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Lisa13flamegraphs 131107112122 Phpapp01

The document describes flame graphs, a visualization tool for CPU profiling data. Flame graphs display stack traces from a profiler in a compact graphical format. The width of each stack frame is proportional to the number of samples observed for that frame. This allows quickly identifying frequently occurring stacks and functions.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
52 views170 pages

Lisa13flamegraphs 131107112122 Phpapp01

The document describes flame graphs, a visualization tool for CPU profiling data. Flame graphs display stack traces from a profiler in a compact graphical format. The width of each stack frame is proportional to the number of samples observed for that frame. This allows quickly identifying frequently occurring stacks and functions.

Uploaded by

csy365
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
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Blazing Performance

with
Flame Graphs
Brendan Gregg
An Interactive Visualization for Stack Traces
My Previous Visualizations Include
• Latency Heat Maps (and other heat map types), including:

• Quotes from LISA'13 yesterday:


• "Heat maps are a wonderful thing, use them" – Caskey Dickson
• "If you do distributed systems, you need this" – Theo Schlossnagle

• I did heat maps and visualizations in my LISA'10 talk


Audience
• This is for developers, sysadmins, support staff, and
performance engineers
• This is a skill-up for everyone: beginners to experts
• This helps analyze all software: kernels and applications
whoami
• G’Day, I’m Brendan
• Recipient of the LISA 2013 Award
for Outstanding Achievement
in System Administration!
(Thank you!)
• Work/Research: tools,
methodologies, visualizations
• Author of Systems Performance,
primary author of DTrace
(Prentice Hall, 2011)
• Lead Performance Engineer
@joyent; also teach classes:
Cloud Perf coming up: http://www.joyent.com/developers/training-services
Joyent
• High-Performance Cloud Infrastructure
• Public/private cloud provider
• OS-Virtualization for bare metal performance
• KVM for Linux guests
• Core developers of
SmartOS and node.js
• Office walls decorated
with Flame Graphs:
Agenda: Two Talks in One
• 1. CPU Flame Graphs
• Example
• Background
• Flame Graphs
• Generation
• Types: CPU
• 2. Advanced Flame Graphs
• Types: Memory, I/O, Off-CPU, Hot/Cold, Wakeup
• Developments
• SVG demos: https://github.com/brendangregg/FlameGraph/demos
CPU Flame Graphs
Example
Example
• As a short example, I’ll describe the real world performance
issue that led me to create flame graphs
• Then I’ll explain them in detail
Example: The Problem
• A production MySQL database had poor performance
• It was a heavy CPU consumer, so I used a CPU profiler to see
why. It sampled stack traces at timed intervals
• The profiler condensed its output by only printing unique
stacks along with their occurrence counts, sorted by count
• The following shows the profiler command and the two most
frequently sampled stacks...
Example: CPU Profiling
# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n 'profile-997 /execname == "mysqld"/ {
@[ustack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }'
dtrace: description 'profile-997 ' matched 2 probes
CPU ID FUNCTION:NAME
1 75195 :tick-60s
[...]
libc.so.1`__priocntlset+0xa
libc.so.1`getparam+0x83
libc.so.1`pthread_getschedparam+0x3c
libc.so.1`pthread_setschedprio+0x1f
mysqld`_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x9ab
mysqld`_Z10do_commandP3THD+0x198
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x1a6
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0x8d
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
4884

mysqld`_Z13add_to_statusP17system_status_varS0_+0x47
mysqld`_Z22calc_sum_of_all_statusP17system_status_var+0x67
mysqld`_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x1222
mysqld`_Z10do_commandP3THD+0x198
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x1a6
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0x8d
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
5530
Example: CPU Profiling
# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n 'profile-997 /execname == "mysqld"/ {
@[ustack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }'
dtrace: description 'profile-997 ' matched 2 probes
CPU ID FUNCTION:NAME Profiling
1 75195 :tick-60s
[...] Command
libc.so.1`__priocntlset+0xa (DTrace)
libc.so.1`getparam+0x83
libc.so.1`pthread_getschedparam+0x3c
libc.so.1`pthread_setschedprio+0x1f
mysqld`_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x9ab
mysqld`_Z10do_commandP3THD+0x198
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x1a6
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0x8d
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
4884

mysqld`_Z13add_to_statusP17system_status_varS0_+0x47
mysqld`_Z22calc_sum_of_all_statusP17system_status_var+0x67
Stack mysqld`_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x1222
mysqld`_Z10do_commandP3THD+0x198
Trace mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x1a6
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0x8d
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
5530 # of occurrences
Example: Profile Data
• Over 500,000 lines were elided from that output (“[...]”)
• Full output looks like this...
Example: Profile Data

60 seconds of on-CPU MySQL


Example: Profile Data

Size of
First One Stack
Stack

Last
Stack

27,053 Unique
60 seconds ofStacks
on-CPU MySQL
Example: Profile Data
• The most frequent stack, printed last, shows CPU usage in
add_to_status(), which is from the “show status” command.
Is that to blame?
• Hard to tell – it only accounts for < 2% of the samples
• I wanted a way to quickly understand stack trace profile data,
without browsing 500,000+ lines of output
Example:Visualizations
• To understand this profile data quickly, I created visualization
that worked very well, named “Flame Graph” for its
resemblance to fire (also as it was showing a “hot” CPU issue)

Profile Data.txt Flame Graph.svg

some
Perl
Example: Flame Graph
Same profile data
Example: Flame Graph
Same profile data
Where CPU is
really consumed One Stack
Sample

The
"show
status"
Stack

All Stack Samples


Example: Flame Graph
• All data in one picture
• Interactive using JavaScript and a browser: mouse overs
• Stack elements that are frequent can be seen, read, and
compared visually. Frame width is relative to sample count
• CPU usage was now understood properly and quickly,
leading to a 40% performance win
Background
Background: Stack Frame
• A stack frame shows a location in code
• Profilers usually show them on a single line. Eg:
libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_adaptive+0x112

module function instruction


offset
Background: Stack Trace
• A stack trace is a list of frames. Their index is the stack depth:
current libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_adaptive+0x112 24
parent
parent libc.so.1`mutex_lock_impl+0x165 23
parent
grand libc.so.1`mutex_lock+0xc 22
parent
Stack
[...]
Depth

libc.so.1`_lwp_start 0
Background: Stack Trace
• One full stack:
libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_adaptive+0x112
libc.so.1`mutex_lock_impl+0x165
libc.so.1`mutex_lock+0xc
mysqld`key_cache_read+0x741
mysqld`_mi_fetch_keypage+0x48
mysqld`w_search+0x84
mysqld`_mi_ck_write_btree+0xa5
mysqld`mi_write+0x344
mysqld`ha_myisam::write_row+0x43
mysqld`handler::ha_write_row+0x8d
mysqld`end_write+0x1a3
mysqld`evaluate_join_record+0x11e
mysqld`sub_select+0x86
mysqld`do_select+0xd9
mysqld`JOIN::exec+0x482
mysqld`mysql_select+0x30e
mysqld`handle_select+0x17d
mysqld`execute_sqlcom_select+0xa6
mysqld`mysql_execute_command+0x124b
mysqld`mysql_parse+0x3e1
mysqld`dispatch_command+0x1619
mysqld`do_handle_one_connection+0x1e5
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x4c
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0xbc
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
Background: Stack Trace
• Read top-down or bottom-up, and look for key functions
libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_adaptive+0x112
libc.so.1`mutex_lock_impl+0x165
libc.so.1`mutex_lock+0xc
mysqld`key_cache_read+0x741 Ancestry
mysqld`_mi_fetch_keypage+0x48
mysqld`w_search+0x84
mysqld`_mi_ck_write_btree+0xa5
mysqld`mi_write+0x344
mysqld`ha_myisam::write_row+0x43
mysqld`handler::ha_write_row+0x8d
mysqld`end_write+0x1a3
mysqld`evaluate_join_record+0x11e
mysqld`sub_select+0x86
mysqld`do_select+0xd9
mysqld`JOIN::exec+0x482
mysqld`mysql_select+0x30e
mysqld`handle_select+0x17d
mysqld`execute_sqlcom_select+0xa6
mysqld`mysql_execute_command+0x124b
mysqld`mysql_parse+0x3e1
mysqld`dispatch_command+0x1619
mysqld`do_handle_one_connection+0x1e5
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x4c
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0xbc Code Path
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
Background: Stack Modes
• Two types of stacks can be profiled:
• user-level for applications (user mode)
• kernel-level for the kernel (kernel mode)
• During a system call, an application may have both
Background: Software Internals
• You don’t need to be a programmer to understand stacks.
• Some function names are self explanatory, others require
source code browsing (if available). Not as bad as it sounds:
• MySQL has ~15,000 functions in > 0.5 million lines of code
• The earlier stack has 20 MySQL functions. To understand
them, you may need to browse only 0.13%
(20 / 15000) of the code. Might take hours, but it is doable.

• If you have C++ signatures, you can use a demangler first:


mysqld`_ZN4JOIN4execEv+0x482
gc++filt, demangler.com
mysqld`JOIN::exec()+0x482
Background: Stack Visualization
• Stack frames can be visualized as rectangles (boxes)
• Function names can be truncated to fit
• In this case, color is chosen randomly (from a warm palette)
to differentiate adjacent frames
libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_adaptive+0x112 libc.so.1`mutex_trylock_...

libc.so.1`mutex_lock_impl+0x165 libc.so.1`mutex_lock_imp...

libc.so.1`mutex_lock+0xc libc.so.1`mutex_lock+0xc

mysqld`key_cache_read+0x741 mysqld`key_cache_read+0x741

• A stack trace becomes a column of colored rectangles


Background: Time Series Stacks
• Time series ordering allows time-based pattern identification
• However, stacks can change thousands of times per second

Stack
Depth

Time (seconds)
Background: Time Series Stacks
• Time series ordering allows time-based pattern identification
• However, stacks can change thousands of times per second
One Stack
Sample

Stack
Depth

Time (seconds)
Background: Frame Merging
• When zoomed out, stacks appear as narrow stripes
• Adjacent identical functions can be merged to improve
readability, eg:
mu... mu... ge... muex_tryl... ge...

mu... mu... mu... mutex_lock_impl()

mu... mu... mu... mutex_lock()

ke... ke... ke... key_cache_read()

• This sometimes works: eg, a repetitive single threaded app


• Often does not (previous slide already did this), due to code
execution between samples or parallel thread execution
Background: Frame Merging
• Time-series ordering isn’t necessary for the primary use case:
identify the most common (“hottest”) code path or paths
• By using a different x-axis sort order, frame merging can be
greatly improved...
Flame Graphs
Flame Graphs
• Flame Graphs sort stacks alphabetically. This sort is applied
from the bottom frame upwards. This increases merging and
visualizes code paths.

Stack
Depth

Alphabet
Flame Graphs: Definition
• Each box represents a function (a merged stack frame)
• y-axis shows stack depth
• top function led directly to the profiling event
• everything beneath it is ancestry (explains why)
• x-axis spans the sample population, sorted alphabetically
• Box width is proportional to the total time a function was
profiled directly or its children were profiled
• All threads can be shown in the same Flame Graph (the
default), or as separate per-thread Flame Graphs
• Flame Graphs can be interactive: mouse over for details
Flame Graphs:Variations
• Profile data can be anything: CPU, I/O, memory, ...
• Naming suggestion: [event] [units] Flame Graph
• Eg: "FS Latency Flame Graph"
• By default, Flame Graphs == CPU Sample Flame Graphs
• Colors can be used for another dimension
• by default, random colors are used to differentiate boxes
• --hash for hash-based on function name
• Distribution applications can be shown in the same Flame
Graph (merge samples from multiple systems)
Flame Graphs: A Simple Example
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph:
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• I’ll illustrate how these are read by posing various questions


Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph:
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: which function is on-CPU the most?


Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: top edge shows
who is on-CPU
f() directly
d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: which function is on-CPU the most?


• A: f()
e() is on-CPU a
little, but its runtime
is mostly spent in f(),
which is on-CPU directly
Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph:
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: why is f() on-CPU?


Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: f() was called by e()
e() was called by c()
f() ...
d() e() ancestry
c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: why is f() on-CPU?


• A: a() → b() → c() → e() → f()
Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph:
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: how does b() compare to g()?


Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: visually compare
lengths
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: how does b() compare to g()?


• A: b() looks like it is running (present) about 10 times more
often than g()
Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: ... or mouse over

f()

d() e()

c() h()
status line
b() g() or tool tip:
a() b() is 90%

• Q: how does b() compare to g()?


• A: for interactive Flame Graphs, mouse over shows b() is
90%, g() is 10%
Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: ... or mouse over

f()

d() e()

c() h()
status line
b() g() or tool tip:
a() g() is 10%

• Q: how does b() compare to g()?


• A: for interactive Flame Graphs, mouse over shows b() is
90%, g() is 10%
Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph:
f()

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: why are we running f()?


Flame Graphs: How to Read
• A CPU Sample Flame Graph: look for
f() branches

d() e()

c() h()

b() g()

a()

• Q: why are we running f()?


• A: code path branches can reveal key functions:
• a() choose the b() path
• c() choose the e() path
Flame Graphs: Example 1
• Customer alerting software periodically checks a log, however,
it is taking too long (minutes).
• It includes grep(1) of an ~18 Mbyte log file, which takes
around 10 minutes!
• grep(1) appears to be on-CPU for this time. Why?
Flame Graphs: Example 1
• CPU Sample Flame Graph for grep(1) user-level stacks:
Flame Graphs: Example 1
• CPU Sample Flame Graph for grep(1) user-level stacks:
UTF8?

• 82% of samples are in check_multibyte_string() or its children.


This seems odd as the log file is plain ASCII.
• And why is UTF8 on the scene? ... Oh, LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Flame Graphs: Example 1
• CPU Sample Flame Graph for grep(1) user-level stacks:
UTF8?

• Switching to LANG=C improved performance by 2000x


• A simple example, but I did spot this from the raw profiler text
before the Flame Graph. You really need Flame Graphs when
the text gets too long and unwieldy.
Flame Graphs: Example 2
• A potential customer benchmarks disk I/O on a cloud instance.
The performance is not as fast as hoped.
• The host has new hardware and software. Issues with the new
type of disks is suspected.
Flame Graphs: Example 2
• A potential customer benchmarks disk I/O on a cloud instance.
The performance is not as fast as hoped.
• The host has new hardware and software. Issues with the new
type of disks is suspected.
• I take a look, and notice CPU time in the kernel is modest.
• I’d normally assume this was I/O overheads and not profile it
yet, instead beginning with I/O latency analysis.
• But Flame Graphs make it easy, and it may be useful to see
what code paths (illumos kernel) are on the table.
Flame Graphs: Example 2
Flame Graphs: Example 2

• 24% in tsc_read()? Time Stamp Counter? Checking ancestry...


Flame Graphs: Example 2

• 62% in zfs_zone_io_throttle? Oh, we had forgotten that this


new platform had ZFS I/O throttles turned on by default!
Flame Graphs: Example 3
• Application performance is about half that of a competitor
• Everything is believed identical (H/W, application, config,
workload) except for the OS and kernel
• Application is CPU busy, nearly 100% in user-mode. How can
the kernel cause a 2x delta when the app isn't in kernel-mode?
• Flame graphs on both platforms for user-mode were created:
• Linux, using perf
• SmartOS, using DTrace
• Added flamegraph.pl --hash option for consistent function
colors (not random), aiding comparisons
Flame Graphs: Example 3

Extra Function:
UnzipDocid()

Linux SmartOS

• Function label formats are different, but that's just due to


different profilers/stackcollapse.pl's (should fix this)
• Widths slighly different, but we already know perf differs
• Extra function? This is executing different application software!
SphDocID_t UnzipDocid () { return UnzipOffset(); }

• Actually, a different compiler option was eliding this function


Flame Graphs: More Examples
• Flame Graphs are typically
more detailed, like the earlier
MySQL example
• Next, how to generate them,
then more examples
Generation
Generation
• I’ll describe the original Perl version I wrote and shared on
github:
• https://github.com/brendangregg/FlameGraph

• There are other great Flame Graph implementations with


different features and usage, which I’ll cover in the last section
Generation: Steps
• 1. Profile event of interest
• 2. stackcollapse.pl
• 3. flamegraph.pl
Generation: Overview
• Full command line example. This uses DTrace for CPU
profiling of the kernel:
# dtrace -x stackframes=100 -n 'profile-997 /arg0/ {
@[stack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }' -o out.stacks

# stackcollapse.pl < out.stacks > out.folded

# flamegraph.pl < out.folded > out.svg

• Then, open out.svg in a browser


• Intermediate files could be avoided (piping), but they can be
handy for some manual processing if needed (eg, using vi)
Generation: Profiling Data
• The profile data, at a minimum, is a series of stack traces
• These can also include stack trace counts. Eg:
mysqld`_Z13add_to_statusP17system_status_varS0_+0x47
mysqld`_Z22calc_sum_of_all_statusP17system_status_var+0x67
mysqld`_Z16dispatch_command19enum_server_commandP3THDPcj+0x1222
mysqld`_Z10do_commandP3THD+0x198
mysqld`handle_one_connection+0x1a6
libc.so.1`_thrp_setup+0x8d
libc.so.1`_lwp_start
5530 # of occurrences for this stack

• This example is from DTrace, which prints a series of these.


The format of each group is: stack, count, newline
• Your profiler needs to print full (not truncated) stacks, with
symbols. This may be step 0: get the profiler to work!
Generation: Profiling Tools
• Solaris/FreeBSD/SmartOS/...:
• DTrace
• Linux:
• perf, SystemTap
• OS X:
• Instruments
• Windows:
• Xperf.exe
Generation: Profiling Examples: DTrace
• CPU profile kernel stacks at 997 Hertz, for 60 secs:
# dtrace -x stackframes=100 -n 'profile-997 /arg0/ {
@[stack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }' -o out.kern_stacks

• CPU profile user-level stacks for PID 12345 at 99 Hertz, 60s:


# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n 'profile-97 /PID == 12345 && arg1/ {
@[ustack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }' -o out.user_stacks

• Should also work on Mac OS X, but is pending some fixes


preventing stack walking (use Instruments instead)
• Should work for Linux one day with the DTrace ports
Generation: Profiling Examples: perf
• CPU profile full stacks at 97 Hertz, for 60 secs:
# perf record -a -g -F 97 sleep 60
# perf script > out.stacks

• Need debug symbol packages installed (*dbgsym), otherwise


stack frames may show as hexidecimal
• May need compilers to cooperate (-fno-omit-frame-pointer)
• Has both user and kernel stacks, and the kernel idle thread.
Can filter the idle thread after stackcollapse-perf.pl using:
# stackcollapse-perf.pl < out.stacks | grep -v cpu_idle | ...
Generation: Profiling Examples: SystemTap
• CPU profile kernel stacks at 100 Hertz, for 60 secs:
# stap -s 32 -D MAXTRACE=100 -D MAXSTRINGLEN=4096 -D MAXMAPENTRIES=10240 \
-D MAXACTION=10000 -D STP_OVERLOAD_THRESHOLD=5000000000 --all-modules \
-ve 'global s; probe timer.profile { s[backtrace()] <<< 1; }
probe end { foreach (i in s+) { print_stack(i);
printf("\t%d\n", @count(s[i])); } } probe timer.s(60) { exit(); }' \
> out.kern_stacks

• Need debug symbol packages installed (*dbgsym), otherwise


stack frames may show as hexidecimal
• May need compilers to cooperate (-fno-omit-frame-pointer)
Generation: Dynamic Languages
• C or C++ are usually easy to profile, runtime environments
(JVM, node.js, ...) are usually not, typically a way to show
program stacks and not just runtime internals.
• Eg, DTrace’s ustack helper for node.js:
0xfc618bc0 libc.so.1`gettimeofday+0x7
0xfc61bd62 Date at position
0xfe870841 << adaptor >>
0xfc61c1f3 << constructor >>
0xfc617685 (anon) as exports.active at timers.js position 7590
0xfe870841 (anon) as Socket._write at net.js position 21336
0xfc6154d7 (anon) as Socket.write at net.js position 19714
0xfe870e1a << adaptor >>
[...] (anon) as OutgoingMessage._writeRaw at http.js p...
(anon) as OutgoingMessage._send at http.js posit...
<< adaptor >>
(anon) as OutgoingMessage.end at http.js pos...
[...]

http://dtrace.org/blogs/dap/2012/01/05/where-does-your-node-program-spend-its-time/
Generation: stackcollapse.pl
• Converts profile data into a single line records
• Variants exist for DTrace, perf, SystemTap, Instruments, Xperf
• Eg, DTrace:
unix`i86_mwait+0xd
unix`cpu_idle_mwait+0xf1
unix`idle+0x114
unix`thread_start+0x8
19486

# stackcollapse.pl < out.stacks > out.folded

unix`thread_start;unix`idle;unix`cpu_idle_mwait;unix`i86_mwait 19486
Generation: stackcollapse.pl
• Converts profile data into a single line records
• Variants exist for DTrace, perf, SystemTap, Instruments, Xperf
• Eg, DTrace:
unix`i86_mwait+0xd
unix`cpu_idle_mwait+0xf1
unix`idle+0x114
unix`thread_start+0x8
19486

# stackcollapse.pl < out.stacks > out.folded

unix`thread_start;unix`idle;unix`cpu_idle_mwait;unix`i86_mwait 19486

stack trace, frames are ‘;’ delimited count


Generation: stackcollapse.pl
• Full output is many lines, one line per stack
• Bonus: can be grepped
# ./stackcollapse-stap.pl out.stacks | grep ext4fs_dirhash
system_call_fastpath;sys_getdents;vfs_readdir;ext4_readdir;ext4_htree_fill_
tree;htree_dirblock_to_tree;ext4fs_dirhash 100
system_call_fastpath;sys_getdents;vfs_readdir;ext4_readdir;ext4_htree_fill_
tree;htree_dirblock_to_tree;ext4fs_dirhash;half_md4_transform 505
system_call_fastpath;sys_getdents;vfs_readdir;ext4_readdir;ext4_htree_fill_
tree;htree_dirblock_to_tree;ext4fs_dirhash;str2hashbuf_signed 353
[...]

• That shows all stacks containing ext4fs_dirhash(); useful


debug aid by itself
• grep can also be used to filter stacks before Flame Graphs
• eg: grep -v cpu_idle
Generation: Final Output
• Desires:
• Full control of output
• High density detail
• Portable: easily viewable
• Interactive
Generation: Final Output
• Desires:
• Full control of output
• High density detail PNG
SVG+JS
• Portable: easily viewable
• Interactive
• SVG+JS: Scalable Vector Graphics with embedded JavaScript
• Common standards, and supported by web browsers
• Can print poster size (scalable); but loses interactivity!
• Can be emitted by a simple Perl program...
Generation: flamegraph.pl
• Converts folded stacks into an interactive SVG. Eg:
# flamegraph.pl --titletext="Flame Graph: MySQL" out.folded > graph.svg

• Options:
--titletext change the title text (default is “Flame Graph”)
--width width of image (default is 1200)
--height height of each frame (default is 16)
--minwidth omit functions smaller than this width (default is 0.1 pixels)
--fonttype font type (default “Verdana”)
--fontsize font size (default 12)
--countname count type label (default “samples”)
--nametype name type label (default “Function:”)
--colors color palette: "hot", "mem", "io"
--hash colors are keyed by function name hash
Types
Types
• CPU
• Memory
• Off-CPU
• More
CPU
CPU
• Measure code paths that consume CPU
• Helps us understand and optimize CPU usage, improving
performance and scalability
• Commonly performed by sampling CPU stack traces at a
timed interval (eg, 100 Hertz for every 10 ms), on all CPUs
• DTrace/perf/SystemTap examples shown earlier
• Can also be performed by tracing function execution
CPU: Sampling
CPU stack sampling:

A A A B - - - - B A A A
A A
A( )

B( )
user-level
syscall
kernel
On-CPU X Off-CPU
block . . . . . . . . . interrupt
CPU: Tracing
CPU function tracing:

A( B( B) A)

A( )

B( )
user-level
syscall
kernel
On-CPU X Off-CPU
block . . . . . . . . . interrupt
CPU: Profiling
• Sampling:
• Coarse but usually effective
• Can also be low overhead, depending on the stack type
and sample rate, which is fixed (eg, 100 Hz x CPU count)

• Tracing:
• Overheads can be too high, distorting results and hurting
the target (eg, millions of trace events per second)

• Most Flame Graphs are generated using stack sampling


CPU: Profiling Results
• Example results. Could you do this?
As an experiment to investigate the performance of the
resulting TCP/IP implementation ... the 11/750 is CPU
saturated, but the 11/780 has about 30% idle time. The time
spent in the system processing the data is spread out among
handling for the Ethernet (20%), IP packet processing (10%),
TCP processing (30%), checksumming (25%), and user
system call handling (15%), with no single part of the handling
dominating the time in the system.
CPU: Profiling Results
• Example results. Could you do this?
As an experiment to investigate the performance of the
resulting TCP/IP implementation ... the 11/750 is CPU
saturated, but the 11/780 has about 30% idle time. The time
spent in the system processing the data is spread out among
handling for the Ethernet (20%), IP packet processing (10%),
TCP processing (30%), checksumming (25%), and user
system call handling (15%), with no single part of the handling
dominating the time in the system.
– Bill Joy, 1981, TCP-IP Digest, Vol 1 #6

• An impressive report, that even today would be difficult to do


• Flame Graphs make this a lot easier
CPU: Another Example
• A file system is archived using tar(1).
• The files and directories are cached, and the run time is
mostly on-CPU in the kernel (Linux). Where exactly?
CPU: Another Example
CPU: Another Example

• 20% for reading directories


CPU: Another Example

• 54% for file statistics


CPU: Another Example

• Also good for learning kernel internals: browse the active code
CPU: Recognition
• Once you start profiling a target, you begin to recognize the
common stacks and patterns
• Linux getdents() ext4 path:
• The next slides show similar
example kernel-mode CPU
Sample Flame Graphs
CPU: Recognition: illumos localhost TCP
• From a TCP localhost latency issue (illumos kernel):

illumos
fused-TCP
illumos
send
fused-TCP
receive
CPU: Recognition: illumos IP DCE issue
DCE
lookup

DCE
lookup
DCE
lookup
CPU: Recognition: Linux TCP send
• Profiled from a KVM guest:

Linux TCP
sendmsg
CPU: Recognition: Syscall Towers
CPU: Recognition: Syscall Towers

lstat() sendfile()
bnx
open() writev() bnx ip fanout
xmit
recv receive
close() pollsys()
read() write()
stat()
stat64()
CPU: Both Stacks
• Apart from showing either user- or kernel-level stacks, both
can be included by stacking kernel on top of user
• Linux perf does this by default
• DTrace can by aggregating @[stack(), ustack()]
• The different stacks can be highlighted in different ways:
• different colors or hues
• separator: flamegraph.pl will color gray any functions
called "-", which can be inserted as stack separators

• Kernel stacks are only present during syscalls or interrupts


CPU: Both Stacks Example: KVM/qemu

user
only

kernel user
stack stack
Advanced Flame Graphs
Other Targets
• Apart from CPU samples, stack traces can be collected for
any event; eg:
• disk, network, or FS I/O
• CPU events, including cache misses
• lock contention and holds
• memory allocation
• Other values, instead of sample counts, can also be used:
• latency
• bytes
• The next sections demonstrate memory allocation, I/O tracing,
and then all blocking types via off-CPU tracing
Memory
Memory
• Analyze memory growth or leaks by tracing one of the
following memory events:
• 1. Allocator functions: malloc(), free()
• 2. brk() syscall
• 3. mmap() syscall
• 4. Page faults
• Instead of stacks and
sample counts,
measure stacks
with byte counts
• Merging shows show total bytes by code path
Memory: Four Targets
Memory: Allocator
• Trace malloc(), free(), realloc(), calloc(), ...
• These operate on virtual memory
• *alloc() stacks show why memory was first allocated (as
opposed to populated): Memory Allocation Flame Graphs
• With free()/realloc()/..., suspected memory leaks during tracing
can be identified: Memory Leak Flame Graphs!
• Down side: allocator functions are frequent, so tracing can
slow the target somewhat (eg, 25%)
• For comparison: Valgrind memcheck is more thorough, but its
CPU simulation can slow the target 20 - 30x
Memory: Allocator: malloc()
• As a simple example, just tracing malloc() calls with user-level
stacks and bytes requested, using DTrace:
# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n 'pid$target::malloc:entry {
@[ustack()] = sum(arg0); } tick-60s { exit(0); }' -p 529 -o out.malloc

• malloc() Bytes Flame Graph:


# stackcollapse.pl out.malloc | flamegraph.pl --title="malloc() bytes" \
--countname="bytes" --colors=mem > out.malloc.svg

• The options customize the title, countname, and color palette


Memory: Allocator: malloc()
Memory: Allocator: Leaks
• Yichun Zhang developed Memory Leak Flame Graphs using
SystemTap to trace allocator functions, and applied them to
leaks in Nginx (web server):
Memory: brk()
• Many apps grow their virtual memory size using brk(), which
sets the heap pointer
• A stack trace on brk() shows what triggered growth
• Eg, this script (brkbytes.d) traces brk() growth for “mysqld”:
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s

inline string target = "mysqld";


uint brk[int];

syscall::brk:entry /execname == target/ { self->p = arg0; }


syscall::brk:return /arg0 == 0 && self->p && brk[pid]/ {
@[ustack()] = sum(self->p - brk[pid]);
}
syscall::brk:return /arg0 == 0 && self->p/ { brk[pid] = self->p; }
syscall::brk:return /self->p/ { self->p = 0; }
Memory: brk(): Heap Expansion
# ./brkbytes.d -n 'tick-60s { exit(0); }' > out.brk

# stackcollapse.pl out.brk | flamegraph.pl --countname="bytes" \


--title="Heap Expansion Flame Graph" --colors=mem > out.brk.svg
Memory: brk()
• brk() tracing has low overhead: these calls are typically
infrequent
• Reasons for brk():
• A memory growth code path
• A memory leak code path
• An innocent application code path, that happened to spill-
over the current heap size

• Asynchronous allocator code path, that grew the


application in response to diminishing free space
Memory: mmap()
• mmap() may be used by the application or it’s user-level
allocator to map in large regions of virtual memory
• It may be followed by munmap() to free the area, which can
also be traced
• Eg, mmap() tracing, similar to brk tracing, to show bytes and
the stacks responsible:
# dtrace -n 'syscall::mmap:entry /execname == "mysqld"/ {
@[ustack()] = sum(arg1); }' -o out.mmap

# stackcollapse.pl out.mmap | flamegraph.pl --countname="bytes" \


--title="mmap() bytes Flame Graph" --colors=mem > out.mmap.svg

• This should be low overhead – depends on the frequency


Memory: Page Faults
• brk() and mmap() expand virtual memory
• Page faults expand physical memory (RSS). This is demand-
based allocation, deferring mapping to the actual write
• Tracing page faults show the stack responsible for consuming
(writing to) memory:
# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n 'vminfo:::as_fault /execname == "mysqld"/ {
@[ustack()] = count(); } tick-60s { exit(0); }' > out.fault

# stackcollapse.pl out.mysqld_fault01 | flamegraph.pl --countname=pages \


--title="Page Fault Flame Graph" --colors=mem > mysqld_fault.svg
Memory: Page Faults
I/O
I/O
• Show time spent in I/O, eg, storage I/O
• Measure I/O completion events with stacks and their latency;
merging to show total time waiting by code path

Application

system calls Logical I/O:


Measure here for user stacks,
VFS and real application latency

FS
Physical I/O:
Block Device Interface Measure here for kernel stacks,
and disk I/O latency
Disks
I/O: Logical I/O Laency
• For example, ZFS call latency using DTrace (zfsustack.d):
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s

#pragma D option quiet


#pragma D option ustackframes=100

fbt::zfs_read:entry, fbt::zfs_write:entry,
fbt::zfs_readdir:entry, fbt::zfs_getattr:entry,
fbt::zfs_setattr:entry Timestamp from
{
self->start = timestamp;
function start (entry)
}

fbt::zfs_read:return, fbt::zfs_write:return,
fbt::zfs_readdir:return, fbt::zfs_getattr:return,
fbt::zfs_setattr:return
/self->start/
{
this->time = timestamp - self->start; ... to function end (return)
@[ustack(), execname] = sum(this->time);
self->start = 0;
}

dtrace:::END
{
printa("%k%s\n%@d\n", @);
}
I/O: Logical I/O Laency
• Making an I/O Time Flame Graph:
# ./zfsustacks.d -n 'tick-10s { exit(0); }' -o out.iostacks

# stackcollapse.pl out.iostacks | awk '{ print $1, $2 / 1000000 }' | \


flamegraph.pl --title="FS I/O Time Flame Graph" --color=io \
--countname=ms --width=500 > out.iostacks.svg

• DTrace script measures all processes, for 10 seconds


• awk to covert ns to ms
I/O: Time Flame Graph: gzip
• gzip(1) waits more time in write()s than read()s
I/O: Time Flame Graph: MySQL
I/O: Flame Graphs
• I/O latency tracing: hugely useful
• But once you pick an I/O type, there usually isn't that many
different code paths calling it
• Flame Graphs are nice, but often not necessary
Off-CPU
Off-CPU
Off-CPU tracing:

off-CPU on-CPU

X
A

A( )
user-level
syscall
kernel

On-CPU X Off-CPU X
block . . . . . . . . . interrupt
Off-CPU: Performance Analysis
• Generic approach for all blocking events, including I/O
• An advanced performance analysis methodology:
• http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2011/07/08/off-cpu-performance-analysis/

• Counterpart to (on-)CPU profiling


• Measure time a thread spent off-CPU, along with stacks
• Off-CPU reasons:
• Waiting (sleeping) on I/O, locks, timers
• Runnable waiting for CPU
• Runnable waiting for page/swap-ins
• The stack trace will explain which
Off-CPU: Time Flame Graphs
• Off-CPU profiling data (durations and stacks) can be rendered
as Off-CPU Time Flame Graphs
• As this involves many more code paths, Flame Graphs are
usually really useful
• Yichun Zhang created these, and has been using them on
Linux with SystemTap to collect the profile data. See:
• http://agentzh.org/misc/slides/off-cpu-flame-graphs.pdf

• Which describes their uses for Nginx performance analysis


Off-CPU: Profiling
• Example of off-CPU profiling for the bash shell:
# dtrace -x ustackframes=100 -n '
sched:::off-cpu /execname == "bash"/ { self->ts = timestamp; }
sched:::on-cpu /self->ts/ {
@[ustack()] = sum(timestamp - self->ts); self->ts = 0; }
tick-30s { exit(0); }' -o out.offcpu

• Traces time from when a thread switches off-CPU to when it


returns on-CPU, with user-level stacks. ie, time blocked or
sleeping
• Off-CPU Time Flame Graph:
# stackcollapse.pl < out.offcpu | awk '{ print $1, $2 / 1000000 }' | \
flamegraph.pl --title="Off-CPU Time Flame Graph" --color=io \
--countname=ms --width=600 > out.offcpu.svg

• This uses awk to convert nanoseconds into milliseconds


Off-CPU: Bash Shell
Off-CPU: Bash Shell
waiting for waiting for
child processes keystrokes
Off-CPU: Bash Shell
• For that simple example, the trace libc.so.1`__forkx+0xb
libc.so.1`fork+0x1d
bash`make_child+0xb5

data was so short it could have bash`execute_simple_command+0xb02


bash`execute_command_internal+0xae6
bash`execute_command+0x45

just been read (54 lines, 4 unique bash`reader_loop+0x240


bash`main+0xaff
bash`_start+0x83
19052
stacks): libc.so.1`syscall+0x13
bash`file_status+0x19
bash`find_in_path_element+0x3e
bash`find_user_command_in_path+0x114

• For multithreaded applications, bash`find_user_command_internal+0x6f


bash`search_for_command+0x109
bash`execute_simple_command+0xa97
bash`execute_command_internal+0xae6
idle thread time can dominate bash`execute_command+0x45
bash`reader_loop+0x240
bash`main+0xaff
bash`_start+0x83
7557782

• For example, an idle MySQL libc.so.1`__waitid+0x15


libc.so.1`waitpid+0x65

server... bash`waitchld+0x87
bash`wait_for+0x2ce
bash`execute_command_internal+0x1758
bash`execute_command+0x45
bash`reader_loop+0x240
bash`main+0xaff
bash`_start+0x83
1193160644

libc.so.1`__read+0x15
bash`rl_getc+0x2b
bash`rl_read_key+0x22d
bash`readline_internal_char+0x113
bash`readline+0x49
bash`yy_readline_get+0x52
bash`shell_getc+0xe1
bash`read_token+0x6f
bash`yyparse+0x4b9
bash`parse_command+0x67
bash`read_command+0x52
bash`reader_loop+0xa5
bash`main+0xaff
bash`_start+0x83
12588900307
Off-CPU: MySQL Idle
Off-CPU: MySQL Idle

Columns from MySQL gives thread routines


_thrp_setup descriptive names (thanks!)
are threads or Mouse over each to identify
thread groups

(profiling time was 30s)


Off-CPU: MySQL Idle

buf_flush_page_cleaner_thread mysqld_main
dict_stats_thread srv_monitor_thread
fts_optimize_thread srv_master_thread
io_handler_thread srv_error_monitor_thread
lock_wait_timeout_thread pfs_spawn_thread

mysqld Threads
Off-CPU: MySQL Idle
• Some thread columns are wider than the measurement time:
evidence of multiple threads
• This can be shown a number of ways. Eg, adding process
name, PID, and TID to the top of each user stack:
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s

#pragma D option ustackframes=100

sched:::off-cpu /execname == "mysqld"/ { self->ts = timestamp; }

sched:::on-cpu
/self->ts/
{
@[execname, pid, curlwpsinfo->pr_lwpid, ustack()] =
sum(timestamp - self->ts);
self->ts = 0;
}

dtrace:::END { printa("\n%s-%d/%d%k%@d\n", @); }


Off-CPU: MySQL Idle

1 thread many threads

2 threads 4 threads doing work


(less idle)

thread ID (TID)
Off-CPU: Challenges
• Including multiple threads in one Flame Graph might still be
confusing. Separate Flame Graphs for each can be created
• Off-CPU stacks often don't explain themselves:

• This is blocked on a conditional variable. The real reason it is


blocked and taking time isn't visible here
• Now lets look at a busy MySQL server, which presents
another challenge...
Off-CPU: MySQL Busy

net_read_packet() -> pollsys()


idle threads
Off-CPU: MySQL Busy

random narrow
stacks during
work, with no
reason to
sleep?
Off-CPU: MySQL Busy
• Those were user-level stacks only. The kernel-level stack,
which can be included, will usually explain what happened
• eg, involuntary context switch due to time slice expired
• Those paths are likely hot in the CPU Sample Flame Graph
Hot/Cold
Hot/Cold: Profiling

On-CPU
Profiling

Off-CPU
Profiling
(everything else)

Thread State Transition Diagram


Hot/Cold: Profiling
• Profiling both on-CPU and off-CPU stacks shows everything
• In my LISA'12 talk I called this the Stack Profile Method:
profile all stacks
• Both on-CPU ("hot") and off-CPU ("cold") stacks can be
included in the same Flame Graph, colored differently:
Hot Cold Flame Graphs!
• Merging multiple threads gets even weirder. Creating a
separate graph per-thread makes much more sense, as
comparisons to see how a thread's time is divided between
on- and off-CPU activity
• For example, a single web server thread with kernel stacks...
Hot/Cold: Flame Graphs
Hot/Cold: Flame Graphs

On-CPU (!?)

Off-CPU
Hot/Cold: Challenges
• Sadly, this often doesn't work well for two reasons:
• 1. On-CPU time columns get compressed by off-CPU time
• Previous example dominated by the idle path – waiting for
a new connection – which is not very interesting!

• Works better with zoomable Flame Graphs, but then we've


lost the ability to see key details on first glance

• Pairs of on-CPU and off-CPU Flame Graphs may be the


best approach, giving both the full width

• 2. Has the same challenge from off-CPU Flame Graphs:


real reason for blocking may not be visible
State of the Art
• That was the end of Flame Graphs, but I can't stop here –
we're so close
• On + Off-CPU Flame Graphs can attack any issue
• 1. The compressed problem is solvable via one or more of:
• zoomable Flame Graphs
• separate on- and off-CPU Flame Graphs
• per-thread Flame Graphs
• 2. How do we show the real reason for blocking?
Wakeup Tracing
Wakeup tracing:

sleep wakeup

)
A(
user-level
kernel
On-CPU
X Off-CPU X
block . . . . . . . . . . . . . wakeup

B(
Tracing Wakeups
• The systems knows who woke up who
• Tracing who performed the wakeup – and their stack – can
show the real reason for waiting
• Wakeup Latency Flame Graph
• Advanced activity
• Consider overheads – might trace too much
• Eg, consider ssh, starting with the Off CPU Time Flame Graph
Off-CPU Time Flame Graph: ssh

Waiting on a conditional variable


But why did we wait this long?
Object sleeping on
Wakeup Latency Flame Graph: ssh
Wakeup Latency Flame Graph: ssh

These code paths,

... woke up
these objects
Tracing Wakeup, Example (DTrace)
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s
This example targets sshd
#pragma D option quiet
#pragma D option ustackframes=100 (previous example also matched
#pragma D option stackframes=100
int related[uint64_t]; vmstat, after discovering that
sshd was blocked on vmstat,
sched:::sleep
/execname == "sshd"/ which it was: "vmstat 1")
{
ts[curlwpsinfo->pr_addr] = timestamp;
}
Time from sleep to wakeup
sched:::wakeup
/ts[args[0]->pr_addr]/
{
this->d = timestamp - ts[args[0]->pr_addr];
@[args[1]->pr_fname, args[1]->pr_pid, args[0]->pr_lwpid, args[0]->pr_wchan,
stack(), ustack(), execname, pid, curlwpsinfo->pr_lwpid] = sum(this->d);
ts[args[0]->pr_addr] = 0;
}
Stack traces of who is doing the waking
dtrace:::END
{
printa("\n%s-%d/%d-%x%k-%k%s-%d/%d\n%@d\n", @);
}
Aggregate if possible instead of dumping, to minimize overheads
Following Stack Chains
• 1st level of wakeups often not enough
• Would like to programmatically follow multiple chains of
wakeup stacks, and visualize them
• I've discussed this with others before – it's a hard problem
• The following is in development!: Chain Graph
Chain Graph
Chain Graph

...

Wakeup Thread 2

I wokeup

Wakeup Thread 1
I wokeup
Wakeup Stacks
why I waited

Off CPU Stacks:
why I blocked
Chain Graph Visualization
• New, experimental; check for later improvements
• Stacks associated based on sleeping object address
• Retains the value of relative widths equals latency
• Wakeup stacks frames can be listed in reverse (may be less
confusing when following towers bottom-up)
• Towers can get very tall, tracing wakeups through different
software threads, back to metal
Following Wakeup Chains, Example (DTrace)
#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s

#pragma D option quiet


#pragma D option ustackframes=100
#pragma D option stackframes=100
int related[uint64_t];

sched:::sleep
/execname == "sshd" || related[curlwpsinfo->pr_addr]/
{
ts[curlwpsinfo->pr_addr] = timestamp;
}

sched:::wakeup
/ts[args[0]->pr_addr]/
{
this->d = timestamp - ts[args[0]->pr_addr];
@[args[1]->pr_fname, args[1]->pr_pid, args[0]->pr_lwpid, args[0]->pr_wchan,
stack(), ustack(), execname, pid, curlwpsinfo->pr_lwpid] = sum(this->d);
ts[args[0]->pr_addr] = 0;
related[curlwpsinfo->pr_addr] = 1;
}
Also follow who
dtrace:::END
{ wakes up the waker
printa("\n%s-%d/%d-%x%k-%k%s-%d/%d\n%@d\n", @);
}
Developments
Developments
• There have been many other great developments in the world
of Flame Graphs. The following is a short tour.
node.js Flame Graphs
• Dave Pacheco developed the DTrace ustack helper for v8,
and created Flame Graphs with node.js functions

http://dtrace.org/blogs/dap/2012/01/05/where-does-your-node-program-spend-its-time/
OS X Instruments Flame Graphs
• Mark Probst developed a 1. Use the Time Profile instrument
way to produce Flame 2. Instrument -> Export Track
Graphs from Instruments 3. stackcollapse-instruments.pl
4. flamegraphs.pl

http://schani.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/flame-graphs-for-instruments/
Ruby Flame Graphs
• Sam Saffron developed Flame Graphs with the Ruby
MiniProfiler
• These stacks are very
deep (many frames),
so the function names
have been dropped
and only the rectangles
are drawn
• This preserves the
value of seeing the
big picture at first
glance!

http://samsaffron.com/archive/2013/03/19/flame-graphs-in-ruby-miniprofiler
Windows Xperf Flame Graphs
• Bruce Dawson developed Flame Graphs from Xperf data, and
an xperf_to_collapsedstacks.py script

Visual Studio CPU Usage

http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/summarizing-xperf-cpu-usage-with-flame-graphs/
WebKit Web Inspector Flame Charts
• Available in Google Chrome developer tools, these show
JavaScript CPU stacks as colored rectangles
• Inspired by Flame Graphs but
not the same: they show the
passage of time on the x-axis!
• This generally works here as:
• the target is single threaded
apps often with repetitive
code paths
• ability to zoom
• Can a "Flame Graph" mode be
provided for the same data?
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111162
Perl Devel::NYTProf Flame Graphs
• Tim Bunce has been adding Flame Graph features, and
included them in the Perl profiler: Devel::NYTProf

http://blog.timbunce.org/2013/04/08/nytprof-v5-flaming-precision/
Leak and Off-CPU Time Flame Graphs
• Yichun Zhang (agentzh) has created Memory Leak and Off-
CPU Time Flame Graphs, and has given good talks to explain
how Flame Graphs work

http://agentzh.org/#Presentations
http://agentzh.org/misc/slides/yapc-na-2013-flame-graphs.pdf ... these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxn7HoNrv9A also provide
http://agentzh.org/misc/slides/off-cpu-flame-graphs.pdf
http://agentzh.org/misc/flamegraph/nginx-leaks-2013-10-08.svg examples of using
https://github.com/agentzh/nginx-systemtap-toolkit SystemTap on Linux
Color Schemes
• Colors can be used to convey data, instead of the default
random color scheme. This example from Dave Pacheco
colors each function by its degree of direct on-CPU execution
• A Flame Graph
tool could let you
select different
color schemes
• Another can be:
color by a hash on
the function name,
so colors are
consistent

https://npmjs.org/package/stackvis
Zoomable Flame Graphs
• Dave Pacheco has also used d3 to provide click to zoom!

Zoom

https://npmjs.org/package/stackvis
Flame Graph Differentials
• Robert Mustacchi has been experimenting with showing the
difference between two Flame Graphs, as a Flame Graph.
Great potential for non-regression testing, and comparisons!
Flame Graphs as a Service
• Pedro Teixeira has a project for node.js Flame Graphs as a
service: automatically generated for each github push!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMohaWP5YqA
References & Acknowledgements
• Neelakanth Nadgir (realneel): developed SVGs using Ruby
and JavaScript of time-series function trace data with stack
levels, inspired by Roch's work
• Roch Bourbonnais: developed Call Stack Analyzer, which
produced similar time-series visualizations
• Edward Tufte: inspired
me to explore
visualizations that show
all the data at once, as
Flame Graphs do
• Thanks to all who have
developed Flame
Graphs further! realneel's function_call_graph.rb visualization
Thank you!
• Questions?
• Homepage: http://www.brendangregg.com (links to everything)
• Resources and further reading:
• http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2011/12/16/flame-graphs/: see "Updates"

• http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2012/03/17/linux-kernel-performance-flame-
graphs/

• http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2013/08/16/memory-leak-growth-flame-graphs/

• http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2011/07/08/off-cpu-performance-analysis/

• http://dtrace.org/blogs/dap/2012/01/05/where-does-your-node-program-spend-
its-time/

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