diff --git a/doc/development/profiling.md b/doc/development/profiling.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..80c86ef921e --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/development/profiling.md @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +# Profiling + +To make it easier to track down performance problems GitLab comes with a set of +profiling tools, some of these are available by default while others need to be +explicitly enabled. + +## rack-mini-profiler + +This Gem is enabled by default in development only. It allows you to see the +timings of the various components that made up a web request (e.g. the SQL +queries executed and their execution timings). + +## Bullet + +Bullet is a Gem that can be used to track down N+1 query problems. Because +Bullet adds quite a bit of logging noise it's disabled by default. To enable +Bullet, set the environment variable `ENABLE_BULLET` to a non-empty value before +starting GitLab. For example: + + ENABLE_BULLET=true bundle exec rails s + +Bullet will log query problems to both the Rails log as well as the Chrome +console. + +## ActiveRecord Query Trace + +This Gem adds backtraces for every ActiveRecord query in the Rails console. This +can be useful to track down where a query was executed. Because this Gem adds +quite a bit of noise (5-10 extra lines per ActiveRecord query) it's disabled by +default. To use this Gem you'll need to set `ENABLE_QUERY_TRACE` to a non empty +file before starting GitLab. For example: + + ENABLE_QUERY_TRACE=true bundle exec rails s + +## rack-lineprof + +This is a Gem that can trace the execution time of code on a per line basis. +Because this Gem can add quite a bit of overhead it's disabled by default. To +enable it, set the environment variable `ENABLE_LINEPROF` to a non-empty value. +For example: + + ENABLE_LINEPROF=true bundle exec rails s + +Once enabled you'll need to add a query string parameter to a request to +actually profile code execution. The name of the parameter is `lineprof` and +should be set to a regular expression (minus the starting/ending slash) used to +select what files to profile. To profile all files containing "foo" somewhere in +the path you'd use the following parameter: + + ?lineprof=foo + +Or when filtering for files containing "foo" and "bar" in their path: + + ?lineprof=foo|bar + +Once set the profiling output will be displayed in your terminal.