1Intel Processor Trace 2===================== 3 4Overview 5======== 6 7Intel Processor Trace (Intel PT) is an extension of Intel Architecture that 8collects information about software execution such as control flow, execution 9modes and timings and formats it into highly compressed binary packets. 10Technical details are documented in the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures 11Software Developer Manuals, Chapter 36 Intel Processor Trace. 12 13Intel PT is first supported in Intel Core M and 5th generation Intel Core 14processors that are based on the Intel micro-architecture code name Broadwell. 15 16Trace data is collected by 'perf record' and stored within the perf.data file. 17See below for options to 'perf record'. 18 19Trace data must be 'decoded' which involves walking the object code and matching 20the trace data packets. For example a TNT packet only tells whether a 21conditional branch was taken or not taken, so to make use of that packet the 22decoder must know precisely which instruction was being executed. 23 24Decoding is done on-the-fly. The decoder outputs samples in the same format as 25samples output by perf hardware events, for example as though the "instructions" 26or "branches" events had been recorded. Presently 3 tools support this: 27'perf script', 'perf report' and 'perf inject'. See below for more information 28on using those tools. 29 30The main distinguishing feature of Intel PT is that the decoder can determine 31the exact flow of software execution. Intel PT can be used to understand why 32and how did software get to a certain point, or behave a certain way. The 33software does not have to be recompiled, so Intel PT works with debug or release 34builds, however the executed images are needed - which makes use in JIT-compiled 35environments, or with self-modified code, a challenge. Also symbols need to be 36provided to make sense of addresses. 37 38A limitation of Intel PT is that it produces huge amounts of trace data 39(hundreds of megabytes per second per core) which takes a long time to decode, 40for example two or three orders of magnitude longer than it took to collect. 41Another limitation is the performance impact of tracing, something that will 42vary depending on the use-case and architecture. 43 44 45Quickstart 46========== 47 48It is important to start small. That is because it is easy to capture vastly 49more data than can possibly be processed. 50 51The simplest thing to do with Intel PT is userspace profiling of small programs. 52Data is captured with 'perf record' e.g. to trace 'ls' userspace-only: 53 54 perf record -e intel_pt//u ls 55 56And profiled with 'perf report' e.g. 57 58 perf report 59 60To also trace kernel space presents a problem, namely kernel self-modifying 61code. A fairly good kernel image is available in /proc/kcore but to get an 62accurate image a copy of /proc/kcore needs to be made under the same conditions 63as the data capture. A script perf-with-kcore can do that, but beware that the 64script makes use of 'sudo' to copy /proc/kcore. If you have perf installed 65locally from the source tree you can do: 66 67 ~/libexec/perf-core/perf-with-kcore record pt_ls -e intel_pt// -- ls 68 69which will create a directory named 'pt_ls' and put the perf.data file and 70copies of /proc/kcore, /proc/kallsyms and /proc/modules into it. Then to use 71'perf report' becomes: 72 73 ~/libexec/perf-core/perf-with-kcore report pt_ls 74 75Because samples are synthesized after-the-fact, the sampling period can be 76selected for reporting. e.g. sample every microsecond 77 78 ~/libexec/perf-core/perf-with-kcore report pt_ls --itrace=i1usge 79 80See the sections below for more information about the --itrace option. 81 82Beware the smaller the period, the more samples that are produced, and the 83longer it takes to process them. 84 85Also note that the coarseness of Intel PT timing information will start to 86distort the statistical value of the sampling as the sampling period becomes 87smaller. 88 89To represent software control flow, "branches" samples are produced. By default 90a branch sample is synthesized for every single branch. To get an idea what 91data is available you can use the 'perf script' tool with no parameters, which 92will list all the samples. 93 94 perf record -e intel_pt//u ls 95 perf script 96 97An interesting field that is not printed by default is 'flags' which can be 98displayed as follows: 99 100 perf script -Fcomm,tid,pid,time,cpu,event,trace,ip,sym,dso,addr,symoff,flags 101 102The flags are "bcrosyiABEx" which stand for branch, call, return, conditional, 103system, asynchronous, interrupt, transaction abort, trace begin, trace end, and 104in transaction, respectively. 105 106While it is possible to create scripts to analyze the data, an alternative 107approach is available to export the data to a postgresql database. Refer to 108script export-to-postgresql.py for more details, and to script 109call-graph-from-postgresql.py for an example of using the database. 110 111As mentioned above, it is easy to capture too much data. One way to limit the 112data captured is to use 'snapshot' mode which is explained further below. 113Refer to 'new snapshot option' and 'Intel PT modes of operation' further below. 114 115Another problem that will be experienced is decoder errors. They can be caused 116by inability to access the executed image, self-modified or JIT-ed code, or the 117inability to match side-band information (such as context switches and mmaps) 118which results in the decoder not knowing what code was executed. 119 120There is also the problem of perf not being able to copy the data fast enough, 121resulting in data lost because the buffer was full. See 'Buffer handling' below 122for more details. 123 124 125perf record 126=========== 127 128new event 129--------- 130 131The Intel PT kernel driver creates a new PMU for Intel PT. PMU events are 132selected by providing the PMU name followed by the "config" separated by slashes. 133An enhancement has been made to allow default "config" e.g. the option 134 135 -e intel_pt// 136 137will use a default config value. Currently that is the same as 138 139 -e intel_pt/tsc,noretcomp=0/ 140 141which is the same as 142 143 -e intel_pt/tsc=1,noretcomp=0/ 144 145Note there are now new config terms - see section 'config terms' further below. 146 147The config terms are listed in /sys/devices/intel_pt/format. They are bit 148fields within the config member of the struct perf_event_attr which is 149passed to the kernel by the perf_event_open system call. They correspond to bit 150fields in the IA32_RTIT_CTL MSR. Here is a list of them and their definitions: 151 152 $ grep -H . /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/* 153 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/cyc:config:1 154 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/cyc_thresh:config:19-22 155 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/mtc:config:9 156 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/mtc_period:config:14-17 157 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/noretcomp:config:11 158 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/psb_period:config:24-27 159 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/format/tsc:config:10 160 161Note that the default config must be overridden for each term i.e. 162 163 -e intel_pt/noretcomp=0/ 164 165is the same as: 166 167 -e intel_pt/tsc=1,noretcomp=0/ 168 169So, to disable TSC packets use: 170 171 -e intel_pt/tsc=0/ 172 173It is also possible to specify the config value explicitly: 174 175 -e intel_pt/config=0x400/ 176 177Note that, as with all events, the event is suffixed with event modifiers: 178 179 u userspace 180 k kernel 181 h hypervisor 182 G guest 183 H host 184 p precise ip 185 186'h', 'G' and 'H' are for virtualization which is not supported by Intel PT. 187'p' is also not relevant to Intel PT. So only options 'u' and 'k' are 188meaningful for Intel PT. 189 190perf_event_attr is displayed if the -vv option is used e.g. 191 192 ------------------------------------------------------------ 193 perf_event_attr: 194 type 6 195 size 112 196 config 0x400 197 { sample_period, sample_freq } 1 198 sample_type IP|TID|TIME|CPU|IDENTIFIER 199 read_format ID 200 disabled 1 201 inherit 1 202 exclude_kernel 1 203 exclude_hv 1 204 enable_on_exec 1 205 sample_id_all 1 206 ------------------------------------------------------------ 207 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 0 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 208 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 1 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 209 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 2 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 210 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 3 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 211 ------------------------------------------------------------ 212 213 214config terms 215------------ 216 217The June 2015 version of Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer 218Manuals, Chapter 36 Intel Processor Trace, defined new Intel PT features. 219Some of the features are reflect in new config terms. All the config terms are 220described below. 221 222tsc Always supported. Produces TSC timestamp packets to provide 223 timing information. In some cases it is possible to decode 224 without timing information, for example a per-thread context 225 that does not overlap executable memory maps. 226 227 The default config selects tsc (i.e. tsc=1). 228 229noretcomp Always supported. Disables "return compression" so a TIP packet 230 is produced when a function returns. Causes more packets to be 231 produced but might make decoding more reliable. 232 233 The default config does not select noretcomp (i.e. noretcomp=0). 234 235psb_period Allows the frequency of PSB packets to be specified. 236 237 The PSB packet is a synchronization packet that provides a 238 starting point for decoding or recovery from errors. 239 240 Support for psb_period is indicated by: 241 242 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/psb_cyc 243 244 which contains "1" if the feature is supported and "0" 245 otherwise. 246 247 Valid values are given by: 248 249 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/psb_periods 250 251 which contains a hexadecimal value, the bits of which represent 252 valid values e.g. bit 2 set means value 2 is valid. 253 254 The psb_period value is converted to the approximate number of 255 trace bytes between PSB packets as: 256 257 2 ^ (value + 11) 258 259 e.g. value 3 means 16KiB bytes between PSBs 260 261 If an invalid value is entered, the error message 262 will give a list of valid values e.g. 263 264 $ perf record -e intel_pt/psb_period=15/u uname 265 Invalid psb_period for intel_pt. Valid values are: 0-5 266 267 If MTC packets are selected, the default config selects a value 268 of 3 (i.e. psb_period=3) or the nearest lower value that is 269 supported (0 is always supported). Otherwise the default is 0. 270 271 If decoding is expected to be reliable and the buffer is large 272 then a large PSB period can be used. 273 274 Because a TSC packet is produced with PSB, the PSB period can 275 also affect the granularity to timing information in the absence 276 of MTC or CYC. 277 278mtc Produces MTC timing packets. 279 280 MTC packets provide finer grain timestamp information than TSC 281 packets. MTC packets record time using the hardware crystal 282 clock (CTC) which is related to TSC packets using a TMA packet. 283 284 Support for this feature is indicated by: 285 286 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/mtc 287 288 which contains "1" if the feature is supported and 289 "0" otherwise. 290 291 The frequency of MTC packets can also be specified - see 292 mtc_period below. 293 294mtc_period Specifies how frequently MTC packets are produced - see mtc 295 above for how to determine if MTC packets are supported. 296 297 Valid values are given by: 298 299 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/mtc_periods 300 301 which contains a hexadecimal value, the bits of which represent 302 valid values e.g. bit 2 set means value 2 is valid. 303 304 The mtc_period value is converted to the MTC frequency as: 305 306 CTC-frequency / (2 ^ value) 307 308 e.g. value 3 means one eighth of CTC-frequency 309 310 Where CTC is the hardware crystal clock, the frequency of which 311 can be related to TSC via values provided in cpuid leaf 0x15. 312 313 If an invalid value is entered, the error message 314 will give a list of valid values e.g. 315 316 $ perf record -e intel_pt/mtc_period=15/u uname 317 Invalid mtc_period for intel_pt. Valid values are: 0,3,6,9 318 319 The default value is 3 or the nearest lower value 320 that is supported (0 is always supported). 321 322cyc Produces CYC timing packets. 323 324 CYC packets provide even finer grain timestamp information than 325 MTC and TSC packets. A CYC packet contains the number of CPU 326 cycles since the last CYC packet. Unlike MTC and TSC packets, 327 CYC packets are only sent when another packet is also sent. 328 329 Support for this feature is indicated by: 330 331 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/psb_cyc 332 333 which contains "1" if the feature is supported and 334 "0" otherwise. 335 336 The number of CYC packets produced can be reduced by specifying 337 a threshold - see cyc_thresh below. 338 339cyc_thresh Specifies how frequently CYC packets are produced - see cyc 340 above for how to determine if CYC packets are supported. 341 342 Valid cyc_thresh values are given by: 343 344 /sys/bus/event_source/devices/intel_pt/caps/cycle_thresholds 345 346 which contains a hexadecimal value, the bits of which represent 347 valid values e.g. bit 2 set means value 2 is valid. 348 349 The cyc_thresh value represents the minimum number of CPU cycles 350 that must have passed before a CYC packet can be sent. The 351 number of CPU cycles is: 352 353 2 ^ (value - 1) 354 355 e.g. value 4 means 8 CPU cycles must pass before a CYC packet 356 can be sent. Note a CYC packet is still only sent when another 357 packet is sent, not at, e.g. every 8 CPU cycles. 358 359 If an invalid value is entered, the error message 360 will give a list of valid values e.g. 361 362 $ perf record -e intel_pt/cyc,cyc_thresh=15/u uname 363 Invalid cyc_thresh for intel_pt. Valid values are: 0-12 364 365 CYC packets are not requested by default. 366 367no_force_psb This is a driver option and is not in the IA32_RTIT_CTL MSR. 368 369 It stops the driver resetting the byte count to zero whenever 370 enabling the trace (for example on context switches) which in 371 turn results in no PSB being forced. However some processors 372 will produce a PSB anyway. 373 374 In any case, there is still a PSB when the trace is enabled for 375 the first time. 376 377 no_force_psb can be used to slightly decrease the trace size but 378 may make it harder for the decoder to recover from errors. 379 380 no_force_psb is not selected by default. 381 382 383new snapshot option 384------------------- 385 386The difference between full trace and snapshot from the kernel's perspective is 387that in full trace we don't overwrite trace data that the user hasn't collected 388yet (and indicated that by advancing aux_tail), whereas in snapshot mode we let 389the trace run and overwrite older data in the buffer so that whenever something 390interesting happens, we can stop it and grab a snapshot of what was going on 391around that interesting moment. 392 393To select snapshot mode a new option has been added: 394 395 -S 396 397Optionally it can be followed by the snapshot size e.g. 398 399 -S0x100000 400 401The default snapshot size is the auxtrace mmap size. If neither auxtrace mmap size 402nor snapshot size is specified, then the default is 4MiB for privileged users 403(or if /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid < 0), 128KiB for unprivileged users. 404If an unprivileged user does not specify mmap pages, the mmap pages will be 405reduced as described in the 'new auxtrace mmap size option' section below. 406 407The snapshot size is displayed if the option -vv is used e.g. 408 409 Intel PT snapshot size: %zu 410 411 412new auxtrace mmap size option 413--------------------------- 414 415Intel PT buffer size is specified by an addition to the -m option e.g. 416 417 -m,16 418 419selects a buffer size of 16 pages i.e. 64KiB. 420 421Note that the existing functionality of -m is unchanged. The auxtrace mmap size 422is specified by the optional addition of a comma and the value. 423 424The default auxtrace mmap size for Intel PT is 4MiB/page_size for privileged users 425(or if /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid < 0), 128KiB for unprivileged users. 426If an unprivileged user does not specify mmap pages, the mmap pages will be 427reduced from the default 512KiB/page_size to 256KiB/page_size, otherwise the 428user is likely to get an error as they exceed their mlock limit (Max locked 429memory as shown in /proc/self/limits). Note that perf does not count the first 430512KiB (actually /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_mlock_kb minus 1 page) per cpu 431against the mlock limit so an unprivileged user is allowed 512KiB per cpu plus 432their mlock limit (which defaults to 64KiB but is not multiplied by the number 433of cpus). 434 435In full-trace mode, powers of two are allowed for buffer size, with a minimum 436size of 2 pages. In snapshot mode, it is the same but the minimum size is 4371 page. 438 439The mmap size and auxtrace mmap size are displayed if the -vv option is used e.g. 440 441 mmap length 528384 442 auxtrace mmap length 4198400 443 444 445Intel PT modes of operation 446--------------------------- 447 448Intel PT can be used in 2 modes: 449 full-trace mode 450 snapshot mode 451 452Full-trace mode traces continuously e.g. 453 454 perf record -e intel_pt//u uname 455 456Snapshot mode captures the available data when a signal is sent e.g. 457 458 perf record -v -e intel_pt//u -S ./loopy 1000000000 & 459 [1] 11435 460 kill -USR2 11435 461 Recording AUX area tracing snapshot 462 463Note that the signal sent is SIGUSR2. 464Note that "Recording AUX area tracing snapshot" is displayed because the -v 465option is used. 466 467The 2 modes cannot be used together. 468 469 470Buffer handling 471--------------- 472 473There may be buffer limitations (i.e. single ToPa entry) which means that actual 474buffer sizes are limited to powers of 2 up to 4MiB (MAX_ORDER). In order to 475provide other sizes, and in particular an arbitrarily large size, multiple 476buffers are logically concatenated. However an interrupt must be used to switch 477between buffers. That has two potential problems: 478 a) the interrupt may not be handled in time so that the current buffer 479 becomes full and some trace data is lost. 480 b) the interrupts may slow the system and affect the performance 481 results. 482 483If trace data is lost, the driver sets 'truncated' in the PERF_RECORD_AUX event 484which the tools report as an error. 485 486In full-trace mode, the driver waits for data to be copied out before allowing 487the (logical) buffer to wrap-around. If data is not copied out quickly enough, 488again 'truncated' is set in the PERF_RECORD_AUX event. If the driver has to 489wait, the intel_pt event gets disabled. Because it is difficult to know when 490that happens, perf tools always re-enable the intel_pt event after copying out 491data. 492 493 494Intel PT and build ids 495---------------------- 496 497By default "perf record" post-processes the event stream to find all build ids 498for executables for all addresses sampled. Deliberately, Intel PT is not 499decoded for that purpose (it would take too long). Instead the build ids for 500all executables encountered (due to mmap, comm or task events) are included 501in the perf.data file. 502 503To see buildids included in the perf.data file use the command: 504 505 perf buildid-list 506 507If the perf.data file contains Intel PT data, that is the same as: 508 509 perf buildid-list --with-hits 510 511 512Snapshot mode and event disabling 513--------------------------------- 514 515In order to make a snapshot, the intel_pt event is disabled using an IOCTL, 516namely PERF_EVENT_IOC_DISABLE. However doing that can also disable the 517collection of side-band information. In order to prevent that, a dummy 518software event has been introduced that permits tracking events (like mmaps) to 519continue to be recorded while intel_pt is disabled. That is important to ensure 520there is complete side-band information to allow the decoding of subsequent 521snapshots. 522 523A test has been created for that. To find the test: 524 525 perf test list 526 ... 527 23: Test using a dummy software event to keep tracking 528 529To run the test: 530 531 perf test 23 532 23: Test using a dummy software event to keep tracking : Ok 533 534 535perf record modes (nothing new here) 536------------------------------------ 537 538perf record essentially operates in one of three modes: 539 per thread 540 per cpu 541 workload only 542 543"per thread" mode is selected by -t or by --per-thread (with -p or -u or just a 544workload). 545"per cpu" is selected by -C or -a. 546"workload only" mode is selected by not using the other options but providing a 547command to run (i.e. the workload). 548 549In per-thread mode an exact list of threads is traced. There is no inheritance. 550Each thread has its own event buffer. 551 552In per-cpu mode all processes (or processes from the selected cgroup i.e. -G 553option, or processes selected with -p or -u) are traced. Each cpu has its own 554buffer. Inheritance is allowed. 555 556In workload-only mode, the workload is traced but with per-cpu buffers. 557Inheritance is allowed. Note that you can now trace a workload in per-thread 558mode by using the --per-thread option. 559 560 561Privileged vs non-privileged users 562---------------------------------- 563 564Unless /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid is set to -1, unprivileged users 565have memory limits imposed upon them. That affects what buffer sizes they can 566have as outlined above. 567 568Unless /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid is set to -1, unprivileged users are 569not permitted to use tracepoints which means there is insufficient side-band 570information to decode Intel PT in per-cpu mode, and potentially workload-only 571mode too if the workload creates new processes. 572 573Note also, that to use tracepoints, read-access to debugfs is required. So if 574debugfs is not mounted or the user does not have read-access, it will again not 575be possible to decode Intel PT in per-cpu mode. 576 577 578sched_switch tracepoint 579----------------------- 580 581The sched_switch tracepoint is used to provide side-band data for Intel PT 582decoding. sched_switch events are automatically added. e.g. the second event 583shown below 584 585 $ perf record -vv -e intel_pt//u uname 586 ------------------------------------------------------------ 587 perf_event_attr: 588 type 6 589 size 112 590 config 0x400 591 { sample_period, sample_freq } 1 592 sample_type IP|TID|TIME|CPU|IDENTIFIER 593 read_format ID 594 disabled 1 595 inherit 1 596 exclude_kernel 1 597 exclude_hv 1 598 enable_on_exec 1 599 sample_id_all 1 600 ------------------------------------------------------------ 601 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 0 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 602 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 1 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 603 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 2 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 604 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 3 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 605 ------------------------------------------------------------ 606 perf_event_attr: 607 type 2 608 size 112 609 config 0x108 610 { sample_period, sample_freq } 1 611 sample_type IP|TID|TIME|CPU|PERIOD|RAW|IDENTIFIER 612 read_format ID 613 inherit 1 614 sample_id_all 1 615 exclude_guest 1 616 ------------------------------------------------------------ 617 sys_perf_event_open: pid -1 cpu 0 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 618 sys_perf_event_open: pid -1 cpu 1 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 619 sys_perf_event_open: pid -1 cpu 2 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 620 sys_perf_event_open: pid -1 cpu 3 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 621 ------------------------------------------------------------ 622 perf_event_attr: 623 type 1 624 size 112 625 config 0x9 626 { sample_period, sample_freq } 1 627 sample_type IP|TID|TIME|IDENTIFIER 628 read_format ID 629 disabled 1 630 inherit 1 631 exclude_kernel 1 632 exclude_hv 1 633 mmap 1 634 comm 1 635 enable_on_exec 1 636 task 1 637 sample_id_all 1 638 mmap2 1 639 comm_exec 1 640 ------------------------------------------------------------ 641 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 0 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 642 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 1 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 643 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 2 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 644 sys_perf_event_open: pid 31104 cpu 3 group_fd -1 flags 0x8 645 mmap size 528384B 646 AUX area mmap length 4194304 647 perf event ring buffer mmapped per cpu 648 Synthesizing auxtrace information 649 Linux 650 [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ] 651 [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.042 MB perf.data ] 652 653Note, the sched_switch event is only added if the user is permitted to use it 654and only in per-cpu mode. 655 656Note also, the sched_switch event is only added if TSC packets are requested. 657That is because, in the absence of timing information, the sched_switch events 658cannot be matched against the Intel PT trace. 659 660 661perf script 662=========== 663 664By default, perf script will decode trace data found in the perf.data file. 665This can be further controlled by new option --itrace. 666 667 668New --itrace option 669------------------- 670 671Having no option is the same as 672 673 --itrace 674 675which, in turn, is the same as 676 677 --itrace=ibxe 678 679The letters are: 680 681 i synthesize "instructions" events 682 b synthesize "branches" events 683 x synthesize "transactions" events 684 c synthesize branches events (calls only) 685 r synthesize branches events (returns only) 686 e synthesize tracing error events 687 d create a debug log 688 g synthesize a call chain (use with i or x) 689 690"Instructions" events look like they were recorded by "perf record -e 691instructions". 692 693"Branches" events look like they were recorded by "perf record -e branches". "c" 694and "r" can be combined to get calls and returns. 695 696"Transactions" events correspond to the start or end of transactions. The 697'flags' field can be used in perf script to determine whether the event is a 698tranasaction start, commit or abort. 699 700Error events are new. They show where the decoder lost the trace. Error events 701are quite important. Users must know if what they are seeing is a complete 702picture or not. 703 704The "d" option will cause the creation of a file "intel_pt.log" containing all 705decoded packets and instructions. Note that this option slows down the decoder 706and that the resulting file may be very large. 707 708In addition, the period of the "instructions" event can be specified. e.g. 709 710 --itrace=i10us 711 712sets the period to 10us i.e. one instruction sample is synthesized for each 10 713microseconds of trace. Alternatives to "us" are "ms" (milliseconds), 714"ns" (nanoseconds), "t" (TSC ticks) or "i" (instructions). 715 716"ms", "us" and "ns" are converted to TSC ticks. 717 718The timing information included with Intel PT does not give the time of every 719instruction. Consequently, for the purpose of sampling, the decoder estimates 720the time since the last timing packet based on 1 tick per instruction. The time 721on the sample is *not* adjusted and reflects the last known value of TSC. 722 723For Intel PT, the default period is 100us. 724 725Also the call chain size (default 16, max. 1024) for instructions or 726transactions events can be specified. e.g. 727 728 --itrace=ig32 729 --itrace=xg32 730 731To disable trace decoding entirely, use the option --no-itrace. 732 733 734dump option 735----------- 736 737perf script has an option (-D) to "dump" the events i.e. display the binary 738data. 739 740When -D is used, Intel PT packets are displayed. The packet decoder does not 741pay attention to PSB packets, but just decodes the bytes - so the packets seen 742by the actual decoder may not be identical in places where the data is corrupt. 743One example of that would be when the buffer-switching interrupt has been too 744slow, and the buffer has been filled completely. In that case, the last packet 745in the buffer might be truncated and immediately followed by a PSB as the trace 746continues in the next buffer. 747 748To disable the display of Intel PT packets, combine the -D option with 749--no-itrace. 750 751 752perf report 753=========== 754 755By default, perf report will decode trace data found in the perf.data file. 756This can be further controlled by new option --itrace exactly the same as 757perf script, with the exception that the default is --itrace=igxe. 758 759 760perf inject 761=========== 762 763perf inject also accepts the --itrace option in which case tracing data is 764removed and replaced with the synthesized events. e.g. 765 766 perf inject --itrace -i perf.data -o perf.data.new 767