threads (consumes +128 seconds of CPU time). The CPU overhead is: 'foo' - 6.6%, 'bar' - 93.4%. +While the latency overhead is: 'foo' - 90%, 'bar' - 10%. If we try to optimize +running time of the program looking at the (wrong in this case) CPU overhead, +we would concentrate on the function 'bar', but it can yield only 10% running +time improvement at best. + +By default, perf shows only CPU overhead. To show latency overhead, use +'perf record --latency' and 'perf report': + +----------------------------------- +Overhead Latency Command + 93.88% 25.79% cc1 + 1.90% 39.87% gzip + 0.99% 10.16% dpkg-deb + 0.57% 1.00% as + 0.40% 0.46% sh +----------------------------------- + +To sort by latency overhead, use 'perf report --latency': + +----------------------------------- +Latency Overhead Command + 39.87% 1.90% gzip + 25.79% 93.88% cc1 + 10.16% 0.99% dpkg-deb + 4.17% 0.29% git + 2.81% 0.11% objtool +----------------------------------- + +To get insight into the difference between the overheads, you may check +parallelization histogram with '--sort=latency,parallelism,comm,symbol --hierarchy' +flags. It shows fraction of (wall-clock) time the workload utilizes different +numbers of cores ('Parallelism' column). For example, in the following case +the workload utilizes only 1 core most of the time, but also has some +highly-parallel phases, which explains significant difference between +CPU and wall-clock overheads: + +----------------------------------- + Latency Overhead Parallelism / Command / Symbol ++ 56.98% 2.29% 1 ++ 16.94% 1.36% 2 ++ 4.00% 20.13% 125 ++ 3.66% 18.25% 124 ++ 3.48% 17.66% 126 ++ 3.26% 0.39% 3 ++ 2.61% 12.93% 123 +----------------------------------- + +By expanding corresponding lines, you may see what commands/functions run +at the given parallelism level: + +----------------------------------- + Latency Overhead Parallelism / Command / Symbol +- 56.98% 2.29% 1 + 32.80% 1.32% gzip + 4.46% 0.18% cc1 + 2.81% 0.11% objtool + 2.43% 0.10% dpkg-source + 2.22% 0.09% ld + 2.10% 0.08% dpkg-genchanges +----------------------------------- + +To see the normal function-level profile for particular parallelism levels +(number of threads actively running on CPUs), you may use '--parallelism' +filter. For example, to see the profile only for low parallelism phases +of a workload use '--latency --parallelism=1-2' flags. diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt index 66794131aec4..3376c4710575 100644 --- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ OPTIONS --comms=:: Only consider symbols in these comms. CSV that understands file://filename entries. This option will affect the percentage of - the overhead column. See --percentage for more info. + the overhead and latency columns. See --percentage for more info. --pid=:: Only show events for given process ID (comma separated list). @@ -54,12 +54,12 @@ OPTIONS --dsos=:: Only consider symbols in these dsos. CSV that understands file://filename entries. This option will affect the percentage of - the overhead column. See --percentage for more info. + the overhead and latency columns. See --percentage for more info. -S:: --symbols=:: Only consider these symbols. CSV that understands file://filename entries. This option will affect the percentage of - the overhead column. See --percentage for more info. + the overhead and latency columns. See --percentage for more info. --symbol-filter=:: Only show symbols that match (partially) with this filter. @@ -68,6 +68,16 @@ OPTIONS --hide-unresolved:: Only display entries resolved to a symbol. +--parallelism:: + Only consider these parallelism levels. Parallelism level is the number + of threads that actively run on CPUs at the time of sample. The flag + accepts single number, comma-separated list, and ranges (for example: + "1", "7,8", "1,64-128"). This is useful in understanding what a program + is doing during sequential/low-parallelism phases as compared to + high-parallelism phases. This option will affect the percentage of + the overhead and latency columns. See --percentage for more info. + Also see the `CPU and latency overheads' section for more details. + --latency:: Show latency-centric profile rather than the default CPU-consumption-centric profile @@ -92,6 +102,7 @@ OPTIONS entries are displayed as "[other]". - cpu: cpu number the task ran at the time of sample - socket: processor socket number the task ran at the time of sample + - parallelism: number of running threads at the time of sample - srcline: filename and line number executed at the time of sample. The DWARF debugging info must be provided. - srcfile: file name of the source file of the samples. Requires dwarf @@ -102,12 +113,14 @@ OPTIONS - cgroup_id: ID derived from cgroup namespace device and inode numbers. - cgroup: cgroup pathname in the cgroupfs. - transaction: Transaction abort flags. - - overhead: Overhead percentage of sample - - overhead_sys: Overhead percentage of sample running in system mode - - overhead_us: Overhead percentage of sample running in user mode - - overhead_guest_sys: Overhead percentage of sample running in system mode + - overhead: CPU overhead percentage of sample. + - latency: latency (wall-clock) overhead percentage of sample. + See the `CPU and latency overheads' section for more details. + - overhead_sys: CPU overhead percentage of sample running in system mode + - overhead_us: CPU overhead percentage of sample running in user mode + - overhead_guest_sys: CPU overhead percentage of sample running in system mode on guest machine - - overhead_guest_us: Overhead percentage of sample running in user mode on + - overhead_guest_us: CPU overhead percentage of sample running in user mode on guest machine - sample: Number of sample - period: Raw number of event count of sample @@ -130,8 +143,8 @@ OPTIONS - weight2: Average value of event specific weight (2nd field of weight_struct). - weight3: Average value of event specific weight (3rd field of weight_struct). - By default, comm, dso and symbol keys are used. - (i.e. --sort comm,dso,symbol) + By default, overhead, comm, dso and symbol keys are used. + (i.e. --sort overhead,comm,dso,symbol). If --branch-stack option is used, following sort keys are also available: @@ -206,9 +219,9 @@ OPTIONS --fields=:: Specify output field - multiple keys can be specified in CSV format. Following fields are available: - overhead, overhead_sys, overhead_us, overhead_children, sample, period, - weight1, weight2, weight3, ins_lat, p_stage_cyc and retire_lat. The - last 3 names are alias for the corresponding weights. When the weight + overhead, latency, overhead_sys, overhead_us, overhead_children, sample, + period, weight1, weight2, weight3, ins_lat, p_stage_cyc and retire_lat. + The last 3 names are alias for the corresponding weights. When the weight fields are used, they will show the average value of the weight. Also it can contain any sort key(s). @@ -294,7 +307,7 @@ OPTIONS Accumulate callchain of children to parent entry so that then can show up in the output. The output will have a new "Children" column and will be sorted on the data. It requires callchains are recorded. - See the `overhead calculation' section for more details. Enabled by + See the `Overhead calculation' section for more details. Enabled by default, disable with --no-children. --max-stack:: @@ -447,9 +460,9 @@ OPTIONS --call-graph option for details. --percentage:: - Determine how to display the overhead percentage of filtered entries. - Filters can be applied by --comms, --dsos and/or --symbols options and - Zoom operations on the TUI (thread, dso, etc). + Determine how to display the CPU and latency overhead percentage + of filtered entries. Filters can be applied by --comms, --dsos, --symbols + and/or --parallelism options and Zoom operations on the TUI (thread, dso, etc). "relative" means it's relative to filtered entries only so that the sum of shown entries will be always 100%. "absolute" means it retains @@ -632,6 +645,8 @@ include::itrace.txt[] --skip-empty:: Do not print 0 results in the --stat output. +include::cpu-and-latency-overheads.txt[] + include::callchain-overhead-calculation.txt[] SEE ALSO diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/tips.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/tips.txt index 67b326ba0040..3fee9b2a88ea 100644 --- a/tools/perf/Documentation/tips.txt +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/tips.txt @@ -62,3 +62,7 @@ To show context switches in perf report sample context add --switch-events to pe To show time in nanoseconds in record/report add --ns To compare hot regions in two workloads use perf record -b -o file ... ; perf diff --stream file1 file2 To compare scalability of two workload samples use perf diff -c ratio file1 file2 +For latency profiling, try: perf record/report --latency +For parallelism histogram, try: perf report --hierarchy --sort latency,parallelism,comm,symbol +To analyze particular parallelism levels, try: perf report --latency --parallelism=32-64 +To see how parallelism changes over time, try: perf report -F time,latency,parallelism --time-quantum=1s -- 2.50.1