Ubuntu Manpage: cyclictest - High resolution test program

NAME

       cyclictest - High resolution test program

SYNOPSIS

       cyclictest  [  -hfmnqrsvMS ] [-a proc ] [-A align ] [-b usec ] [-c clock ] [-d dist ] [-h histogram ] [-i
       intv ] [-l loop ] [-o red ] [-p prio ] [-t num ] [-D time] [-w] [-W] [-y policy ] [ -S | -U ]

OPTIONS

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes
('--').
A summary of options is included below.

-a, --affinity[=PROC-SET]
Run threads on the set of processors given by PROC-SET. If PROC-SET is not specified, all
processors will be used. Threads will be assigned to processors in the set in numeric order, in a
round-robin fashion.
The set of processors can be specified as A,B,C, or A-C, or A-B,D-F, and so on*. The ! character
can be used to negate a set. For example, !B-D means to use all available CPUs except B through
D. The cpu numbers are the same as shown in the processor field in /proc/cpuinfo. See numa(3)
for more information on specifying CPU sets. * Support for CPU sets requires libnuma version >=
2. For libnuma v1, PROC-SET, if specified, must be a single CPU number.

-A, --align=USEC
Align thread wakeups to a specific offset in microseconds

-b, --breaktrace=USEC
Send break trace command when latency > USEC

-B, --preemptirqs
Both preempt and irqsoff tracing (used with -b)

-c, --clock=CLOCK
select clock
0 = CLOCK_MONOTONIC (default)
1 = CLOCK_REALTIME

-C, --context
context switch tracing (used with -b)

-d, --distance=DIST
Distance of thread intervals in us, default = 500

-D, --duration=TIME
Specify a length for the test run.
Append 'm', 'h', or 'd' to specify minutes, hours or days.

-E, --event
event tracing (used with -b)

-f, --ftrace
Enable function tracing using ftrace as tracer. This option is available only with -b.

-F, --fifo=<path>
Create a named pipe at path and write stats to it

-h, --histogram=US
Dump latency histogram to stdout after the run. US is the max latency time to be be tracked in
microseconds. This option runs all threads at the same priority.

-H, --histofall=MAXLATENCYINUS
Same as -h except that an additional histogram column is displayed at the right that contains
summary data of all thread histograms. If cyclictest runs a single thread only, the -H option is
equivalent to -h.

--histfile=<path>
Dump the latency histogram to <path> instead of stdout.

-i, --interval=INTV
Set the base interval of the thread(s) in microseconds (default is 1000us). This sets the interval
of the first thread. See also -d.

-I, --irqsoff
Irgsoff tracing (used with -b)

-l, --loops=LOOPS
Set the number of loops. The default is 0 (endless). This option is useful for automated tests
with a given number of test cycles. Cyclictest is stopped once the number of timer intervals has
been reached.

--laptop
Save battery when running cyclictest. This will give you poorer realtime results, but will not
drain your battery so quickly.

-m, --mlockall
Lock current and future memory allocations to prevent being paged out

-M, --refresh_on_max
Delay updating the screen until a new max latency is hit. (useful for running cyclictest on low-
bandwidth connections)

-n, --nanosleep
Use clock_nanosleep instead of posix interval timers. Setting this option runs the tests with
clock_nanosleep instead of posix interval timers.

--notrace
suppress tracing

-N, --nsecs
Show results in nanoseconds instead of microseconds, which is the default unit.

-o, --oscope=RED
Oscilloscope mode, reduce verbose output by RED.

-O, --traceopt=TRACING_OPTION
Used to pass tracing options to ftrace tracers. May be invoked multiple times for multiple trace
options. For example trace options look at /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_options

-p, --prio=PRIO
Set the priority of the first thread. The given priority is set to the first test thread. Each
further thread gets a lower priority: Priority(Thread N) = max(Priority(Thread N-1) - 1, 0)

-P, --preemptoff
Preempt off tracing (used with -b)

--policy=NAME
set the scheduler policy of the measurement threads where NAME is one of: other, normal, batch,
idle, fifo, rr

--priospread
spread priority levels starting at a specified value

-q, --quiet
Print a summary only on exit. Useful for automated tests, where only the summary output needs to
be captured.

-r, --relative
Use relative timers instead of absolute. The default behaviour of the tests is to use absolute
timers. This option is there for completeness and should not be used for reproducible tests.

-R, --resolution
Check clock resolution, calling clock_gettime() many times. List of lock_gettime() values will be
reported with -X

--secaligned [USEC]
align thread wakeups to the next full second and apply the optional offset.

-s, --system
Use sys_nanosleep and sys_setitimer instead of posix timers. Note, that -s can only be used with
one thread because itimers are per process and not per thread. -s in combination with -n uses the
nanosleep syscall and is not restricted to one thread.

-S, --smp
Set options for standard testing on SMP systems. Equivalent to using the options: "-t -a -n" as
well keeping any specified priority equal across all threads

--spike=<trigger>
record all spikes > trigger

--spike-nodes=[num of nodes]
These are the maximum number of spikes we can record.
The default is 1024 if not specified.

--smi Enable SMI count/detection on processors with SMI count support.

-t, --threads[=NUM]
Set the number of test threads (default is 1). Create NUM test threads. If NUM is not specified,
NUM is set to the number of available CPUs. See -d, -i and -p for further information.

--tracemark
write a trace mark when -b latency is exceeded.

-T, --tracer=TRACEFUNC
set the ftrace tracer function. Used with the -b option. Must be one of the trace functions
available from <debugfs-mountpoint>/kernel/debug/tracing/available_tracers

-u, --unbuffered
force unbuffered output for live processing

-U, --numa
Standard NUMA testing (similar to SMP option) thread data structures allocated from local node.

-v, --verbose
Output values on stdout for statistics. This option is used to gather statistical information
about the latency distribution. The output is sent to stdout. The output format is:

n:c:v

where n=task number c=count v=latency value in us.

-w, --wakeup
task wakeup tracing (used with -b)

-W, --wakeuprt
rt-task wakeup tracing (used with -b)

--dbg_cyclictest
Print info userful for debugging cyclictest

AUTHOR

       cyclictest was written by Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linuxtronix.de>.

       This manual page was written by Alessio Igor Bogani <abogani@texware.it>, for the Debian project (but may
       be used by others).
       Updated by John Kacur <jkacur@redhat.com>

                                                 April 22, 2016                                    CYCLICTEST(8)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

OPTIONS

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR