Every once in a while it’s handy to profile your nodejs server while running in production. This does not allow any profiling technique that would harm performance. Luckily there is linux’s perf!

The following guide is tested Ubuntu 16.04.

Prerequisites

linux-tools package for your kernel version must be installed.

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sudo apt-get install -y linux-tools-common linux-tools-generic linux-tools-`uname -r`

You node process must run with --perf_basic_prof_only_functions

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node --perf_basic_prof_only_functions index.js

Keep in mind that this will write ~2mb per hour to /tmp/perf-<pid>.map!

Record

Collect data for $PID, 100 times per second for 30 seconds. Creates perf.data in cwd.

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sudo perf record -p $PID -F 100 -g -- sleep 30

Give root access to /tmp/perf-<pid>.map and generate stack report

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sudo chown root /tmp/perf-$PID.map
sudo perf script > out.nodestacks

Visualize

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perf report

For a graphic representation try FlameGraph.

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git clone http://github.com/brendangregg/FlameGraph
./FlameGraph/stackcollapse-perf.pl < out.nodestacks | ./FlameGraph/flamegraph.pl > out.nodestacks.svg

Open out.nodestacks.svg and click away ;)

Read more

The Mysterious Fiber Bomb Problem: A Debugging Story

Generating Node.js Flame Graphs

Reading Flame Graphs

Perf Examples