# perf-config

## NAME



           perf-config - Get and set variables in a configuration file.
    


## SYNOPSIS



           _perf config_ [<file-option>] [section.name[=value] ...]
           or
           _perf config_ [<file-option>] -l | --list
    


## DESCRIPTION



           You can manage variables in a configuration file with this
           command.
    


## OPTIONS



           -l, --list
               Show current config variables, name and value, for all
               sections.
    
           --user
               For writing and reading options: write to user
               _$HOME/.perfconfig_ file or read it.
    
           --system
               For writing and reading options: write to system-wide
               _$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig_ or read it.
    


## CONFIGURATION FILE



           The perf configuration file contains many variables to change
           various aspects of each of its tools, including output, disk
           usage, etc. The _$HOME/.perfconfig_ file is used to store a per-user
           configuration. The file _$(sysconfdir)/perfconfig_ can be used to
           store a system-wide default configuration.
    
           One can disable reading config files by setting the PERF_CONFIG
           environment variable to /dev/null, or provide an alternate config
           file by setting that variable.
    
           When reading or writing, the values are read from the system and
           user configuration files by default, and options _--system_ and
           _--user_ can be used to tell the command to read from or write to
           only that location.
    
       **Syntax**
           The file consist of sections. A section starts with its name
           surrounded by square brackets and continues till the next section
           begins. Each variable must be in a section, and have the form _name_
           _= value_ , for example:
    
               [section]
                       name1 = value1
                       name2 = value2
    
           Section names are case sensitive and can contain any characters
           except newline (double quote " and backslash have to be escaped as
           \" and \\, respectively). Section headers can’t span multiple
           lines.
    
       **Example**
           Given a $HOME/.perfconfig like this:
    
           # # This is the config file, and # a _#_ and _;_ character indicates a
           comment #
    
               [colors]
                       # Color variables
                       top = red, default
                       medium = green, default
                       normal = lightgray, default
                       selected = white, lightgray
                       jump_arrows = blue, default
                       addr = magenta, default
                       root = white, blue
    
               [tui]
                       # Defaults if linked with libslang
                       report = on
                       annotate = on
                       top = on
    
               [buildid]
                       # Default, disable using /dev/null
                       dir = ~/.debug
    
               [annotate]
                       # Defaults
                       hide_src_code = false
                       use_offset = true
                       jump_arrows = true
                       show_nr_jumps = false
    
               [help]
                       # Format can be man, info, web or html
                       format = man
                       autocorrect = 0
    
               [ui]
                       show-headers = true
    
               [call-graph]
                       # fp (framepointer), dwarf
                       record-mode = fp
                       print-type = graph
                       order = caller
                       sort-key = function
    
               [report]
                       # Defaults
                       sort_order = comm,dso,symbol
                       percent-limit = 0
                       queue-size = 0
                       children = true
                       group = true
                       skip-empty = true
    
           You can hide source code of annotate feature setting the config to
           false with
    
               % perf config annotate.hide_src_code=true
    
           If you want to add or modify several config items, you can do like
    
               % perf config ui.show-headers=false kmem.default=slab
    
           To modify the sort order of report functionality in user config
           file(i.e. ~/.perfconfig), do
    
               % perf config --user report.sort-order=srcline
    
           To change colors of selected line to other foreground and
           background colors in system config file (i.e.
           $(sysconf)/perfconfig), do
    
               % perf config --system colors.selected=yellow,green
    
           To query the record mode of call graph, do
    
               % perf config call-graph.record-mode
    
           If you want to know multiple config key/value pairs, you can do
           like
    
               % perf config report.queue-size call-graph.order report.children
    
           To query the config value of sort order of call graph in user
           config file (i.e. ~/.perfconfig), do
    
               % perf config --user call-graph.sort-order
    
           To query the config value of buildid directory in system config
           file (i.e. $(sysconf)/perfconfig), do
    
               % perf config --system buildid.dir
    
       **Variables**
           colors.*
               The variables for customizing the colors used in the output
               for the _report_ , _top_ and _annotate_ in the TUI. They should
               specify the foreground and background colors, separated by a
               comma, for example:
    
                   medium = green, lightgray
    
                   If you want to use the color configured for you terminal, just leave it
                   as 'default', for example:
    
                   medium = default, lightgray
    
                   Available colors:
                   red, yellow, green, cyan, gray, black, blue,
                   white, default, magenta, lightgray
    
           colors.top
               _top_ means a overhead percentage which is more than 5%. And
               values of this variable specify percentage colors. Basic key
               values are foreground-color _red_ and background-color _default_.
    
           colors.medium
               _medium_ means a overhead percentage which has more than 0.5%.
               Default values are _green_ and _default_.
    
           colors.normal
               _normal_ means the rest of overhead percentages except _top_ ,
               _medium_ , _selected_. Default values are _lightgray_ and _default_.
    
           colors.selected
               This selects the colors for the current entry in a list of
               entries from sub-commands (top, report, annotate). Default
               values are _black_ and _lightgray_.
    
           colors.jump_arrows
               Colors for jump arrows on assembly code listings such as _jns_ ,
               _jmp_ , _jane_ , etc. Default values are _blue_ , _default_.
    
           colors.addr
               This selects colors for addresses from _annotate_. Default
               values are _magenta_ , _default_.
    
           colors.root
               Colors for headers in the output of a sub-commands (top,
               report). Default values are _white_ , _blue_.
    
           core.*, core.proc-map-timeout
               Sets a timeout (in milliseconds) for parsing /proc/<pid>/maps
               files. Can be overridden by the --proc-map-timeout option on
               supported subcommands. The default timeout is 500ms.
    
           tui.**, gtk.**
               Subcommands that can be configured here are _top_ , _report_ and
               _annotate_. These values are booleans, for example:
    
                   [tui]
                           top = true
    
                   will make the TUI be the default for the 'top' subcommand. Those will be
                   available if the required libs were detected at tool build time.
    
           buildid.*, buildid.dir
               Each executable and shared library in modern distributions
               comes with a content based identifier that, if available, will
               be inserted in a _perf.data_ file header to, at analysis time
               find what is needed to do symbol resolution, code annotation,
               etc.
    
                   The recording tools also stores a hard link or copy in a per-user
                   directory, $HOME/.debug/, of binaries, shared libraries, /proc/kallsyms
                   and /proc/kcore files to be used at analysis time.
    
                   The buildid.dir variable can be used to either change this directory
                   cache location, or to disable it altogether. If you want to disable it,
                   set buildid.dir to /dev/null. The default is $HOME/.debug
    
           buildid-cache.*
               buildid-cache.debuginfod=URLs Specify debuginfod URLs to be
               used when retrieving perf.data binaries, it follows the same
               syntax as the DEBUGINFOD_URLS variable, like:
    
                   buildid-cache.debuginfod=http://192.168.122.174:8002
    
           annotate.*
               These are in control of addresses, jump function, source code
               in lines of assembly code from a specific program.
    
           annotate.disassemblers
               Choose the disassembler to use: "objdump", "llvm", "capstone",
               if not specified it will first try, if available, the "llvm"
               one, then, if it fails, "capstone", and finally the original
               "objdump" based one.
    
                   Choosing a different one is useful when handling some feature that
                   is known to be best support at some point by one of the options,
                   to compare the output when in doubt about some bug, etc.
    
                   This can be a list, in order of preference, the first one that works
                   finishes the process.
    
           annotate.addr2line
               addr2line binary to use for file names and line numbers.
    
           annotate.objdump
               objdump binary to use for disassembly and annotations,
               including in the _perf test_ command.
    
           annotate.disassembler_style
               Use this to change the default disassembler style to some
               other value supported by binutils, such as "intel", see the _-M_
               option help in the _objdump_ man page.
    
           annotate.hide_src_code
               If a program which is analyzed has source code, this option
               lets _annotate_ print a list of assembly code with the source
               code. For example, let’s see a part of a program. There’re
               four lines. If this option is _true_ , they can be printed
               without source code from a program as below.
    
                   │        push   %rbp
                   │        mov    %rsp,%rbp
                   │        sub    $0x10,%rsp
                   │        mov    (%rdi),%rdx
    
                   But if this option is 'false', source code of the part
                   can be also printed as below. Default is 'false'.
    
                   │      struct rb_node *rb_next(const struct rb_node *node)
                   │      {
                   │        push   %rbp
                   │        mov    %rsp,%rbp
                   │        sub    $0x10,%rsp
                   │              struct rb_node *parent;
                   │
                   │              if (RB_EMPTY_NODE(node))
                   │        mov    (%rdi),%rdx
                   │              return n;
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
    
           annotate.use_offset
               Basing on a first address of a loaded function, offset can be
               used. Instead of using original addresses of assembly code,
               addresses subtracted from a base address can be printed. Let’s
               illustrate an example. If a base address is 0XFFFFFFFF81624d50
               as below,
    
                   ffffffff81624d50 <load0>
    
                   an address on assembly code has a specific absolute address as below
    
                   ffffffff816250b8:│  mov    0x8(%r14),%rdi
    
                   but if use_offset is 'true', an address subtracted from a base address is printed.
                   Default is true. This option is only applied to TUI.
    
                   368:│  mov    0x8(%r14),%rdi
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
    
           annotate.jump_arrows
               There can be jump instruction among assembly code. Depending
               on a boolean value of jump_arrows, arrows can be printed or
               not which represent where do the instruction jump into as
               below.
    
                   │     ┌──jmp    1333
                   │     │  xchg   %ax,%ax
                   │1330:│  mov    %r15,%r10
                   │1333:└─→cmp    %r15,%r14
    
                   If jump_arrow is 'false', the arrows isn't printed as below.
                   Default is 'false'.
    
                   │      ↓ jmp    1333
                   │        xchg   %ax,%ax
                   │1330:   mov    %r15,%r10
                   │1333:   cmp    %r15,%r14
    
                   This option works with tui browser.
    
           annotate.show_linenr
               When showing source code if this option is _true_ , line numbers
               are printed as below.
    
                   │1628         if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
                   │     ↓ jne    508
                   │1628                 data->id = *array;
                   │1629                 array++;
                   │1630         }
    
                   However if this option is 'false', they aren't printed as below.
                   Default is 'false'.
    
                   │             if (type & PERF_SAMPLE_IDENTIFIER) {
                   │     ↓ jne    508
                   │                     data->id = *array;
                   │                     array++;
                   │             }
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
    
           annotate.show_nr_jumps
               Let’s see a part of assembly code.
    
                   │1382:   movb   $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
    
                   If use this, the number of branches jumping to that address can be printed as below.
                   Default is 'false'.
    
                   │1 1382:   movb   $0x1,-0x270(%rbp)
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
    
           annotate.show_total_period
               To compare two records on an instruction base, with this
               option provided, display total number of samples that belong
               to a line in assembly code. If this option is _true_ , total
               periods are printed instead of percent values as below.
    
                   302 │      mov    %eax,%eax
    
                   But if this option is 'false', percent values for overhead are printed i.e.
                   Default is 'false'.
    
                   99.93 │      mov    %eax,%eax
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
    
           annotate.show_nr_samples
               By default perf annotate shows percentage of samples. This
               option can be used to print absolute number of samples. Ex,
               when set as false:
    
                   Percent│
                    74.03 │      mov    %fs:0x28,%rax
    
                   When set as true:
    
                   Samples│
                        6 │      mov    %fs:0x28,%rax
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2, stdio browsers.
    
           annotate.offset_level
               Default is _1_ , meaning just jump targets will have offsets show
               right beside the instruction. When set to _2 call_ instructions
               will also have its offsets shown, 3 or higher will show
               offsets for all instructions.
    
                   This option works with tui, stdio2 browsers.
    
           annotate.demangle
               Demangle symbol names to human readable form. Default is _true_.
    
           annotate.demangle_kernel
               Demangle kernel symbol names to human readable form. Default
               is _true_.
    
           hist.*, hist.percentage
               This option control the way to calculate overhead of filtered
               entries - that means the value of this option is effective
               only if there’s a filter (by comm, dso or symbol name).
               Suppose a following example:
    
                   Overhead  Symbols
                   ........  .......
                    33.33%     foo
                    33.33%     bar
                    33.33%     baz
    
                   This is an original overhead and we'll filter out the first 'foo'
                   entry. The value of 'relative' would increase the overhead of 'bar'
                   and 'baz' to 50.00% for each, while 'absolute' would show their
                   current overhead (33.33%).
    
           ui.*, ui.show-headers
               This option controls display of column headers (like _Overhead_
               and _Symbol_) in _report_ and _top_. If this option is false, they
               are hidden. This option is only applied to TUI.
    
           call-graph.*
               The following controls the handling of call-graphs (obtained
               via the -g/--call-graph options).
    
           call-graph.record-mode
               The mode for user space can be _fp_ (frame pointer), _dwarf_ and
               _lbr_. The value _dwarf_ is effective only if libunwind (or a
               recent version of libdw) is present on the system; the value
               _lbr_ only works for certain cpus. The method for kernel space
               is controlled not by this option but by the kernel config
               (CONFIG_UNWINDER_*).
    
           call-graph.dump-size
               The size of stack to dump in order to do post-unwinding.
               Default is 8192 (byte). When using dwarf into record-mode, the
               default size will be used if omitted.
    
           call-graph.print-type
               The print-types can be graph (graph absolute), fractal (graph
               relative), flat and folded. This option controls a way to show
               overhead for each callchain entry. Suppose a following
               example.
    
                   Overhead  Symbols
                   ........  .......
                     40.00%  foo
                             |
                             ---foo
                                |
                                |--50.00%--bar
                                |          main
                                |
                                 --50.00%--baz
                                           main
    
                   This output is a 'fractal' format. The 'foo' came from 'bar' and 'baz' exactly
                   half and half so 'fractal' shows 50.00% for each
                   (meaning that it assumes 100% total overhead of 'foo').
    
                   The 'graph' uses absolute overhead value of 'foo' as total so each of
                   'bar' and 'baz' callchain will have 20.00% of overhead.
                   If 'flat' is used, single column and linear exposure of call chains.
                   'folded' mean call chains are displayed in a line, separated by semicolons.
    
           call-graph.order
               This option controls print order of callchains. The default is
               _callee_ which means callee is printed at top and then followed
               by its caller and so on. The _caller_ prints it in reverse
               order.
    
                   If this option is not set and report.children or top.children is
                   set to true (or the equivalent command line option is given),
                   the default value of this option is changed to 'caller' for the
                   execution of 'perf report' or 'perf top'. Other commands will
                   still default to 'callee'.
    
           call-graph.sort-key
               The callchains are merged if they contain same information.
               The sort-key option determines a way to compare the
               callchains. A value of _sort-key_ can be _function_ or _address_.
               The default is _function_.
    
           call-graph.threshold
               When there’re many callchains it’d print tons of lines. So
               perf omits small callchains under a certain overhead
               (threshold) and this option control the threshold. Default is
               0.5 (%). The overhead is calculated by value depends on
               call-graph.print-type.
    
           call-graph.print-limit
               This is a maximum number of lines of callchain printed for a
               single histogram entry. Default is 0 which means no
               limitation.
    
           report.*, report.sort_order
               Allows changing the default sort order from "comm,dso,symbol"
               to some other default, for instance "sym,dso" may be more
               fitting for kernel developers.
    
           report.percent-limit
               This one is mostly the same as call-graph.threshold but works
               for histogram entries. Entries having an overhead lower than
               this percentage will not be printed. Default is _0_. If
               percent-limit is _10_ , only entries which have more than 10% of
               overhead will be printed.
    
           report.queue-size
               This option sets up the maximum allocation size of the
               internal event queue for ordering events. Default is 0,
               meaning no limit.
    
           report.children
               _Children_ means functions called from another function. If this
               option is true, _perf report_ cumulates callchains of children
               and show (accumulated) total overhead as well as _Self_
               overhead. Please refer to the _perf report_ manual. The default
               is _true_.
    
           report.group
               This option is to show event group information together.
               Example output with this turned on, notice that there is one
               column per event in the group, ref-cycles and cycles:
    
                   # group: {ref-cycles,cycles}
                   # ========
                   #
                   # Samples: 7K of event 'anon group { ref-cycles, cycles }'
                   # Event count (approx.): 6876107743
                   #
                   #         Overhead  Command      Shared Object               Symbol
                   # ................  .......  .................  ...................
                   #
                       99.84%  99.76%  noploop  noploop            [.] main
                        0.07%   0.00%  noploop  ld-2.15.so         [.] strcmp
                        0.03%   0.00%  noploop  [kernel.kallsyms]  [k] timerqueue_del
    
           report.skip-empty
               This option can change default stat behavior with empty
               results. If it’s set true, _perf report --stat_ will not show 0
               stats.
    
           top.*, top.children
               Same as _report.children_. So if it is enabled, the output of
               _top_ command will have _Children_ overhead column as well as _Self_
               overhead column by default. The default is _true_.
    
           top.call-graph
               This is identical to _call-graph.record-mode_ , except it is
               applicable only for _top_ subcommand. This option ONLY setup the
               unwind method. To enable _perf top_ to actually use it, the
               command line option -g must be specified.
    
           man.*, man.viewer
               This option can assign a tool to view manual pages when _help_
               subcommand was invoked. Supported tools are _man_ , _woman_ (with
               emacs client) and _konqueror_. Default is _man_.
    
                   New man viewer tool can be also added using 'man.<tool>.cmd'
                   or use different path using 'man.<tool>.path' config option.
    
           pager.*, pager.<subcommand>
               When the subcommand is run on stdio, determine whether it uses
               pager or not based on this value. Default is _unspecified_.
    
           kmem.*, kmem.default
               This option decides which allocator is to be analyzed if
               neither _--slab_ nor _--page_ option is used. Default is _slab_.
    
           record.*, record.build-id
               This option can be _cache_ , _no-cache_ , _skip_ or _mmap_.  _cache_ is to
               post-process data and save/update the binaries into the
               build-id cache (in ~/.debug). This is the default. But if this
               option is _no-cache_ , it will not update the build-id cache.
               _skip_ skips post-processing and does not update the cache.
               _mmap_ skips post-processing and reads build-ids from MMAP
               events.
    
           record.call-graph
               This is identical to _call-graph.record-mode_ , except it is
               applicable only for _record_ subcommand. This option ONLY setup
               the unwind method. To enable _perf record_ to actually use it,
               the command line option -g must be specified.
    
           record.aio
               Use _n_ control blocks in asynchronous (Posix AIO) trace writing
               mode (_n_ default: 1, max: 4).
    
           record.debuginfod
               Specify debuginfod URL to be used when cacheing perf.data
               binaries, it follows the same syntax as the DEBUGINFOD_URLS
               variable, like:
    
                   http://192.168.122.174:8002
    
                   If the URLs is 'system', the value of DEBUGINFOD_URLS system environment
                   variable is used.
    
           diff.*, diff.order
               This option sets the number of columns to sort the result. The
               default is 0, which means sorting by baseline. Setting it to 1
               will sort the result by delta (or other compute method
               selected).
    
           diff.compute
               This options sets the method for computing the diff result.
               Possible values are _delta_ , _delta-abs_ , _ratio_ and _wdiff_. Default
               is _delta_.
    
           trace.*, trace.add_events
               Allows adding a set of events to add to the ones specified by
               the user, or use as a default one if none was specified. The
               initial use case is to add augmented_raw_syscalls.o to
               activate the _perf trace_ logic that looks for syscall pointer
               contents after the normal tracepoint payload.
    
           trace.args_alignment
               Number of columns to align the argument list, default is 70,
               use 40 for the strace default, zero to no alignment.
    
           trace.no_inherit
               Do not follow children threads.
    
           trace.show_arg_names
               Should syscall argument names be printed? If not then
               trace.show_zeros will be set.
    
           trace.show_duration
               Show syscall duration.
    
           trace.show_prefix
               If set to _yes_ will show common string prefixes in tables. The
               default is to remove the common prefix in things like
               "MAP_SHARED", showing just "SHARED".
    
           trace.show_timestamp
               Show syscall start timestamp.
    
           trace.show_zeros
               Do not suppress syscall arguments that are equal to zero.
    
           trace.tracepoint_beautifiers
               Use "libtraceevent" to use that library to augment the
               tracepoint arguments, "libbeauty", the default, to use the
               same argument beautifiers used in the strace-like
               sys_enter+sys_exit lines.
    
           ftrace.*, ftrace.tracer
               Can be used to select the default tracer when neither -G nor
               -F option is not specified. Possible values are _function_ and
               _function_graph_.
    
           samples.*, samples.context
               Define how many ns worth of time to show around samples in
               perf report sample context browser.
    
           scripts.*
               Any option defines a script that is added to the scripts menu
               in the interactive perf browser and whose output is displayed.
               The name of the option is the name, the value is a script
               command line. The script gets the same options passed as a
               full perf script, in particular -i perfdata file, --cpu, --tid
    
           convert.*, convert.queue-size
               Limit the size of ordered_events queue, so we could control
               allocation size of perf data files without proper finished
               round events.
    
           stat.*, stat.big-num
               (boolean) Change the default for "--big-num". To make
               "--no-big-num" the default, set "stat.big-num=false".
    
           intel-pt.*, intel-pt.cache-divisor, intel-pt.mispred-all
               If set, Intel PT decoder will set the mispred flag on all
               branches.
    
           intel-pt.max-loops
               If set and non-zero, the maximum number of unconditional
               branches decoded without consuming any trace packets. If the
               maximum is exceeded there will be a "Never-ending loop" error.
               The default is 100000.
    
           intel-pt.all-switch-events
               If the user has permission to do so, always record all context
               switch events on all CPUs.
    
           auxtrace.*, auxtrace.dumpdir
               s390 only. The directory to save the auxiliary trace buffer
               can be changed using this option. Ex, auxtrace.dumpdir=/tmp.
               If the directory does not exist or has the wrong file type,
               the current directory is used.
    
           itrace.*, debug-log-buffer-size
               Log size in bytes to output when using the option --itrace=d+e
               Refer _itrace_ option of perf-script(1) or perf-report(1). The
               default is 16384.
    
           daemon.*, daemon.base
               Base path for daemon data. All sessions data are stored under
               this path.
    
           session-<NAME>.*, session-<NAME>.run
               Defines new record session for daemon. The value is record’s
               command line without the _record_ keyword.
    


* * *