PERF-BENCH(1)

📦
version 7.3.1 · 42 versions
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💅 perf-bench(1) — the general framework for benchmark suites

okay bestie, welcome to the perf bench page from the perf Manual ✨ this one's literally the plug for all the benchmark suites — pull up a chair, we're gonna speedrun it together 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

perf-bench — General framework for benchmark suites. that's it, that's the vibe 💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

perf bench [<common options>] <subsystem> <suite> [<options>]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so, the perf bench command is a general framework for benchmark suites. it's the main character that holds all the individual benchmarks together 👑

💅 COMMON OPTIONS 💅

the ones everybody gets, no matter which suite you're running:

  • -r, --repeat= — specify number of times to repeat the run (default 10). yes, ten. she's thorough 🍓
  • -f, --format= — specify format style. the format styles currently available are, and I quote:
    • default — Default style. This is mainly for human reading. i.e. it's giving readable 😌
% perf bench sched pipe                      # with no style specified
(executing 1000000 pipe operations between two tasks)
        Total time:5.855 sec
                5.855061 usecs/op
                170792 ops/sec
  • simple — This simple style is friendly for automated processing by scripts. iykyk, scripts love a bare number 🤖
% perf bench --format=simple sched pipe      # specified simple
5.988

🦋 SUBSYSTEM 🦋

here's the menu of subsystems, pick your fighter:

  • sched — Scheduler and IPC mechanisms.
  • syscall — System call performance (throughput).
  • mem — Memory access performance.
  • numa — NUMA scheduling and MM benchmarks.
  • futex — Futex stressing benchmarks.
  • epoll — Eventpoll (epoll) stressing benchmarks.
  • internals — Benchmark internal perf functionality.
  • uprobe — Benchmark overhead of uprobe + BPF.
  • all — All benchmark subsystems. the "give me everything" option, periodt 💀

🌈 SUITES FOR sched 🌈

messaging

Suite for evaluating performance of scheduler and IPC mechanisms. Based on hackbench by Rusty Russell. iconic lineage fr fr 👑

Options of messaging

  • -p, --pipe — Use pipe() instead of socketpair()
  • -t, --thread — Be multi thread instead of multi process
  • -g, --group= — Specify number of groups
  • -l, --nr_loops= — Specify number of loops

Example of messaging

% perf bench sched messaging                 # run with default
options (20 sender and receiver processes per group)
(10 groups == 400 processes run)

      Total time:0.308 sec

% perf bench sched messaging -t -g 20        # be multi-thread, with 20 groups
(20 sender and receiver threads per group)
(20 groups == 800 threads run)

      Total time:0.582 sec

pipe

Suite for pipe() system call. Based on pipe-test-1m.c by Ingo Molnar. a classic, no cap ✨

Options of pipe

  • -l, --loop= — Specify number of loops.
  • -G, --cgroups= — Names of cgroups for sender and receiver, separated by a comma. This is useful to check cgroup context switching overhead. Note that perf doesn't create nor delete the cgroups, so users should make sure that the cgroups exist and are accessible before use.
⚠️ real talk: perf does not create or delete those cgroups for you. so double check they exist and are accessible before you run anything, or you're gonna have a bad time 😭

Example of pipe

% perf bench sched pipe
(executing 1000000 pipe operations between two tasks)

        Total time:8.091 sec
                8.091833 usecs/op
                123581 ops/sec

% perf bench sched pipe -l 1000              # loop 1000
(executing 1000 pipe operations between two tasks)

        Total time:0.016 sec
                16.948000 usecs/op
                59004 ops/sec

% perf bench sched pipe -G AAA,BBB
(executing 1000000 pipe operations between cgroups)
# Running 'sched/pipe' benchmark:
# Executed 1000000 pipe operations between two processes

     Total time: 6.886 [sec]

       6.886208 usecs/op
         145217 ops/sec

🧚 SUITES FOR syscall 🧚

basic

Suite for evaluating performance of core system call throughput (both usecs/op and ops/sec metrics). This uses a single thread simply doing getppid(2), which is a simple syscall where the result is not cached by glibc. one thread, one syscall, immaculate focus 💜

🌸 SUITES FOR mem 🌸

memcpy

Suite for evaluating performance of simple memory copy in various ways.

Options of memcpy

  • -s, --size — Specify size of memory to copy (default: 1MB). Available units are B, KB, MB, GB and TB (case insensitive).
  • -p, --page — Specify page-size for mapping memory buffers (default: 4KB). Available values are 4KB, 2MB, 1GB (case insensitive).
  • -k, --chunk — Specify the chunk-size for each invocation. (default: 0, or full-extent) Available units are B, KB, MB, GB and TB (case insensitive).
  • -f, --function — Specify function to copy (default: default). Available functions are depend on the architecture. On x86-64, x86-64-unrolled, x86-64-movsq and x86-64-movsb are supported.
  • -l, --nr_loops — Repeat memcpy invocation this number of times.
  • -c, --cycles — Use perf's cpu-cycles event instead of gettimeofday syscall.

memset

Suite for evaluating performance of simple memory set in various ways.

Options of memset

  • -s, --size — Specify size of memory to set (default: 1MB). Available units are B, KB, MB, GB and TB (case insensitive).
  • -p, --page — Specify page-size for mapping memory buffers (default: 4KB). Available values are 4KB, 2MB, 1GB (case insensitive).
  • -k, --chunk — Specify the chunk-size for each invocation. (default: 0, or full-extent) Available units are B, KB, MB, GB and TB (case insensitive).
  • -f, --function — Specify function to set (default: default). Available functions are depend on the architecture. On x86-64, x86-64-unrolled, x86-64-stosq and x86-64-stosb are supported.
  • -l, --nr_loops — Repeat memset invocation this number of times.
  • -c, --cycles — Use perf's cpu-cycles event instead of gettimeofday syscall.

mmap

Suite for evaluating memory subsystem performance for mmap()'d memory.

Options of mmap

  • -s, --size — Specify size of memory to set (default: 1MB). Available units are B, KB, MB, GB and TB (case insensitive).
  • -p, --page — Specify page-size for mapping memory buffers (default: 4KB). Available values are 4KB, 2MB, 1GB (case insensitive).
  • -r, --randomize — Specify seed to randomize page access offset (default: 0, or not randomized).
  • -f, --function — Specify function to set (default: all). Available functions are demand and populate, with the first demand faulting pages in the region and the second using an eager mapping.
  • -l, --nr_loops — Repeat mmap() invocation this number of times.
  • -c, --cycles — Use perf's cpu-cycles event instead of gettimeofday syscall.
  • -t, --threads=<NUM> — Create multiple threads to call mmap/munmap concurrently.

💜 SUITES FOR numa 💜

  • mem — Suite for evaluating NUMA workloads.

🔥 SUITES FOR futex 🔥

  • hash — Suite for evaluating hash tables.
  • wake — Suite for evaluating wake calls.
  • wake-parallel — Suite for evaluating parallel wake calls.
  • requeue — Suite for evaluating requeue calls.
  • lock-pi — Suite for evaluating futex lock_pi calls.

🎀 SUITES FOR epoll 🎀

  • wait — Suite for evaluating concurrent epoll_wait calls.
  • ctl — Suite for evaluating multiple epoll_ctl calls.

⭐ SUITES FOR internals ⭐

  • synthesize — Suite for evaluating perf's event synthesis performance.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

  • perf(1) — go read the big one too, bestie 🫶

and that's the whole page, you ate that 💅 perf, dated 10/31/2026 — this page is literally labeled PERF-BENCH(1), slay ✨

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