perf: 'archive' is not a perf-command

Hello,

I am experimenting with the performance tools on Ubuntu 12.04 and I am getting this weird error. Here is the environment:

$ perf --version
perf version 3.2.30

$perf archive
perf: 'archive' is not a perf-command. See 'perf --help'.

$perf --help

usage: perf [--version] [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]

The most commonly used perf commands are:
annotate Read perf.data (created by perf record) and display
annotated code
archive Create archive with object files with build-ids found
in perf.data file
bench General framework for benchmark suites
...

Is this a known bug in this version? Older versions seem to recognize the archive command.

Thanks!

Florin

Hello,

I am having difficulties while trying to archive the performance information from one machine so I can parse it on another. Here is my setup:

I have two machines, say m1 and m2 and I want to profile my executable on m1 and see the report on m2. Both m1 and m2 run the same OS: CentOS 6:

$uname -a
Linux florin-vm-cent6 2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Jun 22 12:19:21 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I run my perf record this way:

$sudo perf record -g -a mytest

After the recording is done when I check the build-ids collected in the report I see only the system modules in there:

$ sudo perf buildid-list -i perf.data

3dfb468e07d40879575e016e8999a25ee2694792 [kernel.kallsyms] caea6ee6167bf7c214c1008179879ff8ac2447b6 /lib/modules/2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64/kernel/fs/ext4/ext4.ko 2eba2e1710dd909986d1a5f5b27720f476fc6a74 /lib/modules/2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64/kernel/fs/jbd2/jbd2.ko 4c37e276cd23f0877af7587ed1f699aadb741ec9 /lib64/libc-2.12.so 48a9f8600f0a15f6418ede25846c324ec8891dd4 /lib64/libpthread-2.12.so 42aefafc23375dc250c49c420c37edc4515b9c02 /lib64/ld-2.12.so bf14593d7915402aa62c2573fccdb252aeebf754 /lib64/libm-2.12.so ee85ac5f03ac14df9dcc93b6b57cb65a208f1933 /lib64/libgobject-2.0.so.0.2200.5 545c98f5fd1fb2c21bf35c621d9760e698dce1f8 /usr/lib64/libXrender.so.1.3.0 b88f3388cedb5fd906faccbb3febd81cf541273c /usr/bin/Xorg 2b40e6807e9482617b35b1c4a7e6e908a0e1bfc6 /usr/lib64/libpixman-1.so.0.18.4 91fd6a6700be179c5679b23ea0908f0b10e82537 /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/libfb.so bfaebdeecb20d4e8a842a4b3daeab93bbd3caaf3 /usr/lib64/libcairo.so.2.10800.8 8f5f1b5e9d1b4ca655c88c84704b3b9b705c245f /usr/lib64/libvte.so.9.2501.0 534663464360e8d2157395f397352d28742ba45e /usr/bin/perf d578a8e6cf05018d25168822e4cdfd780abf4a4e /usr/sbin/lsof

The funny thing is that "perf report -g" gives me symbols for mytest binary and all its shared libs like it is reading it from someplace else.

I compiled my code with -fno-omit-frame-pointer and "-Wl,--build-id".

If I issue a "sudo perf archive" and then expand the archive file that was generated I see the same files as above in the archive (i.e. none of my binaries). After moving the perf file and the symbol archive to m2 and use perf report on it I see symbols only for the kernel and system libraries.

So it seems that "perf archive" doesn't store all the information that "perf report" is able to read on m1 so when I try to generate a report on m2 from the samples collected on m1 I miss the symbols for my binaries.

Thanks in advance for shedding any light on this issue. The new perf tools seems very cool - I just wish there would be more information online for it.

Florin

For other poor souls out there searching for answers: the fix was to add "-Wl,--build-id" to my linker flags.

If your binaries are not compiled with this option, they will not be archived by perf archive command.

(Oh, and you should also be using the -fno-omit-frame-pointer compile flag as well on x64).

Hello? Anybody?