How to use Linux perf tool on WSL2? How to have perf for the correct kernel?

Question

I am trying to use the perf tool of Linux on my WSL2 using Windows10 machine. I have done every step of the accepted answer here:Is there any method to run perf under WSL?

When I ran "make" comment, I got a warning:

Warning: Kernel ABI header at 'tools/include/uapi/linux/stat.h' differs from latest version at 'include/uapi/linux/stat.h'

But the perf executable was still created. However when I try to use perf like this:

sudo perf record -g myexe myargs

I received this error:

WARNING: perf not found for kernel 5.10.16.3-microsoft

You may need to install the following packages for this specific kernel: linux-tools-5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 linux-cloud-tools-5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2

Then I tried to run this:

sudo apt install linux-tools-5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2

However that did not work either, I got this:

Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package linux-tools-5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'linux-tools-5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2'

What should I do now?

Slattern

Are you sure you have WSL2? Apparently it can be non-obvious whether a WSL install is actually WSL2 or WSL1: Does WSL 2 really support 32 bit program? – Leprose

@PeterCordes hello! yes i am pretty sure, because it says version is 2 when I run the command "wsl --list --verbose". – Slattern

On Debian 11 ("Bullseye") under WSL2, the perf_5.10 command installed by the "linux-perf-5.10" package as a dependency of the "linux-perf" package seems to work. – Caroleecarolin

perf looks at CPU hardware counters which will all return 0 in a VM. – Eduino

@Eduino but i specifically researched to learn that perf works on WSL2 – Slattern

Have you succeeded with perf under WSL2? – Emprise

Seems the only way is to build perf yourself. Not so hard per the instructions here: #60237623 – Ephraim

Answer 1

Just run your newly built perf instead of the /usr/bin/perf which is a shell script to invoke real kernel-specific perf.

I usually replace the /usr/bin/perf with my own perf.

$ sudo ln -sf $(pwd)/perf /usr/bin/perf

Tousle