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rtla timerlat helps investigate when periodic timer wakeups are delayed by reporting latency at two points: the timer’s IRQ handler and the timerlat thread awakened by that timer. Use top to watch a live summary, hist to examine the distribution of samples, and thresholds with trace capture to preserve context when a delay exceeds a limit you choose.
What does rtla timerlat measure?
rtla timerlat is a user-space interface to the kernel’s timerlat tracer. The tracer runs periodic timer threads on CPUs and compares the time the timer wakes with the absolute expiry time that was set. It reports latency at the timer IRQ handler and again at the timerlat thread handler. These are two stages in the wakeup path, not two interchangeable measurements.
The IRQ-stage observation concerns when the timer interrupt is handled; the thread-stage observation concerns when the awakened thread runs. Comparing them can help narrow down where delay appears. It does not, by itself, identify the cause: interpretation depends on the machine, workload, kernel configuration, and surrounding trace context.
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When should I use top or hist?
| Mode | What it shows | Useful when |
|---|---|---|
rtla timerlat top |
A summary of periodic tracer output. | You want to observe current behavior as the run proceeds. |
rtla timerlat hist |
A histogram of sample occurrences. | You want to inspect how samples are distributed over a bounded or longer run. |
The modes answer different questions; the documentation does not establish that one is inherently more accurate. If you omit a mode, the command defaults to top.
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How do I run an investigation?
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Check the version and options available on the target system with its installed
rtla timerlatmanual or help output. The command documentation and supported options are version-sensitive, and distribution builds may differ. -
Select the CPUs relevant to the investigation and choose a timer period that fits the question. Use the local manual to confirm accepted values and syntax.
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Start with
rtla timerlat topfor a live summary, or usertla timerlat histwhen you need a distribution of samples. In histogram mode, the documented controls include-cfor CPUs,-pfor period, and-dfor duration.Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
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Set IRQ and thread stop thresholds to limits meaningful for your system and investigation. Histogram mode documents
-ifor the IRQ threshold and-Tfor the thread threshold. There is no universal threshold suitable for every workload. -
When an outlier needs investigation, request stack capture and trace output using the options supported by the installed tool. Histogram mode documents
-sfor stack capture and-tfor trace output. Check the local manual for how a threshold-triggered stop and saved trace behave in your version.
Histogram mode also documents -b for bucket size and -E for the number of entries. Adjust these to make the distribution useful for the question you are asking; confirm their accepted formats and effects in the installed manual.
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How do thresholds and trace capture help?
Thresholds let a run stop tracing when IRQ-stage or thread-stage latency crosses the selected limit. With stack capture and trace output enabled, the resulting diagnostic data can retain context around an outlier rather than leaving only a summary value. Choose thresholds based on the behavior you need to investigate, not as a generic pass/fail standard.
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What collection backend does rtla use?
The current command manual documents synchronous in-kernel collection through a dedicated BPF program attached to the timerlat tracer. If BPF or the osnoise:timerlat_sample tracepoint is unavailable, rtla falls back to asynchronous user-space processing through tracefs. This is documented behavior, not a guarantee that every distribution build has identical support.
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How should I interpret the result?
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Treat each run as evidence about its particular configuration, workload, and duration—not as a universal performance guarantee.
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Use the difference between IRQ-stage and thread-stage observations to guide investigation, then examine trace context before attributing a cause.
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Do not treat an example histogram or sample output in documentation as a typical result or latency target. The reviewed official documentation establishes neither a universal acceptable latency nor a typical performance statistic.
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Record the kernel and rtla versions, CPU selection, period, thresholds, duration, workload, and collection backend when sharing results. Those details make the run interpretable and reproducible.
When would an application use timerlat_fd directly?
The kernel tracer documentation also describes a per-CPU timerlat_fd interface for user-space instrumentation. It requires timerlat to be enabled, the osnoise workload option to be set to NO_OSNOISE_WORKLOAD, the user-space thread to be pinned to one processor, and only one thread to access that CPU’s file at a time. This is a specialized route for application-level instrumentation; ordinary use of rtla timerlat does not require building this interface.
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