lstopo - Man Page

• Show the summarized system topology in a graphical window (or print to console if no graphical display is available): lstopo
• Show the full system topology without summarizations: lstopo --no-factorize
• Show the summarized system topology with only [p]hysical indices (i.e. as seen by the OS): lstopo --physical
• Write the full system topology to a file in the specified format: lstopo --no-factorize --output-format console|ascii|tex|fig|svg|pdf|ps|png|xml path/to/file
• Output in monochrome or greyscale: lstopo --palette none|grey

tldr.sh

lstopo [ options ]... [ filename ]

lstopo-no-graphics [ options ]... [ filename ]

hwloc-ls [ options ]... [ filename ]

Note that hwloc(7) provides a detailed explanation of the hwloc system; it should be read before reading this man page

--of <format>, --output-format <format>

Enforce the output in the given format. See the Output Formats section below.

-i <path>, --input <path>

Read the topology from <path> instead of discovering the topology of the local machine.

If <path> is a file, it may be a XML file exported by a previous hwloc program. If <path> is "-", the standard input may be used as a XML file.

On Linux, <path> may be a directory containing the topology files gathered from another machine topology with hwloc-gather-topology.

On x86, <path> may be a directory containing a cpuid dump gathered with hwloc-gather-cpuid.

When the archivemount program is available, <path> may also be a tarball containing such Linux or x86 topology files.

-i <specification>, --input <specification>

Simulate a fake hierarchy (instead of discovering the topology on the local machine). If <specification> is "node:2 pu:3", the topology will contain two NUMA nodes with 3 processing units in each of them. The <specification> string must end with a number of PUs.

--if <format>, --input-format <format>

Enforce the input in the given format, among xml, fsroot, cpuid and synthetic.

--export-xml-flags <flags>

Enforce flags when exporting to the XML format. Flags may be given as numeric values or as a comma-separated list of flag names that are passed to hwloc_topology_export_xml(). Those names may be substrings of actual flag names as long as a single one matches. A value of 1 (or v1) reverts to the format of hwloc v1.x. The default is 0 (or none).

--export-synthetic-flags <flags>

Enforce flags when exporting to the synthetic format. Flags may be given as numeric values or as a comma-separated list of flag names that are passed to hwloc_topology_export_synthetic(). Those names may be substrings of actual flag names as long as a single one matches. A value of 2 (or no_attr) reverts to the format of hwloc v1.9. A value of 3 (or no_ext,no_attr) reverts to the original minimalistic format (before v1.9). The default is 0 (or none).

-v --verbose

Include additional detail. The hwloc-info tool may be used to display even more information about specific objects.

-q --quiet -s --silent

Reduce the amount of details to show.

--distances

Only display distance matrices.

--distances-transform <links|merge-switch-ports|transitive-closure>

Try applying a transformation to distances structures before displaying them. See hwloc_distances_transform() for details. More transformations may be applied using hwloc-annotate(1) (and it may save their output to XML).

--memattrs

Only display memory attributes. All of them are displayed (while the default textual output selects memory attribute details depending on the verbosity level).

--cpukinds

Only display CPU kinds. CPU kinds are displayed in order, starting from the most energy efficient ones up to the rather higher performance and power hungry ones.

--windows-processor-groups

On Windows, only show information about processor groups. All of them are displayed, while the default verbose output only shows them if there are more than one.

-f --force

If the destination file already exists, overwrite it.

-l --logical

Display hwloc logical indexes of all objects, with prefix "L#". By default, both logical and physical/OS indexes are displayed for PUs and NUMA nodes, logical only for cores, dies and packages, and no index for other types.

-p --physical

Display OS/physical indexes of all objects, with prefix "P#". By default, both logical and physical/OS indexes are displayed for PUs and NUMA nodes, logical only for cores, dies and packages, and no index for other types.

--logical-index-prefix <prefix>

Replace " L#" with the given prefix for logical indexes.

--os-index-prefix <prefix>

Replace " P#" with the given prefix for physical/OS indexes.

-c --cpuset

Display the cpuset of each object.

-C --cpuset-only

Only display the cpuset of each object; do not display anything else about the object.

--cpuset-output-format <hwloc|list|taskset> --cof <hwloc|list|taskset>

Change the format of displayed CPU set strings. By default, the hwloc-specific format is used. If list is given, the output is a comma-separated of numbers or ranges, e.g. 2,4-5,8 . If taskset is given, output cpusets are compatible with the taskset program (replaces the former --taskset option).

This option should be combined with --cpuset or --cpuset-only, otherwise it will imply --cpuset.

--only <type>

Only show objects of the given type in the textual output.

<type> may contain a filter to select specific objects among the type. For instance --only NUMA[HBM] only shows NUMA nodes marked with subtype "HBM", while --only "numa[mcdram]" only shows MCDRAM NUMA nodes on KNL.

--filter <type>:<kind>, --filter <type>

Filter objects of type <type>, or of any type if <type> is "all". "io", "cache" and "icache" are also supported.

<kind> specifies the filtering behavior. If "none" or not specified, all objects of the given type are removed. If "all", all objects are kept as usual. If "structure", objects are kept when they bring structure to the topology. If "important" (only applicable to I/O), only important objects are kept. See hwloc_topology_set_type_filter() for more details.

hwloc supports filtering any type except PUs and NUMA nodes. lstopo also offers PU and NUMA node filtering by hiding them in the graphical and textual outputs, but any object included in them (for instance Misc) will be hidden as well. Note that PUs and NUMA nodes may not be ignored in the XML output. Note also that the top-level object type cannot be ignored (usually Machine or System).

--ignore <type>

This is the old way to specify --filter <type>:none.

--no-smt

Ignore PUs. This is identical to --filter PU:none.

--no-caches

Do not show caches. This is identical to --filter cache:none.

--no-useless-caches

This is identical to --filter cache:structure.

--no-icaches

This is identical to --filter icache:none.

--disallowed

Include objects disallowed by administrative limitations (e.g Cgroups on Linux). Offline PUs and NUMA nodes are still ignored.

--allow <all|local|0xff|nodeset=0xf0>

Include objects disallowed by administrative limitations (implies --disallowed) and also change the set of allowed ones.

If local is given, only objects available to the current process are allowed (default behavior when loading from the native operating system backend). It may be useful if the topology was created by another process (with different administrative restrictions such as Linux Cgroups) and loaded here loaded from XML or synthetic. This case implies --thissystem.

If all, all objects are allowed.

If a bitmap is given as a hexadecimal string, it is used as the set of allowed PUs.

If a bitmap is given after prefix nodeset=, it is the set of allowed NUMA nodes.

--flags <flags>

Enforce topology flags. Flags may be given as numeric values or as a comma-separated list of flag names that are passed to hwloc_topology_set_flags(). Those names may be substrings of actual flag names as long as a single one matches, for instance disallowed,thissystem_allowed. The default is 8 (or import).

--merge

Do not show levels that do not have a hierarchical impact. This sets HWLOC_TYPE_FILTER_KEEP_STRUCTURE for all object types. This is identical to --filter all:structure.

--no-factorize --no-factorize=<type>

Never factorize identical objects in the graphical output.

If an object type is given, only factorizing of these objects is disabled. This only applies to normal CPU-side objects, it is independent from PCI collapsing.

--factorize --factorize=[<type>,]<N>[,<L>[,<F>]

Factorize identical children in the graphical output (enabled by default).

If <N> is specified (4 by default), factorizing only occurs when there are strictly more than N identical children. If <L> and <F> are specified, they set the numbers of first and last children to keep after factorizing.

If an object type is given, only factorizing of these objects is configured. This only applies to normal CPU-side object, it is independent from PCI collapsing.

--no-collapse

Do not collapse identical PCI devices. By default, identical sibling PCI devices (such as many virtual functions inside a single physical device) are collapsed.

--no-cpukinds

Do not show different kinds of CPUs in the graphical output. By default, when supported, different types of lines, thickness and bold font may be used to display PU boxes of different kinds.

--restrict <cpuset>

Restrict the topology to the given cpuset. This removes some PUs and their now-child-less parents.

Beware that restricting the PUs in a topology may change the logical indexes of many objects, including NUMA nodes.

--restrict nodeset=<nodeset>

Restrict the topology to the given nodeset. (unless --restrict-flags specifies something different). This removes some NUMA nodes and their now-child-less parents.

Beware that restricting the NUMA nodes in a topology may change the logical indexes of many objects, including PUs.

--restrict binding

Restrict the topology to the current process binding. This option requires the use of the actual current machine topology (or any other topology with --thissystem or with HWLOC_THISSYSTEM set to 1 in the environment).

Beware that restricting the topology may change the logical indexes of many objects, including PUs and NUMA nodes.

--restrict-flags <flags>

Enforce flags when restricting the topology. Flags may be given as numeric values or as a comma-separated list of flag names that are passed to hwloc_topology_restrict(). Those names may be substrings of actual flag names as long as a single one matches, for instance bynodeset,memless. The default is 0 (or none).

--no-io

Do not show any I/O device or bridge. This is identical to --filter io:none. By default, common devices (GPUs, NICs, block devices, ...) and interesting bridges/switches are shown.

--no-bridges

Do not show any I/O bridge except hostbridges. This is identical to --filter bridge:none. By default, common devices (GPUs, NICs, block devices, ...) and interesting bridges/switches are shown.

--whole-io

Show all I/O devices and bridges. This is identical to --filter io:all. By default, only common devices (GPUs, NICs, block devices, ...) and interesting bridges/switches are shown.

--thissystem

Assume that the selected backend provides the topology for the system on which we are running. This is useful when loading a custom topology such as an XML file and using --restrict binding or --allow all.

--pid <pid>

Detect topology as seen by process <pid>, i.e. as if process <pid> did the discovery itself. Note that this can for instance change the set of allowed processors. Also show this process current CPU and Memory binding by marking the corresponding PUs and NUMA nodes (in Green in the graphical output, see the Colors section below, or by appending (binding) to the verbose text output). If 0 is given as pid, the current binding for the lstopo process will be shown.

--ps --top

Show existing processes as misc objects in the output. To avoid uselessly cluttering the output, only processes that are restricted to some part of the machine are shown.  On Linux, kernel threads are not shown. If many processes appear, the output may become hard to read anyway, making the hwloc-ps program more practical.

See --misc-from for a customizable variant using hwloc-ps.

--misc-from <file>

Add Misc objects as described in <file> containing entries such as:

   name=myMisc1
   cpuset=0x5

   name=myMisc2
   cpuset=0x7
   subtype=myOptionalSubtype

This is useful for combining with hwloc-ps --lstopo-misc (see Examples below) because hwloc-ps is far more customizable than lstopo's --top option.

--children-order <order>

Change the order of the different kinds of children with respect to their parent in the graphical output. <order> may be a comma-separated list of keywords among:

memory:above displays memory children above other children (and above the parent if it is a cache). PUs are therefore below their local NUMA nodes, like hwloc 1.x did.

io:right and misc:right place I/O or Misc children on the right of CPU children.

io:below  and misc:below place I/O or Misc children below CPU children.

plain places everything not specified together with normal CPU children.

If only plain is specified, lstopo displays the topology in a basic manner that strictly matches the actual tree: Memory, I/O and Misc children are listed below their parent just like any other child. PUs are therefore on the side of their local NUMA nodes, below a common ancestor. This output may result in strange layouts since the size of Memory, CPU and I/O children may be very different, causing the placement algorithm to poorly arrange them in rows.

The default order is memory:above,io:right,misc:right which means Memory children are above CPU children while I/O and Misc are together on the right.

Up to hwloc 2.5, the default was rather to memory:above,plain.

Additionally, memory:above, io:right, io:below, misc:right and misc:below may be suffixed with :horiz, :vert or :rect to force the horizontal, vertical or rectangular layout of children inside these sections.

See also the Graphical Output and Layout sections below.

--fontsize <size>

Set the size of text font in the graphical output.

The default is 10.

Boxes are scaled according to the text size. The LSTOPO_TEXT_XSCALE environment variable may be used to further scale the width of boxes (its default value is 1.0).

The --fontsize option is ignored in the ASCII backend.

--gridsize <size>

Set the margin between elements in the graphical output.

The default is 7. It was 10 prior to hwloc 2.1.

This option is ignored in the ASCII backend.

--linespacing <size>

Set the spacing between lines of text in the graphical output.

The default is 4.

The option was included in --gridsize prior to hwloc 2.1 (and its default was 10).

This option is ignored in the ASCII backend.

--thickness <size>

Set the thickness of lines and boxes in the graphical output.

The default is 1.

This option is ignored in the ASCII backend.

--horiz, --horiz=<type1,...>

Force a horizontal graphical layout instead of nearly 4/3 ratio in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, the layout only applies to the corresponding container objects. Ignored for bridges since their children are always vertically aligned.

--vert, --vert=<type1,...>

Force a vertical graphical layout instead of nearly 4/3 ratio in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, the layout only applies to the corresponding container objects.

--rect, --rect=<type1,...>

Force a rectangular graphical layout with nearly 4/3 ratio in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, the layout only applies to the corresponding container objects. Ignored for bridges since their children are always vertically aligned.

--no-text, --no-text=<type1,...>

Do not display any text in boxes in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, text is disabled for the corresponding objects. This is mostly useful for removing text from Group objects.

--text, --text=<type1,...>

Display text in boxes in the graphical output (default). If a comma-separated list of object types is given, text is reenabled for the corresponding objects (if it was previously disabled with --no-text).

--no-index, --no-index=<type1,...>

Do not show object indexes in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, indexes are disabled for the corresponding objects.

--index, --index=<type1,...>

Show object indexes in the graphical output (default). If a comma-separated list of object types is given, indexes are reenabled for the corresponding objects (if they were previously disabled with --no-index).

--no-attrs, --no-attrs=<type1,...>

Do not show object attributes (such as memory size, cache size, PCI bus ID, PCI link speed, etc.) in the graphical output. If a comma-separated list of object types is given, attributes are disabled for the corresponding objects.

--attrs, --attrs=<type1,...>

Show object attributes (such as memory size, cache size, PCI bus ID, PCI link speed, etc.) in the graphical output (default). If a comma-separated list of object types is given, attributes are reenabled for the corresponding objects (if they were previously disabled with --no-attrs).

--no-legend

Remove all text legend lines at the bottom of the graphical output.

--no-default-legend

Remove default text legend lines at the bottom of the graphical output. User-added legend lines with --append-legend or the "lstopoLegend" info are still displayed if any.

--append-legend <line>

Append the line of text to the bottom of the legend in the graphical output. If adding multiple lines, each line should be given separately by passing this option multiple times. Additional legend lines may also be specified inside the topology using the "lstopoLegend" info attributes on the topology root object.

--grey,  --greyscale

Use greyscale instead of colors in the graphical output.

--palette <grey|greyscale|defaut|colors|white|none>

Change the color palette. Passing grey or greyscale is identical to passing --grey or --greyscale. Passing white or none uses white instead of colors for all box backgrounds. Passing default or colors reverts back to the default color palette.

--palette type=#rrggbb

Replace the color of the given box type with the given 3x8bit hexadecimal RGB combination (e.g. #ff0000 is red). Existing types are machine, group, package, group_in_package, die, core, pu, numanode, memories (box containing multiple memory children), cache, pcidev, osdev, bridge, and misc.

See also CUSTOM COLOR below for customizing individual objects.

--binding-color <none|#rrggbb>

Do not colorize PUs and NUMA nodes according to the binding in the graphical output. Or change the color to the given 3x8bit hexadecimal RGB combination (e.g. #ff0000 is red).

--disallowed-color <none|#rrggbb>

Do not colorize disallowed PUs and NUMA nodes in the graphical output. Or change the color to the given 3x8bit hexadecimal RGB combination (e.g. #00ff00 is green).

--top-color <none|#rrggbb>

Do not colorize task objects in the graphical output when --top is given. Or change the color to the given 3x8bit hexadecimal RGB combination (e.g. #0000ff is blue). This is actually applied to Misc objects of subtype Process or Thread.

--version

Report version and exit.

-h --help

Display help message and exit.

lstopo and lstopo-no-graphics are capable of displaying a topological map of the system in a variety of different output formats.  The only difference between lstopo and lstopo-no-graphics is that graphical outputs are only supported by lstopo, to reduce dependencies on external libraries. hwloc-ls is identical to lstopo-no-graphics.

The filename specified directly implies the output format that will be used; see the Output Formats section, below.  Output formats that support color will indicate specific characteristics about individual CPUs by their color; see the Colors section, below.

By default, if no output filename is specified, the output is sent to a graphical window if possible in the current environment (DISPLAY environment variable set on Unix, etc.). Otherwise, a text summary is displayed in the console. The console is also used when the program runs from a terminal and the output is redirected to a pipe or file. These default behaviors may be changed by passing --of console to force console mode or --of window for graphical window.

The filename on the command line usually determines the format of the output. There are a few filenames that indicate specific output formats and devices (e.g., a filename of "-" will output a text summary to stdout), but most filenames indicate the desired output format by their suffix (e.g., "topo.png" will output a PNG-format file).

The format of the output may also be changed with "--of". For instance, "--of pdf" will generate a PDF-format file on the standard output, while "--of fig toto" will output a Xfig-format file named "toto".

The list of currently supported formats is given below. Any of them may be used with "--of" or as a filename suffix.

default

Send the output to a window or to the console depending on the environment.

window

Send the output to a graphical window.

console

Send a text summary to stdout. Binding or unallowed processors are only annotated in this mode if verbose; see the Colors section, below.

ascii

Output an ASCII art representation of the map (formerly called txt). If outputting to stdout and if colors are supported on the terminal, the output will be colorized.

tikz or tex

Output a LaTeX tikzpicture representation of the map that can be compiled with a LaTeX compiler.

fig

Output a representation of the map that can be loaded in Xfig.

svg

Output a SVG representation of the map, using Cairo (by default, if supported) or a native SVG backend (fallback, always supported). See cairosvg and nativesvg below.

cairosvg or svg(cairo)

If lstopo was compiled with the proper support, output a SVG representation of the map using Cairo.

nativesvg or svg(native)

Output a SVG representation of the map using the native SVG backend. It may be less pretty than the Cairo output, but it is always supported, and SVG objects have attributes for identifying and manipulating them. See dynamic_SVG_example.html for an example.

pdf

If lstopo was compiled with the proper support, lstopo outputs a PDF representation of the map.

ps

If lstopo was compiled with the proper support, lstopo outputs a Postscript representation of the map.

png

If lstopo was compiled with the proper support, lstopo outputs a PNG representation of the map.

synthetic

If the topology is symmetric (which requires that the root object has its symmetric_subtree field set), lstopo outputs a synthetic description string. This output may be reused as an input synthetic topology description later. See also the Synthetic topologies section in the documentation. Note that Misc and I/O devices are ignored during this export.

xml

lstopo outputs an XML representation of the map. It may be reused later, even on another machine, with lstopo --input, the HWLOC_XMLFILE environment variable, or the hwloc_topology_set_xml() function.

The following special names may be used:

-

Send a text summary to stdout.

/dev/stdout

Send a text summary to stdout.  It is effectively the same as specifying "-".

-.<format>

If the entire filename is "-.<format>", lstopo behaves as if "--of <format> -" was given, which means a file of the given format is sent to the standard output.

See the output of "lstopo --help" for a specific list of what graphical output formats are supported in your hwloc installation.

The graphical output is made of nested boxes representing the inclusion of objects in the hierarchy of resources. Usually a Machine box contains one or several Package boxes, that contain multiple Core boxes, with one or several PUs each.

In its graphical output, lstopo uses simple rectangular heuristics to try to achieve a 4/3 ratio between width and height. Although the hierarchy of resources is properly reflected, the exact physical organization (NUMA distances, rings, complete graphs, etc.) is currently ignored.

The layout of a level may be changed with --vert, --horiz, and --rect to force a parent object to arrange its children in vertical, horizontal or rectangular manners respectively.

The position of Memory, I/O and Misc children with respect to other children objects may be changed using --children-order. This effectivement divides children into multiple sections. The layout of children is first computed inside each section, before sections are placed inside (or below) the parent box.

The vertical/horizontal/rectangular layout of these additional sections may also be configured through --children-order.

Individual CPUs and NUMA nodes are colored in the graphical output formats to indicate different characteristics:

Green

The topology is reported as seen by a specific process (see --pid), and the given CPU or NUMA node is in this process CPU or Memory binding mask.

White

The CPU or NUMA node is in the allowed set (see below). If the topology is reported as seen by a specific process (see --pid), the object is also not in this process binding mask.

Red

The CPU or NUMA node is not in the allowed set (see below).

The "allowed set" is the set of CPUs or NUMA nodes to which the current process is allowed to bind.  The allowed set is usually either inherited from the parent process or set by administrative qpolicies on the system.  Linux cpusets are one example of limiting the allowed set for a process and its children to be less than the full set of CPUs or NUMA nodes on the system.

Different processes may therefore have different CPUs or NUMA nodes in the allowed set.  Hence, invoking lstopo in different contexts and/or as different users may display different colors for the same individual CPUs (e.g., running lstopo in one context may show a specific CPU as red, but running lstopo in a different context may show the same CPU as white).

Some lstopo output modes, e.g. the console mode (default non-graphical output), do not support colors at all. The console mode displays the above characteristics by appending text to each PU line if verbose messages are enabled.

The colors of different kinds of boxes may be configured with --palette.

The color of each object in the graphical output may also be enforced by specifying a "lstopoStyle" info attribute in that object. Its value should be a semi-colon separated list of "<attribute>=#rrggbb" where rr, gg and bb are the RGB components of a color, each between 0 and 255, in hexadecimal (00 to ff). <attribute> may be

Background

Sets the background color of the main object box.

Text

Sets the color of the text showing the object name, type, index, etc.

Text2

Sets the color of the additional text near the object, for instance the link speed behind a PCI bridge.

The "lstopoStyle" info may be added to a temporarily-saved XML topologies with hwloc-annotate, or with hwloc_obj_add_info(). For instance, to display all core objects in blue (with white names):

   lstopo save.xml
   hwloc-annotate save.xml save.xml core:all info lstopoStyle "Background=#0000ff;Text=#ffffff"
   lstopo -i save.xml

To display the machine topology in textual mode:

   $ lstopo-no-graphics

To display the machine topology in ascii-art mode:

   $ lstopo-no-graphics -.ascii

To display in graphical mode (assuming that the DISPLAY environment variable is set to a relevant value):

   $ lstopo

To export the topology to a PNG file:

   $ lstopo file.png

To export an XML file on a machine and later display the corresponding graphical output on another machine:

   $ machine1$ lstopo file.xml
   <transfer file.xml from machine1 to machine2>
   $ machine2$ lstopo --input file.xml

To save the current machine topology to XML and later reload it faster while still considering it as the current machine:

   $ lstopo file.xml
   <...>
   $ lstopo --input file.xml --thissystem

To restrict an XML topology to only physical processors 0, 1, 4 and 5:

   $ lstopo --input file.xml --restrict 0x33 newfile.xml

To restrict an XML topology to only numa node whose logical index is 1:

   $ lstopo --input file.xml --restrict $(hwloc-calc --input file.xml node:1) newfile.xml

To display a summary of the topology:

   $ lstopo -s

To get more details about the topology:

   $ lstopo -v

To only show cores:

   $ lstopo --only core

To show cpusets:

   $ lstopo --cpuset

To only show the cpusets of package:

   $ lstopo --only package --cpuset-only

Simulate a fake hierarchy; this example shows with 2 NUMA nodes of 2 processor units:

   $ lstopo --input "node:2 2"

To append the kernel release and version to the graphical legend:

   $ lstopo --append-legend "Kernel release: $(uname -r)" --append-legend "Kernel version: $(uname -v)"

To show where a process and its children are bound by combining with hwloc-ps:

   $ hwloc-ps --pid-children 23 --lstopo-misc - | lstopo --misc-from -

hwloc(7), hwloc-info(1), hwloc-bind(1), hwloc-annotate(1), hwloc-ps(1), hwloc-gather-topology(1), hwloc-gather-cpuid(1)

hwloc(7), hwlocality_info_attr(3), hwloc-annotate(1), hwloc-bind(1), hwloc-calc(1), hwloc-compress-dir(1), hwloc-diff(1), hwloc-dump-hwdata(1), hwloc-gather-cpuid(1), hwloc-gather-topology(1), hwloc-info(1), hwloc-patch(1), hwloc-ps(1).

The man page lstopo-no-graphics(1) is an alias of lstopo(1).