why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Noel Grandin]

Hi

I am running

$ perf record --call-graph=dwarf,32000 my_program.bin

quite a lot.

Until a couple of days ago, I would do this, hit ctrl-C, it would
finish writing stuff to disk in a few seconds, and then I would
proceed with using KDAB hotspot to analyse the data.

Then I did a routine 'apt update' of my ubuntu box, and now....

Now, it takes 30+ minutes before perf exits, and it is spending all of
that time running addr2line.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Noel Grandin

Re: why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2026 at 09:24:47PM +0200, Noel Grandin wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I am running
> 
> $ perf record --call-graph=dwarf,32000 my_program.bin
> 
> quite a lot.
> 
> Until a couple of days ago, I would do this, hit ctrl-C, it would
> finish writing stuff to disk in a few seconds, and then I would
> proceed with using KDAB hotspot to analyse the data.
> 
> Then I did a routine 'apt update' of my ubuntu box, and now....
 
> Now, it takes 30+ minutes before perf exits, and it is spending all of
> that time running addr2line.

Are you sure? addr2line can be used when using '-s srcline' or '-s
srcfile', but then in 'perf report', not on record.

Doing some systemwide recording here I don't see such calls to
addr2line, be it the function inside perf or the addr2line utility:

root@number:/# perf probe -x ~/bin/perf addr2line
Added new event:
  probe_perf:addr2line (on addr2line in /home/acme/bin/perf)

You can now use it in all perf tools, such as:

	perf record -e probe_perf:addr2line -aR sleep 1

root@number:/# perf trace -e execve,probe_perf:addr2line perf record --call-graph=dwarf,32000
         ? (         ): perf/1708890  ... [continued]: execve())                                           = 0
^C[ perf record: Woken up 302 times to write data ]
root@number:/# ls -[ perf record: Captured and wrote 89.499 MB perf.data (5420 samples) ]
la perf.data
-rw-------. 1 root root 93924024 Feb  9 16:37 perf.data
root@number:/# ls -lah perf.data
-rw-------. 1 root root 90M Feb  9 16:37 perf.data
root@number:/# perf evlist -v
cpu/cycles/P: type: 0 (PERF_TYPE_HARDWARE), size: 144, config: 0 (PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES), { sample_period, sample_freq }: 4000, sample_type: IP|TID|TIME|CALLCHAIN|CPU|PERIOD|REGS_USER|STACK_USER|IDENTIFIER, read_format: ID|LOST, disabled: 1, freq: 1, precise_ip: 2, sample_id_all: 1, exclude_callchain_user: 1, sample_regs_user: 0xff0fff, sample_stack_user: 32000
dummy:u: type: 1 (PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE), size: 144, config: 0x9 (PERF_COUNT_SW_DUMMY), { sample_period, sample_freq }: 1, sample_type: IP|TID|TIME|CPU|IDENTIFIER, read_format: ID|LOST, exclude_kernel: 1, exclude_hv: 1, mmap: 1, comm: 1, task: 1, mmap_data: 1, sample_id_all: 1, exclude_guest: 1, mmap2: 1, comm_exec: 1, ksymbol: 1, bpf_event: 1, build_id: 1
root@number:/#
 
> Any ideas?

Can you give more details? Do you have anything in ~/.perfconfig, etc?
 
> Thanks, Noel Grandin

Re: why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Noel Grandin]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 at 21:39, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org> wrote:
> Are you sure? addr2line can be used when using '-s srcline' or '-s
> srcfile', but then in 'perf report', not on record.
>

Yeah, that is what confused me too. I can see the addr2line
sub-processes show up in ps.

For example, if I do ps -ef, I see stuff like:

noel     1259058  199773 10 13:45 pts/4    00:00:01
/usr/lib/linux-tools/6.17.0-14-generic/perf record
--call-graph=dwarf,32000 --pid=1258658
noel     1259067 1259058 42 13:45 pts/4    00:00:01 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/40/d2427b70abca4c5530fc6abe4b64acfe039146/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259068 1259058  9 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/99/2e0e9c5b545f70d957da48ca4fa0062cc086c9/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259069 1259058  2 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/71/9539027bc2d800b08810a3847206e283f8f347/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259070 1259058 22 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/38/2eb792f7961162be41274fa3c1aae864f9cde7/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259071 1259058 11 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/ed/fe3aec8836926683342a0efcb4d8e44eb8521a/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259072 1259058 41 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/e8/fc08b1b0ce4130c26f40b13470d484fc2f6f55/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259074 1259058  1 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/f4/8422093b1a8f666e0ef64ff6a3842d83206274/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259075 1259058  2 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/55/43d41f3e8e476763d436e15d5a8e287d7ea677/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259076 1259058  0 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/74/eaf539c3959f449ac8bd93ff882cd7b2990290/elf
-a -i -f
noel     1259077 1259058  5 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
/home/noel/.debug/.build-id/8e/9fd827446c24067541ac5390e6f527fb5947bb/debug
-a -i -f

> Can you give more details? Do you have anything in ~/.perfconfig, etc?

I do not have such a file.

Note that in this case I am not doing system-wide profiling, just
profiling a single process.

Thanks, Noel Grandin

Re: why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Namhyung Kim]

Hello,

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 01:47:02PM +0200, Noel Grandin wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 at 21:39, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org> wrote:
> > Are you sure? addr2line can be used when using '-s srcline' or '-s
> > srcfile', but then in 'perf report', not on record.
> >
> 
> Yeah, that is what confused me too. I can see the addr2line
> sub-processes show up in ps.
> 
> For example, if I do ps -ef, I see stuff like:
> 
> noel     1259058  199773 10 13:45 pts/4    00:00:01
> /usr/lib/linux-tools/6.17.0-14-generic/perf record
> --call-graph=dwarf,32000 --pid=1258658
> noel     1259067 1259058 42 13:45 pts/4    00:00:01 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/40/d2427b70abca4c5530fc6abe4b64acfe039146/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259068 1259058  9 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/99/2e0e9c5b545f70d957da48ca4fa0062cc086c9/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259069 1259058  2 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/71/9539027bc2d800b08810a3847206e283f8f347/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259070 1259058 22 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/38/2eb792f7961162be41274fa3c1aae864f9cde7/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259071 1259058 11 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/ed/fe3aec8836926683342a0efcb4d8e44eb8521a/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259072 1259058 41 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/e8/fc08b1b0ce4130c26f40b13470d484fc2f6f55/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259074 1259058  1 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/f4/8422093b1a8f666e0ef64ff6a3842d83206274/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259075 1259058  2 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/55/43d41f3e8e476763d436e15d5a8e287d7ea677/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259076 1259058  0 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/74/eaf539c3959f449ac8bd93ff882cd7b2990290/elf
> -a -i -f
> noel     1259077 1259058  5 13:45 pts/4    00:00:00 addr2line -e
> /home/noel/.debug/.build-id/8e/9fd827446c24067541ac5390e6f527fb5947bb/debug
> -a -i -f
> 
> > Can you give more details? Do you have anything in ~/.perfconfig, etc?
> 
> I do not have such a file.

That's ok and it means you don't have any specific config.

> 
> Note that in this case I am not doing system-wide profiling, just
> profiling a single process.

I think we turned on (since v6.17) the build-id collection on the
callstacks (commit 29be60c93d2d9300) at the end of perf record.
That may run addr2line to get inlined functions.

There's a recent change to use libdw to speed up inline function
processing.  But it's gonna take some time to land on the distro.

In the meantime, I think you can disable the build-ID entirely with -B
option.

Thanks,
Namhyung

Re: why is 'perf record --call-graph' using addr2line?

[Noel Grandin]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2026 at 04:05, Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> In the meantime, I think you can disable the build-ID entirely with -B
> option.
>


Aha! Thank you all very much, that indeed fixes my problem.