Analyzing CPU Usage with Perf (2) - using perf and read flamgraph

Decide a Sampling Frequency

Perf is a sampling based analyzer. So, the amount of sampled data must be enough to produce reliable result.
The higher sampling frequency you use, the shorter sampling time it takes, and vice versa.

The sampling frequency is suggested to be an odd number lower than 99.
Currently, we suggest sampling at 61 hertz for 180 seconds.

Note

Perf is doing best effort sampling. So total samples will be less than “sample frequency multiplies sampling time”.

Profiling the Whole System

Using perf to record system activity for 180 seconds at 61 hertz sampling rate, both user- and kernel-level stacks are samples.
Save the perf output to the RAM disk /tmp to reduce system overhead.

$ perf record -F 61 -a -g -o /tmp/whole_system.data -- sleep 180
$ perf script -i /tmp/whole_system.data > $NFS/whole_system.perf

Profiling One Process

Using perf to record process activity for 180 seconds at 61 hertz sampling rate, both user- and kernel-level stacks are samples.
Save the perf output to the RAM disk /tmp to reduce system overhead.

$ perf record -F 61 -p <PID> -g -o /tmp/process_name.data -- sleep 180
$ perf script -i /tmp/process_name.data > $NFS/process_name.perf

Using Perf for to collect data.

Sample on-CPU functions for the specified command, at 61 Hertz.
$ perf record -F 61 <command>

Sample on-CPU functions for the specified PID, at 61 Hertz, until Ctrl-C.
$ perf record -F 61