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PERF-TEST(1) perf Manual PERF-TEST(1)

NAME

perf-test - Runs sanity tests.

SYNOPSIS

perf test [<options>] [{list <test-name-fragment>|[<test-name-fragments>|<test-numbers>]}]

DESCRIPTION

This command does assorted sanity tests, initially through linked routines but also will look for a directory with more tests in the form of scripts.

To get a list of available tests use perf test list, specifying a test name fragment will show all tests that have it.

To run just specific tests, inform test name fragments or the numbers obtained from perf test list.

OPTIONS

-s, --skip

Tests to skip (comma separated numeric list).

-v, -vv, -vvv, --verbose

With a single -v, verbose level 1, only failing test output is displayed. With -vv and higher all test output is shown.

-S, --sequential

Run all tests one after the other. By default "exclusive" tests are run sequentially, but other tests are run in parallel to speed execution.

-r, --runs-per-test

Run each test the given number of times, by default once. This option can be useful to determine if a test is flaky.

-F, --dont-fork

Do not fork child for each test, run all tests within single process, this sets sequential mode.

--dso

Specify a DSO for the "Symbols" test.

-w, --workload=

Run a built-in workload, to list them use --list-workloads, current ones include: noploop, thloop, leafloop, sqrtloop, brstack, datasym, context_switch_loop, deterministic, named_threads and landlock. 

Used with the shell script regression tests.

Some accept an extra parameter:

seconds: leafloop, noploop, sqrtloop, thloop
nrloops: brstack, context_switch_loop

'named_threads' accepts the number of threads and the number of loops to
do in each thread.

The datasym, landlock and deterministic workloads don't accept any.

--list-workloads

List the available workloads to use with -w/--workload.

--record-ctl=fifo:ctl-fifo[,ack-fifo]

This option is used to communicate with a perf record session in order to control the recording scope to only the workload and avoid recording setup and teardown code. When specifying this option, the same FIFO path must be specified in the record session via: 

perf record -D -1 --control=fifo:ctl-fifo[,ack-fifo] ...

Perf test sends 'enable' and 'disable' commands through ctl-fifo to
control event recording. If 'ack-fifo' is provided, the workload runner
waits for an 'ack' response after each command.
2026-08-28 perf