All of lore.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
To: irogers@google.com, acme@kernel.org, namhyung@kernel.org
Cc: adrian.hunter@intel.com, james.clark@linaro.org,
	jolsa@kernel.org,  linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org,  mingo@redhat.com,
	peterz@infradead.org, tshah@linux.ibm.com
Subject: [PATCH v2] perf evlist: Warn when 'sleep' workload is used without system-wide (-a) option
Date: Wed,  5 Aug 2026 21:14:14 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260806041414.20327-1-irogers@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260806021038.2291417-1-irogers@google.com>

A common mistake when trying to record system-wide profiles for a given
duration is running commands like 'perf record sleep 1' or 'perf stat
sleep 1' without passing '-a' / '--all-cpus'. When '-a' is omitted, perf
defaults to per-process monitoring of the sleep process itself, which
does not collect system-wide activity and records very few events.

Add a warning in evlist__prepare_workload() when the workload executable
is 'sleep' and system-wide mode is not enabled.

Assisted-by: Antigravity:gemini-3.6-flash
Signed-off-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>
---
 tools/perf/util/evlist.c | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/tools/perf/util/evlist.c b/tools/perf/util/evlist.c
index eb7c0d7be064..b3dd097fbb2c 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/evlist.c
+++ b/tools/perf/util/evlist.c
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 #include <inttypes.h>
 #include <signal.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
+#include <string.h>
 
 #include <fcntl.h>
 #include <linux/bitops.h>
@@ -1562,6 +1563,20 @@ int evlist__prepare_workload(struct evlist *evlist, struct target *target, const
 	int child_ready_pipe[2], go_pipe[2];
 	char bf;
 
+	if (argv && argv[0] && target && target__none(target)) {
+		const char *cmd = strrchr(argv[0], '/');
+
+		if (cmd)
+			cmd++;
+		else
+			cmd = argv[0];
+
+		if (!strcmp(cmd, "sleep")) {
+			ui__warning("workload '%s' specified without the system-wide (-a) option\n",
+				    cmd);
+		}
+	}
+
 	evlist__set_workload_cork_fd(evlist, -1);
 
 	if (pipe(child_ready_pipe) < 0) {
-- 
2.55.0.629.g250fe7f194-goog


      parent reply	other threads:[~2026-08-06  4:14 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-08-06  2:10 [PATCH v1] perf evlist: Warn when 'sleep' workload is used without system-wide (-a) option Ian Rogers
2026-08-06  2:19 ` sashiko-bot
2026-08-06  4:14 ` Ian Rogers [this message]

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20260806041414.20327-1-irogers@google.com \
    --to=irogers@google.com \
    --cc=acme@kernel.org \
    --cc=adrian.hunter@intel.com \
    --cc=james.clark@linaro.org \
    --cc=jolsa@kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=mingo@redhat.com \
    --cc=namhyung@kernel.org \
    --cc=peterz@infradead.org \
    --cc=tshah@linux.ibm.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.