How to find the L2 cache size in Linux?

Question

I wanted to know how to find L2 cache size in Linux...

for L1 cache size, I am doing the following

pico /proc/cpuinfo

what about L2 cache size?

Solution 1

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cache/index2/size

or check dmidecode

or use lshw

Solution 2

EDIT 3: Heh, sorry, just do sudo dmidecode -t cache and it will show you your CPU's cache information. To tell what section you are looking at (L1 or L2), look at the Configuration: line. You want Configuration: Enabled, Not Socketed, Level 2.

Solution 3

You should check the following tool. It gives the most accurate information from all the tools I've tried. This is the command line version output:

~$ lstopo-no-graphics
Machine (7984MB)
  Socket L#0
    L2 L#0 (4096KB)
      L1d L#0 (32KB) + L1i L#0 (32KB) + Core L#0 + PU L#0 (P#0)
      L1d L#1 (32KB) + L1i L#1 (32KB) + Core L#1 + PU L#1 (P#1)
    L2 L#1 (4096KB)
      L1d L#2 (32KB) + L1i L#2 (32KB) + Core L#2 + PU L#2 (P#2)
      L1d L#3 (32KB) + L1i L#3 (32KB) + Core L#3 + PU L#3 (P#3)

And this is the graphical interface:

Solution 4

Just use: lscpu

Sample output:

$ lscpu 
Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                4
On-line CPU(s) list:   0-3
Thread(s) per core:    1
Core(s) per socket:    4
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 42
Stepping:              7
CPU MHz:               3401.000
BogoMIPS:              6784.57
Virtualization:        VT-x
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              256K
L3 cache:              8192K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-3

Solution 5

getconf

getconf -a | grep CACHE

gives:

LEVEL1_ICACHE_SIZE                 32768
LEVEL1_ICACHE_ASSOC                8
LEVEL1_ICACHE_LINESIZE             64
LEVEL1_DCACHE_SIZE                 32768
LEVEL1_DCACHE_ASSOC                8
LEVEL1_DCACHE_LINESIZE             64
LEVEL2_CACHE_SIZE                  262144
LEVEL2_CACHE_ASSOC                 8
LEVEL2_CACHE_LINESIZE              64
LEVEL3_CACHE_SIZE                  20971520
LEVEL3_CACHE_ASSOC                 20
LEVEL3_CACHE_LINESIZE              64
LEVEL4_CACHE_SIZE                  0
LEVEL4_CACHE_ASSOC                 0
LEVEL4_CACHE_LINESIZE              0

Or for a single level:

getconf LEVEL2_CACHE_SIZE

The cool thing about this interface is that it is just a wrapper around the POSIX sysconf C function (cache arguments are non-POSIX extensions), and so it can be used from C code as well:

long l2 = sysconf(_SC_LEVEL2_CACHE_SIZE);

Tested in Ubuntu 16.04.

x86 CPUID instruction

The CPUID x86 instruction also offers cache information, and can be directly accessed by userland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPUID

glibc seems to use that method for x86. I haven't confirmed by step debugging / instruction tracing, but the source for 2.28 sysdeps/x86/cacheinfo.c does that:

__cpuid (2, eax, ebx, ecx, edx);

TODO create a minimal C example, lazy now, asked at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14283171/how-to-receive-l1-l2-l3-cache-size-using-cpuid-instruction-in-x86

ARM also has an architecture-defined mechanism to find cache sizes through registers such as the Cache Size ID Register (CCSIDR), see the ARMv8 Programmers' Manual 11.6 "Cache discovery" for an overview.

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Comments

[zloster]

lscpu is not accurate on some CPUs with exotic configuration. For example the CPU from my answer gives the following (omitted some info): CPU family: 6 Model: 15 Stepping: 11 CPU MHz: 1866.742 BogoMIPS: 3733.48 Virtualization: VT-x L1d cache: 32K L1i cache: 32K L2 cache: 4096K NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3 The CPU is Xeon L5320 with 8MB L2 total.