Manual: perf-amd-ibs
PERF-AMD-IBS(1) perf Manual PERF-AMD-IBS(1)
NAME
perf-amd-ibs - Support for AMD Instruction-Based Sampling (IBS) with perf tool
SYNOPSIS
perf record -e ibs_op//
perf record -e ibs_fetch//
DESCRIPTION
Instruction-Based Sampling (IBS) provides precise Instruction Pointer (IP) profiling support on AMD platforms. IBS
has two independent components: IBS Op and IBS Fetch. IBS Op sampling provides information about instruction
execution (micro-op execution to be precise) with details like d-cache hit/miss, d-TLB hit/miss, cache miss latency,
load/store data source, branch behavior etc. IBS Fetch sampling provides information about instruction fetch with
details like i-cache hit/miss, i-TLB hit/miss, fetch latency etc. IBS is per-smt-thread i.e. each SMT hardware thread
contains standalone IBS units.
Both, IBS Op and IBS Fetch, are exposed as PMUs by Linux and can be exploited using the Linux perf utility. The
following files will be created at boot time if IBS is supported by the hardware and kernel.
/sys/bus/event_source/devices/ibs_op/
/sys/bus/event_source/devices/ibs_fetch/
IBS Op PMU supports two events: cycles and micro ops. IBS Fetch PMU supports one event: fetch ops.
IBS PMUs do not have user/kernel filtering capability and thus it requires CAP_SYS_ADMIN or CAP_PERFMON privilege.
IBS VS. REGULAR CORE PMU
IBS gives samples with precise IP, i.e. the IP recorded with IBS sample has no skid. Whereas the IP recorded by
regular core PMU will have some skid (sample was generated at IP X but perf would record it at IP X+n). Hence,
regular core PMU might not help for profiling with instruction level precision. Further, IBS provides additional
information about the sample in question. On the other hand, regular core PMU has it’s own advantages like plethora
of events, counting mode (less interference), up to 6 parallel counters, event grouping support, filtering
capabilities etc.
Three regular core PMU events are internally forwarded to IBS Op PMU when precise_ip attribute is set:
-e cpu-cycles:p becomes -e ibs_op//
-e r076:p becomes -e ibs_op//
-e r0C1:p becomes -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1/
EXAMPLES
IBS Op PMU
System-wide profile, cycles event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_op// -c 100000 -a
Per-cpu profile (cpu10), cycles event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_op// -c 100000 -C 10
Per-cpu profile (cpu10), cycles event, sampling freq: 1000
# perf record -e ibs_op// -F 1000 -C 10
System-wide profile, uOps event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1/ -c 100000 -a
Same command, but also capture IBS register raw dump along with perf sample:
# perf record -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1/ -c 100000 -a --raw-samples
System-wide profile, uOps event, sampling period: 100000, L3MissOnly (Zen4 onward)
# perf record -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1,l3missonly=1/ -c 100000 -a
System-wide profile, cycles event, sampling period: 100000, LdLat filtering (Zen5 onward)
# perf record -e ibs_op/ldlat=128/ -c 100000 -a
Supported load latency threshold values are 128 to 2048 (both inclusive).
Latency value which is a multiple of 128 incurs a little less profiling
overhead compared to other values.
Per process(upstream v6.2 onward), uOps event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1/ -c 100000 -p 1234
Per process(upstream v6.2 onward), uOps event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_op/cnt_ctl=1/ -c 100000 -- ls
To analyse recorded profile in aggregate mode
# perf report
/* Select a line and press 'a' to drill down at instruction level. */
To go over each sample
# perf script
Raw dump of IBS registers when profiled with --raw-samples
# perf report -D
/* Look for PERF_RECORD_SAMPLE */
Example register raw dump:
ibs_op_ctl: 000002c30006186a MaxCnt 100000 L3MissOnly 0 En 1
Val 1 CntCtl 0=cycles CurCnt 707
IbsOpRip: ffffffff8204aea7
ibs_op_data: 0000010002550001 CompToRetCtr 1 TagToRetCtr 597
BrnRet 0 RipInvalid 0 BrnFuse 0 Microcode 1
ibs_op_data2: 0000000000000013 RmtNode 1 DataSrc 3=DRAM
ibs_op_data3: 0000000031960092 LdOp 0 StOp 1 DcL1TlbMiss 0
DcL2TlbMiss 0 DcL1TlbHit2M 1 DcL1TlbHit1G 0 DcL2TlbHit2M 0
DcMiss 1 DcMisAcc 0 DcWcMemAcc 0 DcUcMemAcc 0 DcLockedOp 0
DcMissNoMabAlloc 0 DcLinAddrValid 1 DcPhyAddrValid 1
DcL2TlbHit1G 0 L2Miss 1 SwPf 0 OpMemWidth 32 bytes
OpDcMissOpenMemReqs 12 DcMissLat 0 TlbRefillLat 0
IbsDCLinAd: ff110008a5398920
IbsDCPhysAd: 00000008a5398920
IBS applied in a real world usecase
~90% regression was observed in tbench with specific scheduler hint
which was counter intuitive. IBS profile of good and bad run captured
using perf helped in identifying exact cause of the problem:
https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220921063638.2489-1-kprateek.nayak@amd.com
IBS Fetch PMU
Similar commands can be used with Fetch PMU as well.
System-wide profile, fetch ops event, sampling period: 100000
# perf record -e ibs_fetch// -c 100000 -a
System-wide profile, fetch ops event, sampling period: 100000, Random enable
# perf record -e ibs_fetch/rand_en=1/ -c 100000 -a
Random enable adds small degree of variability to sample period. This
helps in cases like long running loops where PMU is tagging the same
instruction over and over because of fixed sample period.
etc.
PERF MEM AND PERF C2C
perf mem is a memory access profiler tool and perf c2c is a shared data cacheline analyser tool. Both of them
internally uses IBS Op PMU on AMD. Below is a simple example of the perf mem tool.
# perf mem record -c 100000 -- make
# perf mem report
A normal perf mem report output will provide detailed memory access profile. New output fields will show related
access info together. For example:
# perf mem report -F overhead,cache,snoop,comm
...
# Samples: 92K of event 'ibs_op//'
# Total weight : 531104
#
# ---------- Cache ----------- --- Snoop ----
# Overhead L1 L2 L1-buf Other HitM Other Command
# ........ ............................ .............. ..........
#
76.07% 5.8% 35.7% 0.0% 34.6% 23.3% 52.8% cc1
5.79% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 5.6% 0.1% 5.7% make
5.78% 0.1% 4.4% 0.0% 1.2% 0.5% 5.3% gcc
5.33% 0.3% 3.9% 0.0% 1.1% 0.2% 5.2% as
5.00% 0.1% 3.8% 0.0% 1.0% 0.3% 4.7% sh
1.56% 0.1% 0.1% 0.0% 1.4% 0.6% 0.9% ld
0.28% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2% 0.1% 0.2% pkg-config
0.09% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% git
0.03% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% rm
...
Also, it can be aggregated based on various memory access info using the sort keys. For example:
# perf mem report -s mem,snoop
...
# Samples: 92K of event 'ibs_op//'
# Total weight : 531104
# Sort order : mem,snoop
#
# Overhead Samples Memory access Snoop
# ........ ............ ....................................... ............
#
47.99% 1509 L2 hit N/A
25.08% 338 core, same node Any cache hit HitM
10.24% 54374 N/A N/A
6.77% 35938 L1 hit N/A
6.39% 101 core, same node Any cache hit N/A
3.50% 69 RAM hit N/A
0.03% 158 LFB/MAB hit N/A
0.00% 2 Uncached hit N/A
Please refer to their man page for more detail.
SEE ALSO
perf-record(1), perf-script(1), perf-report(1), perf-mem(1), perf-c2c(1)
perf 07/31/2026 PERF-AMD-IBS(1)