[PATCH v10 0/9] perf tools: Add progress diagnostics and a false-sharing workload

From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo

Date: Sun Oct 04 2026 - 06:24:11 EST


Hi,

This series adds progress and stuck-process diagnostics to perf, and a
workload that makes false sharing visible to data type profiling.

The changes are:

- move perf_config__set_variable() to util/config.c and serialize config
parser and read-modify-write state, so non-builtin perf code can persist
configuration changes safely;

- add 'perf report --progress' for stdio users, showing the current phase,
percentage, and counts while a session is processed;

- wire up 'perf report --no-progress', the counterpart of the option
above, for the TUI and GTK browsers, whose progress there is no other
way to turn off;

- add the prototype tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh helper, which samples
a running perf process and can invoke the accompanying GDB commands when
progress stops;

- add 'perf test -w false_sharing', a synthetic TCP-shaped workload with
identity and packet counters sharing a cacheline, and include it in the
data type profiling shell test.

Follow up work: the DO_ONCE() one-time init primitive added here mirrors
what the eight pre-existing raw pthread_once() users in util/ (annotate.c,
callchain.c, comm.c, dso.c, fncache.c, intel-tpebs.c, libbfd.c, pmus.c)
need, conversions that will also exercise the DEFINE_MUTEX() static
initializer; converting them is left for after this series.
Best regards,

- Arnaldo

What changed from v9:

- tools/perf/ui/stdio/progress.c: progress updates now work well with
the pager, printed to /dev/tty so they update in place;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh: take the last progress update
from a bounded tail window, dropping the \r's. Sashiko, v9;

What changed from v8:

- tools/perf/util/mutex.h: DEFINE_MUTEX() statics keep mutex_init()'s
!NDEBUG errorcheck type;

- patch 4/9 commit log: clarify the acquire/release pairing, what the
dropped static key used to guarantee.

What changed from v7:

- tools/perf/util/mutex.h: the DO_ONCE() lockless fast path pairs its
__ATOMIC_ACQUIRE load with the __ATOMIC_RELEASE store. sashiko, v7;

What changed from v6:

- patch 1/5 split into four: the move, perf_etc_perfconfig() never
returning NULL, the DEFINE_MUTEX() prep and the serialization.
Namhyung Kim asked, v6;

- tools/perf/util/{config.c,mutex.h}: perf's own mutex type, adding
the DEFINE_MUTEX() initializer it lacked. Namhyung Kim, v6;

- tools/perf/util/mutex.h: add DO_ONCE() one-time init, from the
kernel's once.h, moving the lazy inits in config.c to it;

- tools/perf/builtin-report.c: drop the option negation and stdio
hook comments Namhyung Kim asked to drop, reviewing v6;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb: break the long printf() line.
Namhyung Kim, reviewing v6;

- the false_sharing cset now carries the data type profiling output
with cacheline info. Namhyung Kim asked for it, reviewing v6.

What changed from v5:

- tools/perf/util/config.c: drop the config_file_name read in
bad_config(), locking would buy a consistent NULL. Sashiko, v5;

- tools/perf/util/config.c: new config_set_mutex around the shared
set's init/teardown, home init via pthread_once. Sashiko, v5;

- tools/perf/builtin-report.c, perf-report.txt: --no-progress is
--progress's auto negation, last wins. Namhyung Kim, reviewing v5.

What changed from v4:

- tools/perf/builtin-report.c: mark --progress PARSE_OPT_NOAUTONEG,
parse_long_opt() claimed --no-progress first. Sashiko, v4;

- tools/perf/util/config.c: format the path buffer inside the critical
section. Sashiko pointed out the window, reviewing v4;

- tools/perf/tests/workloads/false_sharing.c: walk every bit of the
affinity mask, not _SC_NPROCESSORS_CONF. Sashiko, reviewing v4.

What changed from v3:

- tools/perf/util/config.c: keep the buffer handed to the parser in
static storage. Sashiko, reviewing v3;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb: perf-dso walks each dso candidate
until one evaluates, for REFCNT_CHECKING builds. Sashiko, v3;

- tools/perf/tests/workloads/false_sharing.c: sum before cpu in struct
fs_reader, the padding after cpu rounded it to 128. Sashiko, v3;

- tools/perf/builtin-report.c: --quiet wins over --progress, the phases
stay uncounted, documented next to it. Namhyung Kim, v3;

- tools/perf/builtin-report.c, tools/perf/ui/progress.c: --no-progress
installs the no-op ops. Suggested by Namhyung Kim, reviewing v3;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh: check gdb is there before
watching. Namhyung Kim, reviewing v3.

What changed from v2:

- tools/perf/util/config.c: make perf_etc_perfconfig() total, falling
back to the unresolved path. Sashiko, reviewing v2;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb: don't deref map_symbol.sym without
a NULL check. Sashiko, reviewing v2;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb: note the REFCNT_CHECKING proxy
next to the structure walks;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh: count samples with no progress to
look at, an empty log never fired -g;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh: `--` for pgrep and tail against
names starting with a hyphen;

- tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh: bound the gdb run with
`timeout --signal=INT 30`.

What changed from v1:

- avoid calling CPU_SET() with -1 when false_sharing runs with only one
CPU available in its affinity mask.

tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt | 19 ++
tools/perf/builtin-config.c | 70 +----
tools/perf/builtin-report.c | 9 +
tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb | 131 +++++++++
tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh | 199 ++++++++++++++
tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c | 1 +
tools/perf/tests/shell/data_type_profiling.sh | 9 +-
tools/perf/tests/tests.h | 1 +
tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build | 2 +
tools/perf/tests/workloads/false_sharing.c | 251 ++++++++++++++++++
tools/perf/ui/Build | 1 +
tools/perf/ui/progress.c | 6 +
tools/perf/ui/progress.h | 4 +
tools/perf/ui/stdio/progress.c | 162 +++++++++++
tools/perf/util/config.c | 166 ++++++++++--
tools/perf/util/config.h | 2 +
tools/perf/util/mutex.h | 36 +++
tools/perf/util/ordered-events.c | 16 +-
tools/perf/util/session.c | 12 +-
19 files changed, 997 insertions(+), 100 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.gdb
create mode 100755 tools/perf/scripts/perf-stuck.sh
create mode 100644 tools/perf/tests/workloads/false_sharing.c
create mode 100644 tools/perf/ui/stdio/progress.c
base-commit: 705da5b15ab89ba9
v1-head: 45d7917f7e05e8a29828ed5f0bbdc94fc938f79f
v2-head: d4f84e4de8890194924ccd897a8e6773e7d4240b
v3-head: 485532296710225862daf8ffb19802ae327efe2a
v4-head: 38193635508e0a5f04a6ebf70db27534b68b2d5b
v5-head: e99bc48f6c72b9cc67b4e4143a0364acac5523bb
v6-head: 7dc99dbb6504f199c3c39487d91370d1bbb7a827
v7-head: b357a76666d08f74eb99c755cca41855a96f6169
v8-head: 257b5ea6115ad5126d2c881523ea6c660cf5d28c
v9-head: 70235104c6cf7d18d91f46de1a233abbeb65893a
--