[PATCH] perf evsel: Improve frame pointer unwinding warning for s390
From: Jens Remus
Date: Fri Aug 07 2026 - 06:56:01 EST
On s390 the kernel uses s390 back chain instead of frame pointers for
stack tracing of user space since v6.7 commit aa44433ac4ee ("s390: add
USER_STACKTRACE support"). This is because frame pointers on s390
cannot be used for stack tracing. [1]
This requires user space to maintain a s390 back chain. For instance
user space to be built with compiler option '-mbackchain' (instead of
'-fno-omit-frame-pointer' used on other architectures, which should
better not be used on s390 [1]).
Only few distributions and users built user space with '-mbackchain'.
Therefore '--call-graph fp' may not produce the expected results.
Commit ca76fb67ebdd ("perf evlist: Improve default event for s390")
added a warning for s390 that wrongly claimed that "Framepointer
unwinding lacks kernel support". Change the warning to hint at using
'--call-graph dwarf' if user space does not maintain a s390 back chain.
Note that '--call-graph fp' may also be useful for other applications,
such as OpenJDK maintaining a s390 back chain (does not require JVM
option '-XX:+PreserveFramePointer' on s390):
$ perf record --call-graph fp ... -- \
java -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+DumpPerfMapAtExit ...
[1]: s390: Stack tracing using Frame Pointer, Back Chain, and SFrame,
https://conf.gnu-tools-cauldron.org/opo25/talk/Y3CVHY/
Fixes: ca76fb67ebdd ("perf evlist: Improve default event for s390")
Signed-off-by: Jens Remus <jremus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
tools/perf/util/evsel.c | 3 ++-
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/tools/perf/util/evsel.c b/tools/perf/util/evsel.c
index ea9fa04429f0..c4d67d1b35f3 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/evsel.c
+++ b/tools/perf/util/evsel.c
@@ -1080,7 +1080,8 @@ static void __evsel__config_callchain(struct evsel *evsel, const struct record_o
if (EM_HOST == EM_S390 && param->record_mode == CALLCHAIN_FP) {
pr_warning_once(
- "Framepointer unwinding lacks kernel support. Use '--call-graph dwarf'\n");
+ "Use '--call-graph dwarf' if user space does not maintain a s390 back chain "
+ "(e.g. is not built with '-mbackchain').\n");
}
evsel__set_sample_bit(evsel, CALLCHAIN);
base-commit: f9a2394a23482bfd330911e9c8295b71724feacd
--
2.53.0