perf record 的默认行为是什么?

What is the default behavior of perf record?

我很清楚perf总是记录一个或多个事件,采样可以基于计数器或基于时间。但是当 -e-F 开关没有给出时,perf record 的默认行为是什么? perf-record 的联机帮助页没有告诉您它在这种情况下的作用。

默认事件为cyclesperf record后运行perf script可见。在那里,您还可以看到默认的采样行为是基于时间的,因为循环数不是常数。默认频率为 4000 Hz,可以在 source code 中看到,并通过将文件大小或样本数与指定 -F 4000 的记录进行比较来检查。

perf wiki 表示频率为 1000 Hz,但对于 3.4 及更高版本的内核,这不再适用。

perf record 中的默认事件 selection 在 user-space perf 工具中完成,该工具通常作为 linux 内核的一部分分发。使用 linux 内核源目录中的 make perf-src-tar-gz,我们可以制作 tar gz 以快速重建或从 https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/tools/perf 下载这样的 tar。还有几个 linux 内核源代码的在线“LXR”交叉引用查看器,可以像 grep 一样使用它来了解 perf 内部结构。

有 select 性能记录的默认事件列表 (evlist) 的功能:__perf_evlist__add_default of tools/perf/util/evlist.c file:

int __perf_evlist__add_default(struct evlist *evlist, bool precise)
{
    struct evsel *evsel = perf_evsel__new_cycles(precise);
    evlist__add(evlist, evsel);
    return 0;
}

在从选项解析的事件为零的情况下从 perf 记录实现调用:tools/perf/builtin-record.c: int cmd_record()

rec->evlist->core.nr_entries == 0 &&
    __perf_evlist__add_default(rec->evlist, !record.opts.no_samples)

perf_evsel__new_cycles will ask for hardware event cycles (PERF_TYPE_HARDWARE + PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES) with optional kernel sampling, and max precise (check modifiers in man perf-list,是EIP sampling skid workarounds using PEBS or IBS):

struct evsel *perf_evsel__new_cycles(bool precise)
{
    struct perf_event_attr attr = {
        .type   = PERF_TYPE_HARDWARE,
        .config = PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES,
        .exclude_kernel = !perf_event_can_profile_kernel(),
    };
    struct evsel *evsel;

    /*
     * Now let the usual logic to set up the perf_event_attr defaults
     * to kick in when we return and before perf_evsel__open() is called.
     */
    evsel = evsel__new(&attr);
    evsel->precise_max = true;

    /* use asprintf() because free(evsel) assumes name is allocated */
    if (asprintf(&evsel->name, "cycles%s%s%.*s",
             (attr.precise_ip || attr.exclude_kernel) ? ":" : "",
             attr.exclude_kernel ? "u" : "",
             attr.precise_ip ? attr.precise_ip + 1 : 0, "ppp") < 0)
    return evsel;
}

如果失败 perf_event_open(无法访问硬件周期采样,例如在没有虚拟化 PMU 的虚拟化环境中),则会故障回复到 软件 cpu-clocktools/perf/builtin-record.c: int record__open() which calls perf_evsel__fallback() of tools/perf/util/evsel.c 中采样:

bool perf_evsel__fallback(struct evsel *evsel, int err,
              char *msg, size_t msgsize)
{
    if ((err == ENOENT || err == ENXIO || err == ENODEV) &&
        evsel->core.attr.type   == PERF_TYPE_HARDWARE &&
        evsel->core.attr.config == PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES) {
        /*
         * If it's cycles then fall back to hrtimer based
         * cpu-clock-tick sw counter, which is always available even if
         * no PMU support.
         */
        scnprintf(msg, msgsize, "%s", "The cycles event is not supported, trying to fall back to cpu-clock-ticks");

        evsel->core.attr.type   = PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE;
        evsel->core.attr.config = PERF_COUNT_SW_CPU_CLOCK;

        return true;
    } ...
}