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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | PAGEFAULTS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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PERF-TRACE(1) perf Manual PERF-TRACE(1)
perf-trace - strace inspired tool
perf trace
perf trace record
This command will show the events associated with the target,
initially syscalls, but other system events like pagefaults, task
lifetime events, scheduling events, etc.
This is a live mode tool in addition to working with perf.data
files like the other perf tools. Files can be generated using the
perf record command but the session needs to include the
raw_syscalls events (-e raw_syscalls:*). Alternatively, perf trace
record can be used as a shortcut to automatically include the
raw_syscalls events when writing events to a file.
The following options apply to perf trace; options to perf trace
record are found in the perf record man page.
-a, --all-cpus
System-wide collection from all CPUs.
-e, --expr, --event
List of syscalls and other perf events (tracepoints, HW cache
events, etc) to show. Globbing is supported, e.g.: "epoll_*",
"msg", etc. See perf list for a complete list of events.
Prefixing with ! shows all syscalls but the ones specified.
You may need to escape it.
--filter=<filter>
Event filter. This option should follow an event selector (-e)
which selects tracepoint event(s).
-D msecs, --delay msecs
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.
-o, --output=
Output file name.
-p, --pid=
Record events on existing process ID (comma separated list).
-t, --tid=
Record events on existing thread ID (comma separated list).
-u, --uid=
Record events in threads owned by uid. Name or number.
-G, --cgroup
Record events in threads in a cgroup.
Look for cgroups to set at the /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event directory, then
remove the /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event/ part and try:
perf trace -G A -e sched:*switch
Will set all raw_syscalls:sys_{enter,exit}, pgfault, vfs_getname, etc
_and_ sched:sched_switch to the 'A' cgroup, while:
perf trace -e sched:*switch -G A
will only set the sched:sched_switch event to the 'A' cgroup, all the
other events (raw_syscalls:sys_{enter,exit}, etc are left "without"
a cgroup (on the root cgroup, sys wide, etc).
Multiple cgroups:
perf trace -G A -e sched:*switch -G B
the syscall ones go to the 'A' cgroup, the sched:sched_switch goes
to the 'B' cgroup.
--filter-pids=
Filter out events for these pids and for trace itself (comma
separated list).
-v, --verbose
Increase the verbosity level.
--no-inherit
Child tasks do not inherit counters.
-m, --mmap-pages=
Number of mmap data pages (must be a power of two) or size
specification in bytes with appended unit character - B/K/M/G.
The size is rounded up to the nearest power-of-two page value.
-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), Events are captured
only when the thread executes on the designated CPUs. Default
is to monitor all CPUs.
--duration
Show only events that had a duration greater than N.M ms.
--sched
Accrue thread runtime and provide a summary at the end of the
session.
--failure
Show only syscalls that failed, i.e. that returned < 0.
-i, --input
Process events from a given perf data file.
-T, --time
Print full timestamp rather time relative to first sample.
--comm
Show process COMM right beside its ID, on by default, disable
with --no-comm.
-s, --summary
Show only a summary of syscalls by thread with min, max, and
average times (in msec) and relative stddev.
-S, --with-summary
Show all syscalls followed by a summary by thread with min,
max, and average times (in msec) and relative stddev.
--errno-summary
To be used with -s or -S, to show stats for the errnos
experienced by syscalls, using only this option will trigger
--summary.
--summary-mode=mode
To be used with -s or -S, to select how to show summary. By
default it’ll show the syscall summary by thread. Possible
values are: thread, total, cgroup.
--tool_stats
Show tool stats such as number of times fd→pathname was
discovered thru hooking the open syscall return + vfs_getname
or via reading /proc/pid/fd, etc.
-f, --force
Don’t complain, do it.
-F=[all|min|maj], --pf=[all|min|maj]
Trace pagefaults. Optionally, you can specify whether you want
minor, major or all pagefaults. Default value is maj.
--syscalls
Trace system calls. This options is enabled by default,
disable with --no-syscalls.
--call-graph [mode,type,min[,limit],order[,key][,branch]]
Setup and enable call-graph (stack chain/backtrace) recording.
See --call-graph section in perf-record and perf-report man
pages for details. The ones that are most useful in perf trace
are dwarf and lbr, where available, try: perf trace
--call-graph dwarf.
Using this will, for the root user, bump the value of --mmap-pages to 4
times the maximum for non-root users, based on the kernel.perf_event_mlock_kb
sysctl. This is done only if the user doesn't specify a --mmap-pages value.
--kernel-syscall-graph
Show the kernel callchains on the syscall exit path.
--max-events=N
Stop after processing N events. Note that strace-like events
are considered only at exit time or when a syscall is
interrupted, i.e. in those cases this option is equivalent to
the number of lines printed.
--switch-on EVENT_NAME
Only consider events after this event is found.
--switch-off EVENT_NAME
Stop considering events after this event is found.
--show-on-off-events
Show the --switch-on/off events too.
--max-stack
Set the stack depth limit when parsing the callchain, anything
beyond the specified depth will be ignored. Note that at this
point this is just about the presentation part, i.e. the
kernel is still not limiting, the overhead of callchains needs
to be set via the knobs in --call-graph dwarf.
Implies '--call-graph dwarf' when --call-graph not present on the
command line, on systems where DWARF unwinding was built in.
Default: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack when present for
live sessions (without --input/-i), 127 otherwise.
--min-stack
Set the stack depth limit when parsing the callchain, anything
below the specified depth will be ignored. Disabled by
default.
Implies '--call-graph dwarf' when --call-graph not present on the
command line, on systems where DWARF unwinding was built in.
--print-sample
Print the PERF_RECORD_SAMPLE PERF_SAMPLE_ info for the
raw_syscalls:sys_{enter,exit} tracepoints, for debugging.
--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.
--sort-events
Do sorting on batches of events, use when noticing out of
order events that may happen, for instance, when a thread gets
migrated to a different CPU while processing a syscall.
--libtraceevent_print
Use libtraceevent to print tracepoint arguments. By default
perf trace uses the same beautifiers used in the strace-like
enter+exit lines to augment the tracepoint arguments.
--force-btf
Use btf_dump to pretty print syscall argument data, instead of
using hand-crafted pretty printers. This option is intended
for testing BTF integration in perf trace. btf_dump-based
pretty-printing serves as a fallback to hand-crafted pretty
printers, as the latter can better pretty-print integer flags
and struct pointers.
--bpf-summary
Collect system call statistics in BPF. This is only for live
mode and works well with -s/--summary option where no argument
information is required.
When tracing pagefaults, the format of the trace is as follows:
<min|maj>fault [<ip.symbol>+<ip.offset>] ⇒
<[email protected][1]> (<map type><addr level>).
• min/maj indicates whether fault event is minor or major;
• ip.symbol shows symbol for instruction pointer (the code that
generated the fault); if no debug symbols available, perf
trace will print raw IP;
• addr.dso shows DSO for the faulted address;
• map type is either d for non-executable maps or x for
executable maps;
• addr level is either k for kernel dso or . for user dso.
For symbols resolution you may need to install debugging symbols.
Please be aware that duration is currently always 0 and doesn’t
reflect actual time it took for fault to be handled!
When --verbose specified, perf trace tries to print all available
information for both IP and fault address in the form of
dso@symbol[2]+offset.
Trace only major pagefaults:
$ perf trace --no-syscalls -F
Trace syscalls, major and minor pagefaults:
$ perf trace -F all
1416.547 ( 0.000 ms): python/20235 majfault [CRYPTO_push_info_+0x0] => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0@0x61be0 (x.)
As you can see, there was major pagefault in python process, from
CRYPTO_push_info_ routine which faulted somewhere in libcrypto.so.
Trace the first 4 open, openat or open_by_handle_at syscalls (in
the future more syscalls may match here):
$ perf trace -e open* --max-events 4
[root@jouet perf]# trace -e open* --max-events 4
2272.992 ( 0.037 ms): gnome-shell/1370 openat(dfd: CWD, filename: /proc/self/stat) = 31
2277.481 ( 0.139 ms): gnome-shell/3039 openat(dfd: CWD, filename: /proc/self/stat) = 65
3026.398 ( 0.076 ms): gnome-shell/3039 openat(dfd: CWD, filename: /proc/self/stat) = 65
4294.665 ( 0.015 ms): sed/15879 openat(dfd: CWD, filename: /etc/ld.so.cache, flags: CLOEXEC) = 3
$
Trace the first minor page fault when running a workload:
# perf trace -F min --max-stack=7 --max-events 1 sleep 1
0.000 ( 0.000 ms): sleep/18006 minfault [__clear_user+0x1a] => 0x5626efa56080 (?k)
__clear_user ([kernel.kallsyms])
load_elf_binary ([kernel.kallsyms])
search_binary_handler ([kernel.kallsyms])
__do_execve_file.isra.33 ([kernel.kallsyms])
__x64_sys_execve ([kernel.kallsyms])
do_syscall_64 ([kernel.kallsyms])
entry_SYSCALL_64 ([kernel.kallsyms])
#
Trace the next min page page fault to take place on the first CPU:
# perf trace -F min --call-graph=dwarf --max-events 1 --cpu 0
0.000 ( 0.000 ms): Web Content/17136 minfault [js::gc::Chunk::fetchNextDecommittedArena+0x4b] => 0x7fbe6181b000 (?.)
js::gc::FreeSpan::initAsEmpty (inlined)
js::gc::Arena::setAsNotAllocated (inlined)
js::gc::Chunk::fetchNextDecommittedArena (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
js::gc::Chunk::allocateArena (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
js::gc::GCRuntime::allocateArena (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
js::gc::ArenaLists::allocateFromArena (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
js::gc::GCRuntime::tryNewTenuredThing<JSString, (js::AllowGC)1> (inlined)
js::AllocateString<JSString, (js::AllowGC)1> (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
js::Allocate<JSThinInlineString, (js::AllowGC)1> (inlined)
JSThinInlineString::new_<(js::AllowGC)1> (inlined)
AllocateInlineString<(js::AllowGC)1, unsigned char> (inlined)
js::ConcatStrings<(js::AllowGC)1> (/usr/lib64/firefox/libxul.so)
[0x18b26e6bc2bd] (/tmp/perf-17136.map)
#
Trace the next two sched:sched_switch events, four block:*_plug
events, the next block:*_unplug and the next three net:*dev_queue
events, this last one with a backtrace of at most 16 entries,
system wide:
# perf trace -e sched:*switch/nr=2/,block:*_plug/nr=4/,block:*_unplug/nr=1/,net:*dev_queue/nr=3,max-stack=16/
0.000 :0/0 sched:sched_switch:swapper/2:0 [120] S ==> rcu_sched:10 [120]
0.015 rcu_sched/10 sched:sched_switch:rcu_sched:10 [120] R ==> swapper/2:0 [120]
254.198 irq/50-iwlwifi/680 net:net_dev_queue:dev=wlp3s0 skbaddr=0xffff93498051f600 len=66
__dev_queue_xmit ([kernel.kallsyms])
273.977 :0/0 net:net_dev_queue:dev=wlp3s0 skbaddr=0xffff93498051f600 len=78
__dev_queue_xmit ([kernel.kallsyms])
274.007 :0/0 net:net_dev_queue:dev=wlp3s0 skbaddr=0xffff93498051ff00 len=78
__dev_queue_xmit ([kernel.kallsyms])
2930.140 kworker/u16:58/2722 block:block_plug:[kworker/u16:58]
2930.162 kworker/u16:58/2722 block:block_unplug:[kworker/u16:58] 1
4466.094 jbd2/dm-2-8/748 block:block_plug:[jbd2/dm-2-8]
8050.123 kworker/u16:30/2694 block:block_plug:[kworker/u16:30]
8050.271 kworker/u16:30/2694 block:block_plug:[kworker/u16:30]
#
perf-record(1), perf-script(1)
1. [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
2. dso@symbol
mailto:dso@symbol
This page is part of the perf (Performance analysis tools for
Linux (in Linux source tree)) project. Information about the
project can be found at
⟨https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to
[email protected]. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git⟩
on 2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2025-08-10.) If you discover
any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
mail to [email protected]
perf 2025-06-09 PERF-TRACE(1)
Pages that refer to this page: perf(1), perf-ftrace(1), perf-probe(1), strace(1)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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