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Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001Table of contents
2-----------------
3
41. Overview
52. How fio works
63. Running fio
74. Job file format
85. Detailed list of parameters
96. Normal output
107. Terse output
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +0200118. Trace file format
Bruce Cran43f09da2013-02-24 11:09:11 +0000129. CPU idleness profiling
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020013
141.0 Overview and history
15------------------------
16fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test
17case programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for
18performance reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing
19such a test app can be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.
20Hence I needed a tool that would be able to simulate a given io workload
21without resorting to writing a tailored test case again and again.
22
23A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number
24of processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own
25way of generating io. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of
26memory in an memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing
27reads using asynchronous io. fio needed to be flexible enough to
28simulate both of these cases, and many more.
29
302.0 How fio works
31-----------------
32The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired io workload, is
33writing a job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain
34any number of threads and/or files - the typical contents of the job file
35is a global section defining shared parameters, and one or more job
36sections describing the jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file
37and sets everything up as described. If we break down a job from top to
38bottom, it contains the following basic parameters:
39
40 IO type Defines the io pattern issued to the file(s).
41 We may only be reading sequentially from this
42 file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
43 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
44
45 Block size In how large chunks are we issuing io? This may be
46 a single value, or it may describe a range of
47 block sizes.
48
49 IO size How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
50
51 IO engine How do we issue io? We could be memory mapping the
52 file, we could be using regular read/write, we
Jens Axboed0ff85d2007-02-14 01:19:41 +010053 could be using splice, async io, syslet, or even
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020054 SG (SCSI generic sg).
55
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +010056 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020057 depth do we want to maintain?
58
59 IO type Should we be doing buffered io, or direct/raw io?
60
61 Num files How many files are we spreading the workload over.
62
63 Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
64 this workload over.
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +000065
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020066The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
67there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
68job behaves.
69
70
713.0 Running fio
72---------------
73See the README file for command line parameters, there are only a few
74of them.
75
76Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
77(or job files) as parameters:
78
79$ fio job_file
80
81and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
82more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
83of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
84parameter described the the parameter section.
85
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +020086If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
87parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
88to the job parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters
89(see README). For example, for the job file parameter iodepth=2, the
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +010090mirror command line option would be --iodepth 2 or --iodepth=2. You can
91also use the command line for giving more than one job entry. For each
92--name option that fio sees, it will start a new job with that name.
93Command line entries following a --name entry will apply to that job,
94until there are no more entries or a new --name entry is seen. This is
95similar to the job file options, where each option applies to the current
96job until a new [] job entry is seen.
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +020097
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020098fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified
99in the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted,
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100100such as memory locking, io scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200101
102
1034.0 Job file format
104-------------------
105As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing
106what it is supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file,
107where the names enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free
108to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
109A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
110may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
111several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
Jens Axboe65db0852007-02-20 10:22:01 +0100112section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
113'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200114
Aaron Carroll3c54bc42008-10-07 11:25:38 +0200115So let's look at a really simple job file that defines two processes, each
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +0200116randomly reading from a 128MB file.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200117
118; -- start job file --
119[global]
120rw=randread
121size=128m
122
123[job1]
124
125[job2]
126
127; -- end job file --
128
129As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the
130described parameters are shared. As no filename= option is given, fio
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100131makes up a filename for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command
132line, this job would look as follows:
133
134$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
135
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200136
Aaron Carroll3c54bc42008-10-07 11:25:38 +0200137Let's look at an example that has a number of processes writing randomly
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200138to files.
139
140; -- start job file --
141[random-writers]
142ioengine=libaio
143iodepth=4
144rw=randwrite
145bs=32k
146direct=0
147size=64m
148numjobs=4
149
150; -- end job file --
151
152Here we have no global section, as we only have one job defined anyway.
153We want to use async io here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +0200154increased the buffer size used to 32KB and define numjobs to 4 to
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200155fork 4 identical jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +0200156to their own 64MB file. Instead of using the above job file, you could
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +0200157have given the parameters on the command line. For this case, you would
158specify:
159
160$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200161
Jens Axboe74929ac2009-08-05 11:42:37 +02001624.1 Environment variables
163-------------------------
164
Aaron Carroll3c54bc42008-10-07 11:25:38 +0200165fio also supports environment variable expansion in job files. Any
166substring of the form "${VARNAME}" as part of an option value (in other
167words, on the right of the `='), will be expanded to the value of the
168environment variable called VARNAME. If no such environment variable
169is defined, or VARNAME is the empty string, the empty string will be
170substituted.
171
172As an example, let's look at a sample fio invocation and job file:
173
174$ SIZE=64m NUMJOBS=4 fio jobfile.fio
175
176; -- start job file --
177[random-writers]
178rw=randwrite
179size=${SIZE}
180numjobs=${NUMJOBS}
181; -- end job file --
182
183This will expand to the following equivalent job file at runtime:
184
185; -- start job file --
186[random-writers]
187rw=randwrite
188size=64m
189numjobs=4
190; -- end job file --
191
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200192fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
193inspiration.
194
Jens Axboe74929ac2009-08-05 11:42:37 +02001954.2 Reserved keywords
196---------------------
197
198Additionally, fio has a set of reserved keywords that will be replaced
199internally with the appropriate value. Those keywords are:
200
201$pagesize The architecture page size of the running system
202$mb_memory Megabytes of total memory in the system
203$ncpus Number of online available CPUs
204
205These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
206automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
Jens Axboe892a6ff2009-11-13 12:19:49 +0100207is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
208perform actions like:
209
210size=8*$mb_memory
211
212and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
213machine.
Jens Axboe74929ac2009-08-05 11:42:37 +0200214
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200215
2165.0 Detailed list of parameters
217-------------------------------
218
219This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
220Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
221a string. The following types are used:
222
223str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
Jens Axboeb09da8f2009-07-17 23:16:17 +0200224time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
Jens Axboee417fd62008-09-11 09:27:15 +0200225 specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
226 minutes, and hours.
Jens Axboeb09da8f2009-07-17 23:16:17 +0200227int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
228 describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
229 meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
Jens Axboe57fc29f2010-06-23 22:24:07 +0200230 sensitive, and you may also include trailing 'b' (eg 'kb' is the same
231 as 'k'). So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
Jens Axboeb09da8f2009-07-17 23:16:17 +0200232 out '4096' or just give 4k. The suffixes signify base 2 values, so
Jens Axboe57fc29f2010-06-23 22:24:07 +0200233 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on, unless the suffix is explicitly
234 set to a base 10 value using 'kib', 'mib', 'gib', etc. If that is the
235 case, then 1000 is used as the multiplier. This can be handy for
236 disks, since manufacturers generally use base 10 values when listing
237 the capacity of a drive. If the option accepts an upper and lower
238 range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values. May also
239 include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used, the number
240 is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200241bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
242 true and false (1 and 0).
Jens Axboeb09da8f2009-07-17 23:16:17 +0200243irange Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such
Jens Axboebf9a3ed2008-06-05 11:53:08 +0200244 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the separator, eg
Jens Axboe0c9baf92007-01-11 15:59:26 +0100245 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
246 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100247 int.
Yu-ju Hong83349192011-08-13 00:53:44 +0200248float_list A list of floating numbers, separated by a ':' character.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200249
250With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
251parameters.
252
253name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
254 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100255 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100256 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100257 job.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200258
Jens Axboe61697c32007-02-05 15:04:46 +0100259description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
260 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
261 not parsed.
262
Randy Dunlap37760412009-05-13 07:51:05 +0200263directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200264 in a different location than "./".
265
266filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
267 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
268 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100269 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
Jens Axboe414c2a32009-01-16 13:21:15 +0100270 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host, port,
Jens Axboe0fd666b2011-10-06 20:08:53 +0200271 and protocol to use in the format of =host,port,protocol.
Jens Axboe414c2a32009-01-16 13:21:15 +0100272 See ioengine=net for more. If the ioengine is file based, you
273 can specify a number of files by separating the names with a
274 ':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
275 as the two working files, you would use
Jens Axboe30a45882013-01-30 12:53:55 +0100276 filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. On Windows, disk devices are
277 accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first device,
278 \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and
279 FreeBSD prevent write access to areas of the disk containing
280 in-use data (e.g. filesystems).
281 If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
282 escape that with a '\' character. For instance, if the filename
283 is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use
284 filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c". '-' is a reserved name, meaning
285 stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends on the read/write
286 direction set.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200287
Jens Axboebbf6b542007-03-13 15:28:55 +0100288opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
289 directory and down the file system tree.
290
Randy Dunlap37760412009-05-13 07:51:05 +0200291lockfile=str Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does
Jens Axboe4d4e80f2008-03-04 10:18:56 +0100292 IO to them. If a file or file descriptor is shared, fio
293 can serialize IO to that file to make the end result
294 consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that
295 share files. The lock modes are:
Jens Axboe29c13492008-03-01 19:25:20 +0100296
Jens Axboe4d4e80f2008-03-04 10:18:56 +0100297 none No locking. The default.
298 exclusive Only one thread/process may do IO,
299 excluding all others.
300 readwrite Read-write locking on the file. Many
301 readers may access the file at the
302 same time, but writes get exclusive
303 access.
304
305 The option may be post-fixed with a lock batch number. If
306 set, then each thread/process may do that amount of IOs to
Jens Axboebf9a3ed2008-06-05 11:53:08 +0200307 the file before giving up the lock. Since lock acquisition is
Jens Axboe4d4e80f2008-03-04 10:18:56 +0100308 expensive, batching the lock/unlocks will speed up IO.
Jens Axboe29c13492008-03-01 19:25:20 +0100309
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100310readwrite=str
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200311rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
312
313 read Sequential reads
314 write Sequential writes
315 randwrite Random writes
316 randread Random reads
Jens Axboe10b023d2012-03-23 13:40:06 +0100317 rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200318 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
319
320 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
321 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
Jens Axboe211097b2007-03-22 18:56:45 +0100322 since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
Jens Axboe38dad622010-07-20 14:46:00 -0600323 a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
324 one by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
325 For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
Jens Axboe059b0802011-08-25 09:09:37 +0200326 passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
Lucian Adrian Grijincuddb754d2012-04-05 18:18:35 -0600327 suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
Jens Axboe059b0802011-08-25 09:09:37 +0200328 specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO.
329 For instance, using rw=write:4k will skip 4k for every
330 write. It turns sequential IO into sequential IO with holes.
331 See the 'rw_sequencer' option.
Jens Axboe38dad622010-07-20 14:46:00 -0600332
333rw_sequencer=str If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to
334 the rw=<str> line, then this option controls how that
335 number modifies the IO offset being generated. Accepted
336 values are:
337
338 sequential Generate sequential offset
339 identical Generate the same offset
340
341 'sequential' is only useful for random IO, where fio would
342 normally generate a new random offset for every IO. If you
343 append eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
Jens Axboe211097b2007-03-22 18:56:45 +0100344 every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
345 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
Jens Axboe38dad622010-07-20 14:46:00 -0600346 that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting
347 'sequential' for that would not result in any differences.
348 'identical' behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends
349 the same offset 8 number of times before generating a new
350 offset.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200351
Jens Axboe90fef2d2009-07-17 22:33:32 +0200352kb_base=int The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024.
353 Storage manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base
354 ten unit instead, for obvious reasons. Allow values are
355 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
356
Jens Axboe771e58b2013-01-30 12:56:23 +0100357unified_rw_reporting=bool Fio normally reports statistics on a per
358 data direction basis, meaning that read, write, and trim are
359 accounted and reported separately. If this option is set,
360 the fio will sum the results and report them as "mixed"
361 instead.
362
Jens Axboeee738492007-01-10 11:23:16 +0100363randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
364 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
365
Jens Axboe2615cc42011-03-28 09:35:09 +0200366use_os_rand=bool Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS
367 to generator random offsets, or it can use it's own internal
368 generator (based on Tausworthe). Default is to use the
369 internal generator, which is often of better quality and
370 faster.
371
Eric Gourioua596f042011-06-17 09:11:45 +0200372fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
373 Accepted values are:
374
375 none Do not pre-allocate space
376 posix Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate()
377 keep Pre-allocate via fallocate() with
378 FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set
379 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'
380 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'
381
382 May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
383 available on Linux.If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to
384 'none' because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
Jens Axboe7bc8c2c2010-01-28 11:31:31 +0100385
Jens Axboed2f3ac32007-03-22 19:24:09 +0100386fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
387 on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
388 want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
389 kernel about it, in which case you can disable this option.
390 If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
391 IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
392
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100393size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
Jens Axboe7616caf2007-05-25 09:26:05 +0200394 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
395 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
Randy Dunlap37760412009-05-13 07:51:05 +0200396 Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
Jens Axboe7616caf2007-05-25 09:26:05 +0200397 fio will divide this size between the available files
Jens Axboed6667262010-06-25 11:32:48 +0200398 specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
399 size of the given files or devices. If the the files
Jens Axboe7bb59102011-07-12 19:47:03 +0200400 do not exist, size must be given. It is also possible to
401 give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20%
402 is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
403 files or devices.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200404
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100405filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
Jens Axboe9c60ce62007-03-15 09:14:47 +0100406 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
407 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
408 given, each created file is the same size.
409
Jens Axboe74586c12011-01-20 10:16:03 -0700410fill_device=bool
411fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
Shawn Lewisaa31f1f2008-01-11 09:45:11 +0100412 space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
Jens Axboe3ce9dca2009-06-10 08:55:21 +0200413 sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
Jens Axboe4f124322011-01-19 15:35:26 -0700414 point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
415 option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
416 since the size of that is already known by the file system.
417 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
418 ENOSPC there.
Shawn Lewisaa31f1f2008-01-11 09:45:11 +0100419
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100420blocksize=int
421bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
422 can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
423 given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
Jens Axboef90eff52006-11-06 11:08:21 +0100424 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
425 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
426 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
Jens Axboe787f7e92006-11-06 13:26:29 +0100427 for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
428 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
429 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
Jens Axboea00735e2006-11-03 08:58:08 +0100430
Jens Axboe2b7a01d2009-03-11 11:00:13 +0100431blockalign=int
432ba=int At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to
433 the same as 'blocksize' the minimum blocksize given.
434 Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO,
435 though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This
436 option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for
437 files, so it will turn off that option.
438
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100439blocksize_range=irange
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200440bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
441 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
442 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
Jens Axboef90eff52006-11-06 11:08:21 +0100443 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
444 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
445 See bs=.
Jens Axboea00735e2006-11-03 08:58:08 +0100446
Jens Axboe564ca972007-12-14 12:21:19 +0100447bssplit=str Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the
448 block sizes issued, not just an even split between them.
449 This option allows you to weight various block sizes,
450 so that you are able to define a specific amount of
451 block sizes issued. The format for this option is:
452
453 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
454
455 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define
456 a workload that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and
457 40% 32k blocks, you would write:
458
459 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
460
461 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank,
462 fio will fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit
463 option like this one:
464
465 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
466
467 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages
468 always add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds
469 up to more, it will error out.
470
Jens Axboe720e84a2009-04-21 08:29:55 +0200471 bssplit also supports giving separate splits to reads and
472 writes. The format is identical to what bs= accepts. You
473 have to separate the read and write parts with a comma. So
474 if you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads,
475 while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
476 specify:
477
478 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90,8k/10
479
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100480blocksize_unaligned
Jens Axboe690adba2006-10-30 15:25:09 +0100481bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
482 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
483 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200484
Jens Axboee9459e52007-04-17 15:46:32 +0200485zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
486 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
487
Jens Axboe5973caf2008-05-21 19:52:35 +0200488refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
489 on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
490 time and reuse that data. Only makes sense if zero_buffers
Jens Axboe41ccd842008-05-22 09:17:33 +0200491 isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
492 refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
Jens Axboe5973caf2008-05-21 19:52:35 +0200493
Jens Axboefd684182011-09-19 09:24:44 +0200494scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
495 using data deduplication, then setting this option will
496 slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
497 de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
498 block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
499 blocks. Default: true.
500
Jens Axboec5751c62012-03-15 15:02:56 +0100501buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
502 provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
503 the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
504 random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
505 unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
506 this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
507
508buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
509 setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
510 data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
511 provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
512 data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
513 to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
514 alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
515 buffer.
516
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200517nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
518
Jens Axboe390b1532007-03-09 13:03:00 +0100519openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
520 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
521 simultaneous opens.
522
Jens Axboe5af1c6f2007-03-01 10:06:10 +0100523file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
524 service next. The following types are defined:
525
526 random Just choose a file at random.
527
528 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
529 is the default.
530
Jens Axboea086c252009-03-04 08:27:37 +0100531 sequential Finish one file before moving on to
532 the next. Multiple files can still be
533 open depending on 'openfiles'.
534
Jens Axboe1907dbc2007-03-12 11:44:28 +0100535 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
536 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
537 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
538 have been issued.
539
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200540ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
541 types are defined:
542
543 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
544 used to position the io location.
545
gurudas paia31041e2007-10-23 15:12:30 +0200546 psync Basic pread(2) or pwrite(2) io.
547
Gurudas Paie05af9e2008-02-06 11:16:15 +0100548 vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
Jens Axboe1d2af022008-02-04 10:59:07 +0100549
Jens Axboe15d182a2009-01-16 19:15:07 +0100550 libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
551 may only support queued behaviour with
552 non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +0100553 This engine defines engine specific options.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200554
555 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
556
Jens Axboe417f0062008-06-02 11:59:30 +0200557 solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
558
Bruce Cran03e20d62011-01-02 20:14:54 +0100559 windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
560
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200561 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
562 to/from using memcpy(3).
563
564 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
565 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
566 space to the kernel.
567
Jens Axboed0ff85d2007-02-14 01:19:41 +0100568 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
569 regular read/write async.
570
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200571 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100572 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200573 the target is an sg character device
574 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
575 io.
576
Jens Axboea94ea282006-11-24 12:37:34 +0100577 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
578 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
579 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
580
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100581 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +0100582 Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
583 port, listen and filename options are used to
584 specify what sort of connection to make, while
585 the protocol option determines which protocol
586 will be used.
587 This engine defines engine specific options.
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100588
Jens Axboe9cce02e2007-06-22 15:42:21 +0200589 netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
590 map data and send/receive.
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +0100591 This engine defines engine specific options.
Jens Axboe9cce02e2007-06-22 15:42:21 +0200592
gurudas pai53aec0a2007-10-05 13:20:18 +0200593 cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
Jens Axboeba0fbe12007-03-09 14:34:23 +0100594 cycles according to the cpuload= and
595 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
596 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
Gurudas Pai36ecec82008-02-08 08:50:14 +0100597 85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
598 use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
599 usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
600 CPU at the desired rate.
Jens Axboeba0fbe12007-03-09 14:34:23 +0100601
Jens Axboee9a18062007-03-21 08:51:56 +0100602 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
603 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
604 to async IO. See
605
606 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
607
608 for more info on GUASI.
609
ren yufei21b8aee2011-08-01 10:01:57 +0200610 rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
Bart Van Asscheeb52fa32011-08-15 09:01:05 +0200611 memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
612 channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
613 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
ren yufei21b8aee2011-08-01 10:01:57 +0200614
Dmitry Monakhovd54fce82012-09-20 15:37:17 +0400615 falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
616 simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
617 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
Jens Axboe0981fd72012-09-20 19:23:02 +0200618 DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
Dmitry Monakhovd54fce82012-09-20 15:37:17 +0400619 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
620
621 e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
622 ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
623 request to DDIR_WRITE event
Jens Axboe0981fd72012-09-20 19:23:02 +0200624
Jens Axboe8a7bd872007-02-28 11:12:25 +0100625 external Prefix to specify loading an external
626 IO engine object file. Append the engine
627 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
628 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
629
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200630iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
631 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
632 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
Jens Axboeee72ca02010-12-02 20:05:37 +0100633 concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
634 affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
Bruce Cran9b836562011-01-08 19:49:54 +0100635 verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
Jens Axboeee72ca02010-12-02 20:05:37 +0100636 restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
637 This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
638 direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
639 eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
640 that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200641
Jens Axboe49504212008-06-05 09:03:30 +0200642iodepth_batch_submit=int
Jens Axboecb5ab512007-02-26 12:57:09 +0100643iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
Jens Axboe89e820f2008-01-18 10:30:07 +0100644 It defaults to 1 which means that we submit each IO
645 as soon as it is available, but can be raised to submit
646 bigger batches of IO at the time.
Jens Axboecb5ab512007-02-26 12:57:09 +0100647
Jens Axboe49504212008-06-05 09:03:30 +0200648iodepth_batch_complete=int This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve
649 at once. It defaults to 1 which means that we'll ask
650 for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from
651 the kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we
652 hit the limit set by iodepth_low. If this variable is
653 set to 0, then fio will always check for completed
654 events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce
655 IO latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
656
Jens Axboee916b392007-02-20 14:37:26 +0100657iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
658 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
659 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
660 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
661 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
662 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
663
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200664direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
Bruce Cran9b836562011-01-08 19:49:54 +0100665 O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
Bruce Cran93bcfd22012-02-20 20:18:19 +0100666 On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
Jens Axboe76a43db2007-01-11 13:24:44 +0100667
668buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
669 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200670
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100671offset=int Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200672 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
673 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
674
Dan Ehrenberg214ac7e2012-03-15 14:44:26 +0100675offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
676 the offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the
677 thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented
678 for each job. This option is useful if there are several jobs
679 which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in disjoint
680 segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
681
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200682fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
683 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
684 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
685 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
686 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100687 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200688
Jens Axboee76b1da2010-03-09 20:49:54 +0100689fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
Jens Axboe5f9099e2009-06-16 22:40:26 +0200690 metadata blocks.
Bruce Cran93bcfd22012-02-20 20:18:19 +0100691 In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
Joshua Aunee72fa4d2010-02-11 00:59:18 -0700692 using fsync()
Jens Axboe5f9099e2009-06-16 22:40:26 +0200693
Jens Axboee76b1da2010-03-09 20:49:54 +0100694sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
695 write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
696 have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
697 can currently be one or more of:
698
699 wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
700 write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
701 wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
702
703 So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
704 use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
705 every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
706 This option is Linux specific.
707
Jens Axboe5036fc12008-04-15 09:20:46 +0200708overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
709 data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
710 created before the write phase begins. If the file exists
711 and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
712 will be done.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200713
Jens Axboedbd11ea2013-01-13 17:16:46 +0100714end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when a write stage has completed.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200715
Jens Axboeebb14152007-03-13 14:42:15 +0100716fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
717 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
718 file close, not just at the end of the job.
719
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200720rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
721
722rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
723 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
724 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
Jens Axboec35dd7a2009-06-10 08:39:16 +0200725 the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting,
726 if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
727 If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200728
Jens Axboe92d42d62012-11-15 15:38:32 -0700729random_distribution=str:float By default, fio will use a completely uniform
730 random distribution when asked to perform random IO. Sometimes
731 it is useful to skew the distribution in specific ways,
732 ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
733 fio includes the following distribution models:
734
735 random Uniform random distribution
736 zipf Zipf distribution
737 pareto Pareto distribution
738
739 When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value
740 is also needed to define the access pattern. For zipf, this
741 is the zipf theta. For pareto, it's the pareto power. Fio
742 includes a test program, genzipf, that can be used visualize
743 what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
744 If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
745 random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform
746 model is used, fio will disable use of the random map.
747
Jens Axboebb8895e2006-10-30 15:14:48 +0100748norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
749 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
750 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
751 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
752 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
Jens Axboe83472392009-02-19 21:32:12 +0100753 is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
754 blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
755 complete rewrites of blocks.
Jens Axboebb8895e2006-10-30 15:14:48 +0100756
Jens Axboe0408c202011-08-08 09:07:28 +0200757softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
758 enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
759 set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
760 will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
Jens Axboe2b386d22008-03-26 10:32:57 +0100761 disabled by default.
762
Jens Axboee8b19612012-12-05 10:28:08 +0100763random_generator=str Fio supports the following engines for generating
764 IO offsets for random IO:
765
766 tausworthe Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
767 lfsr Linear feedback shift register generator
768
769 Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it
770 requires tracking on the side if we want to ensure that
771 blocks are only read or written once. LFSR guarantees
772 that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's
773 also less computationally expensive. It's not a true
774 random generator, however, though for IO purposes it's
775 typically good enough. LFSR only works with single
776 block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
777 sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write
778 some blocks multiple times.
Bruce Cran43f09da2013-02-24 11:09:11 +0000779
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200780nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
781
782prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
783 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
784 See man ionice(1).
785
786prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
787
788thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
789 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
Jens Axboe48097d52007-02-17 06:30:44 +0100790 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
791 thinktime_spin.
792
793thinktime_spin=int
794 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
795 doing something with the data received, before falling back
796 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
797 thinktime.
Jens Axboe9c1f7432007-01-03 20:43:19 +0100798
799thinktime_blocks
800 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
801 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
802 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
803 after every block.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200804
Jens Axboe581e7142009-06-09 12:47:16 +0200805rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
Jens Axboeb09da8f2009-07-17 23:16:17 +0200806 the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
Jens Axboe581e7142009-06-09 12:47:16 +0200807 reads and writes to 500k each, or you can specify read and
808 writes separately. Using rate=1m,500k would limit reads to
809 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or
810 writes can be done with rate=,500k or rate=500k,. The former
811 will only limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only
812 limit reads.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200813
814ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
Jens Axboe4e991c22007-03-15 11:41:11 +0100815 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
Jens Axboe581e7142009-06-09 12:47:16 +0200816 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for
817 read vs write separation.
Jens Axboe4e991c22007-03-15 11:41:11 +0100818
819rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
820 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
821 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
Jens Axboe581e7142009-06-09 12:47:16 +0200822 the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
823 as rate is used for read vs write seperation.
Jens Axboe4e991c22007-03-15 11:41:11 +0100824
825rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
Jens Axboe581e7142009-06-09 12:47:16 +0200826 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
827 write seperation.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200828
Jens Axboe15501532012-10-24 16:37:45 +0200829max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
830 latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
831
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200832ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100833 of milliseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200834
835cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
Jens Axboea08bc172007-06-13 21:00:46 +0200836 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. So if you want
837 the allowed CPUs to be 1 and 5, you would pass the decimal
838 value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
Jens Axboe7dbb6eb2007-05-22 09:13:31 +0200839 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
Jens Axboeb0ea08c2008-12-05 12:57:11 +0100840 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't
841 work well for a higher CPU count than what you can store in
842 an integer mask, so it can only control cpus 1-32. For
843 boxes with larger CPU counts, use cpus_allowed.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200844
Jens Axboed2e268b2007-06-15 10:33:49 +0200845cpus_allowed=str Controls the same options as cpumask, but it allows a text
846 setting of the permitted CPUs instead. So to use CPUs 1 and
Jens Axboe62a72732008-12-08 11:37:01 +0100847 5, you would specify cpus_allowed=1,5. This options also
848 allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
849 1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
Jens Axboed2e268b2007-06-15 10:33:49 +0200850
Yufei Rend0b937e2012-10-19 23:11:52 -0400851numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
852 arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
853 A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
Jens Axboe67bf9822013-01-10 11:23:19 +0100854 fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el) installed.
Yufei Rend0b937e2012-10-19 23:11:52 -0400855
856numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
857 nodes. Format of the argements:
858 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
859 `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
860 default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
861 For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
862 needed to be specified.
863 For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
864 For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
865 list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
866
Jens Axboee417fd62008-09-11 09:27:15 +0200867startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200868 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
869 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
870 time.
871
Jens Axboee417fd62008-09-11 09:27:15 +0200872runtime=time Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200873 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
874 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
875 cap the total runtime to a given time.
876
Jens Axboecf4464c2007-04-17 20:14:42 +0200877time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
Jens Axboebf9a3ed2008-06-05 11:53:08 +0200878 specified even if the file(s) are completely read or
Jens Axboecf4464c2007-04-17 20:14:42 +0200879 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
880 as many times as the runtime allows.
881
Jens Axboee417fd62008-09-11 09:27:15 +0200882ramp_time=time If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount
Jens Axboe721938a2008-09-10 09:46:16 +0200883 of time before logging any performance numbers. Useful for
884 letting performance settle before logging results, thus
Jens Axboeb29ee5b2008-09-11 10:17:26 +0200885 minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
886 that the ramp_time is considered lead in time for a job,
887 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout
888 or runtime is specified.
Jens Axboe721938a2008-09-10 09:46:16 +0200889
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200890invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
891 to starting io. Defaults to true.
892
893sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
894 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
895
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100896iomem=str
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200897mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
898 The allowed values are:
899
900 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
901
902 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
903 through shmget(2).
904
Jens Axboe74b025b2006-12-19 15:18:14 +0100905 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
906
Jens Axboe313cb202006-12-21 09:50:00 +0100907 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
908 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
909 a filename is given after the option. The
910 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200911
Jens Axboed0bdaf42006-12-20 14:40:44 +0100912 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
913 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
914 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
915
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200916 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
Jens Axboe5394ae52006-12-20 20:15:41 +0100917 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
918 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
919 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
920 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +0200921 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MB in size. So
Jens Axboe5394ae52006-12-20 20:15:41 +0100922 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
923 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
924 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
925 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
926 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
927 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100928 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
Jens Axboe5394ae52006-12-20 20:15:41 +0100929
930 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
931 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
932 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200933
Jens Axboed529ee12009-07-01 10:33:03 +0200934iomem_align=int This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers.
935 Note that the given alignment is applied to the first IO unit
936 buffer, if using iodepth the alignment of the following buffers
937 are given by the bs used. In other words, if using a bs that is
938 a multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will
939 be aligned to this value. If using a bs that is not page
940 aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
941 sum of the iomem_align and bs used.
942
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +0100943hugepage-size=int
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100944 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +0200945 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MB.
Jens Axboec51074e2006-12-20 20:28:33 +0100946 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
947 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
948 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100949
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200950exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
951 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
952 desired action.
953
954bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100955 is specified in milliseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200956
Jens Axboec8eeb9d2011-10-05 14:02:22 +0200957iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
958 is specified in milliseconds.
959
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200960create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
961 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
962 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
963 used and even the number of processors in the system.
964
965create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
966 default.
967
Jens Axboe814452b2009-03-04 12:53:13 +0100968create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
969 when it's time to do IO to that file.
970
Jens Axboe25460cf2012-05-02 13:58:02 +0200971create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
972 If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
973 that will be done. The actual job contents are not
974 executed.
975
Zhang, Yanminafad68f2009-05-20 11:30:55 +0200976pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
Jens Axboe34f1c042009-06-02 14:19:25 +0200977 starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
978 the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
Jens Axboe9c0d2242009-07-01 12:26:28 +0200979 and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO engines
980 that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
981 multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice
982 IO.
Zhang, Yanminafad68f2009-05-20 11:30:55 +0200983
Jens Axboee545a6c2007-01-14 00:00:29 +0100984unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
Jens Axboebf9a3ed2008-06-05 11:53:08 +0200985 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the file
986 set again and again.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200987
988loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
989 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
990 to 1.
991
Jens Axboe68e1f292007-08-10 10:32:14 +0200992do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
Shawn Lewise84c73a2007-08-02 22:19:32 +0200993 verify is set. Defaults to 1.
994
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200995verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
996 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
997
998 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
999 it in the header of each block.
1000
Jens Axboe17dc34d2007-07-27 15:36:02 +02001001 crc64 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data
1002 area and store it in the header of each
1003 block.
1004
Jens Axboebac39e02008-06-11 20:46:19 +02001005 crc32c Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store
1006 it in the header of each block.
1007
Jens Axboe38455912008-08-04 15:35:26 +02001008 crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
Jens Axboe0539d752010-06-21 15:22:56 +02001009 provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
1010 back to regular software crc32c, if not
1011 supported by the system.
Jens Axboe38455912008-08-04 15:35:26 +02001012
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001013 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
1014 it in the header of each block.
1015
Jens Axboe969f7ed2007-07-27 09:07:17 +02001016 crc16 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store
1017 it in the header of each block.
1018
Jens Axboe17dc34d2007-07-27 15:36:02 +02001019 crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
1020 it in the header of each block.
1021
Jens Axboecd14cc12007-07-30 10:59:33 +02001022 sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
1023
1024 sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
1025
Jens Axboe7c353ce2009-08-09 22:40:33 +02001026 sha1 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
1027
Shawn Lewis7437ee82007-08-02 21:05:58 +02001028 meta Write extra information about each io
1029 (timestamp, block number etc.). The block
Jens Axboe996093b2010-06-24 08:37:13 +02001030 number is verified. See also verify_pattern.
Shawn Lewis7437ee82007-08-02 21:05:58 +02001031
Jens Axboe36690c92007-03-26 10:23:34 +02001032 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
1033 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
1034 else.
1035
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +01001036 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001037 system to make sure that the written data is also
Jens Axboeb892dc02009-09-05 20:37:35 +02001038 correctly read back. If the data direction given is
1039 a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
1040 verify a previously written file. If the data direction
1041 includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
1042 newly written data.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001043
Jens Axboe160b9662007-03-27 10:59:49 +02001044verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
1045 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
1046 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
1047 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
1048 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
1049 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
1050 significant.
Shawn Lewis3f9f4e22007-07-28 21:10:37 +02001051
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +01001052verify_offset=int Swap the verification header with data somewhere else
Shawn Lewis546a9142007-07-28 21:11:37 +02001053 in the block before writing. Its swapped back before
1054 verifying.
1055
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +01001056verify_interval=int Write the verification header at a finer granularity
Shawn Lewis3f9f4e22007-07-28 21:10:37 +02001057 than the blocksize. It will be written for chunks the
1058 size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
1059 evenly.
Jens Axboe90059d62007-07-30 09:33:12 +02001060
Radha Ramachandran0e92f872009-10-27 20:14:27 +01001061verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
Shawn Lewise28218f2008-01-16 11:01:33 +01001062 pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
1063 bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1064 pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
1065 width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
Radha Ramachandran0e92f872009-10-27 20:14:27 +01001066 buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
1067 The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
Jens Axboe996093b2010-06-24 08:37:13 +02001068 be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
1069 with verify=meta.
Shawn Lewise28218f2008-01-16 11:01:33 +01001070
Jens Axboe68e1f292007-08-10 10:32:14 +02001071verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
Jens Axboea12a3b42007-08-09 10:20:54 +02001072 before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
1073 option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
1074 failure.
Jens Axboee8462bd2009-07-06 12:59:04 +02001075
Jens Axboeb463e932011-01-12 09:03:23 +01001076verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
1077 block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
1078 allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
Jens Axboeef71e312011-10-25 22:43:36 +02001079 corruption occurred. Off by default.
Jens Axboeb463e932011-01-12 09:03:23 +01001080
Jens Axboee8462bd2009-07-06 12:59:04 +02001081verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
1082 thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
1083 async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
1084 causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
Jens Axboec85c3242009-07-06 14:12:57 +02001085 to one or more separate threads. If using this offload
1086 option, even sync IO engines can benefit from using an
1087 iodepth setting higher than 1, as it allows them to have
1088 IO in flight while verifies are running.
Jens Axboee8462bd2009-07-06 12:59:04 +02001089
1090verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
1091 async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
1092 format used.
Jens Axboe6f874182010-06-21 12:53:26 +02001093
1094verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
1095 job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
1096 other words, everything is written then everything is read
1097 back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1098 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
1099 associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
1100 verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
1101 holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
Jens Axboef42195a2010-10-26 08:10:58 -06001102 will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1103
Jens Axboe6f874182010-06-21 12:53:26 +02001104 will verify the previously written blocks before continuing
1105 to write new ones.
1106
1107verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
1108 if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
1109 the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
Jens Axboef42195a2010-10-26 08:10:58 -06001110 is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
1111 less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
1112 if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
1113 blocks will be verified more than once.
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001114
Jens Axboed3923652011-08-03 12:38:39 +02001115stonewall
1116wait_for_previous Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001117 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
Jens Axboeb3d62a72007-03-20 14:23:26 +01001118 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
1119 a new reporting group.
1120
Akash Vermaabcab6a2012-10-04 15:58:28 -07001121new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001122
1123numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
1124 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
Akash Vermaabcab6a2012-10-04 15:58:28 -07001125 the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
1126 statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
1127 conjunction with new_group.
Jens Axboefa28c852007-03-06 15:40:49 +01001128
Akash Vermaabcab6a2012-10-04 15:58:28 -07001129group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
Jens Axboe04b2f792012-10-10 09:09:59 -06001130 groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
1131 This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
1132 individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
1133 To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
1134 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
1135 reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
1136 using 'new_group'.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001137
1138thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
1139 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
1140 instead.
1141
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +01001142zonesize=int Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001143
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +01001144zoneskip=int Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001145 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
1146 io on zones of a file.
1147
Jens Axboe076efc72006-10-27 11:24:25 +02001148write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
Stefan Hajnoczi5b42a482011-01-08 20:28:41 +01001149 read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
1150 the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001151
Jens Axboe076efc72006-10-27 11:24:25 +02001152read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001153 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
Jens Axboe6df8ada2007-05-15 13:23:19 +02001154 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
1155 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
1156 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
1157 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
1158 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
Jens Axboeea3e51c2010-05-17 19:51:45 +02001159 file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001160
David Nellans64bbb862010-08-24 22:13:30 +02001161replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
Jens Axboe62776222010-09-02 15:30:16 +02001162 is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
1163 replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
1164 setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
1165 attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
1166 respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
1167 given device, but different timings.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001168
David Nellansd1c46c02010-08-31 21:20:47 +02001169replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
1170 default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
1171 device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
1172 undesireable because on a different machine those major/minor
1173 numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
1174 the same system can also result in a different major/minor
1175 mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
1176 the single specified device regardless of the device it was
1177 recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
1178 IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
1179 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
1180 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
1181 replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
1182 blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
1183 independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
1184 the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
1185
Jens Axboee3cedca2008-11-19 19:57:52 +01001186write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001187 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
Jens Axboee0da9bc2006-10-25 13:08:57 +02001188 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
1189 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
Lucian Adrian Grijincuddb754d2012-04-05 18:18:35 -06001190 graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
1191 filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.log.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001192
Jens Axboee3cedca2008-11-19 19:57:52 +01001193write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001194 submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
1195 filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1196 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1197 fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
Jens Axboee3cedca2008-11-19 19:57:52 +01001198
1199 write_lat_log=foo
1200
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001201 The actual log names will be foo_slat.log, foo_slat.log,
1202 and foo_lat.log. This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs
1203 automatically.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001204
Jens Axboec8eeb9d2011-10-05 14:02:22 +02001205write_bw_log=str If given, write an IOPS log of the jobs in this job
1206 file. See write_bw_log.
1207
Jens Axboeb8bc8cb2011-12-01 09:04:31 +01001208write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
1209 given with this option, the default filename of
1210 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1211 fio will still append the type of log.
1212
1213log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
1214 or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
1215 disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
1216 this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
1217 specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1218 Defaults to 0.
1219
Jens Axboef7fa2652009-03-09 14:20:20 +01001220lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001221 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
1222 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
1223
1224exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
1225 through system(3).
1226
1227exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
1228 though system(3).
1229
1230ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
1231 io scheduler before running.
1232
1233cpuload=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, attempt to use the specified
1234 percentage of CPU cycles.
1235
1236cpuchunks=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, split the load into
Randy Dunlap26eca2d2009-05-13 07:50:38 +02001237 cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001238
Jens Axboe0a839f32007-04-26 09:02:34 +02001239disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
1240 supports it. Defaults to on.
1241
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001242disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
Jens Axboe9520ebb2008-10-16 21:03:27 +02001243 only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
1244 as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
1245 Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1246 calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
1247 disable_bw as well.
1248
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001249disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
1250 disable_lat.
1251
Jens Axboe9520ebb2008-10-16 21:03:27 +02001252disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001253 disable_slat.
Jens Axboe9520ebb2008-10-16 21:03:27 +02001254
1255disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
Jens Axboe02af0982010-06-24 09:59:34 +02001256 disable_lat.
Jens Axboe9520ebb2008-10-16 21:03:27 +02001257
Yu-ju Hong83349192011-08-13 00:53:44 +02001258clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
1259 completion latencies.
1260
1261percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
1262 for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
1263 number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
1264 the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
1265 list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
1266 --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
1267 the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
1268 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1269
Jens Axboe23893642012-12-17 14:44:08 +01001270clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
1271 supported options are:
1272
1273 gettimeofday gettimeofday(2)
1274
1275 clock_gettime clock_gettime(2)
1276
1277 cpu Internal CPU clock source
1278
1279 cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it
1280 is very fast (and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will
1281 automatically use this clocksource if it's supported and
1282 considered reliable on the system it is running on, unless
1283 another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs,
1284 this means supporting TSC Invariant.
1285
Jens Axboe993bf482008-11-14 13:04:53 +01001286gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
1287 (disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
1288 precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink
1289 the gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled,
1290 we only do about 0.4% of the gtod() calls we would have
1291 done if all time keeping was enabled.
1292
Jens Axboebe4ecfd2008-12-08 14:10:52 +01001293gtod_cpu=int Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of
1294 execution to just getting the current time. Fio (and
1295 databases, for instance) are very intensive on gettimeofday()
1296 calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for
1297 doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
1298 location. Then the other threads/processes that run IO
1299 workloads need only copy that segment, instead of entering
1300 the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside
1301 for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
1302 uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
1303 jobs.
Jens Axboea696fa22009-12-04 10:05:02 +01001304
Steven Lang06842022011-11-17 09:45:17 +01001305continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
Radha Ramachandranf2bba182009-06-15 08:40:16 +02001306 failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
1307 there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
1308 is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
1309 option is used, there are two more stats that are appended,
1310 the total error count and the first error. The error field
1311 given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
1312 run.
Jens Axboebe4ecfd2008-12-08 14:10:52 +01001313
Steven Lang06842022011-11-17 09:45:17 +01001314 The allowed values are:
1315
1316 none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
1317
1318 read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
1319
1320 write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
1321
1322 io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
1323
1324 verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
1325
1326 all Continue on all errors.
1327
1328 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
1329
1330 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
1331
Dmitry Monakhov8b28bd42012-09-23 15:46:09 +04001332ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
1333 in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
1334 ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1335 errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
1336 may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
1337 Example:
1338 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001339 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
1340 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
Dmitry Monakhov8b28bd42012-09-23 15:46:09 +04001341
1342error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
1343 by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001344
Jens Axboe6adb38a2009-12-07 08:01:26 +01001345cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
1346 be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
1347 mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
1348 mounted, you can do so with:
Jens Axboea696fa22009-12-04 10:05:02 +01001349
1350 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
1351
Jens Axboea696fa22009-12-04 10:05:02 +01001352cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
1353 the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
1354 are in the range of 100..1000.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001355
Vivek Goyal7de87092010-03-31 22:55:15 +02001356cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
1357 the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
1358 cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
1359 This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
1360 files after job completion. Default: false
1361
Jens Axboee0b0d892009-12-08 10:10:14 +01001362uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
1363 this value before the thread/process does any work.
1364
1365gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
1366
Dan Ehrenberg9e684a42012-02-20 11:05:14 +01001367flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
1368 global flow. See flow.
1369
1370flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
1371 there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
1372 proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
1373 to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
1374 stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
1375 counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
1376 one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
1377 will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1378
1379flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
1380 counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
1381 lower value of the counter.
1382
1383flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
1384 watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
1385
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +01001386In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
1387ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
1388caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
1389that defines them is selected.
1390
1391[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1392 the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1393 With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1394 from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1395 enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1396 iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1397
1398[netsplice] hostname=str
1399[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1400 If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1401 used and must be omitted.
1402
1403[netsplice] port=int
1404[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
1405
Jens Axboe1d360ff2013-01-31 13:33:45 +01001406[netsplice] nodelay=bool
1407[net] nodelay=bool Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1408
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +01001409[netsplice] protocol=str
1410[netsplice] proto=str
1411[net] protocol=str
1412[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1413
1414 tcp Transmission control protocol
Bruce Cranf5cc3d02012-10-10 08:17:44 -06001415 udp User datagram protocol
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +01001416 unix UNIX domain socket
1417
1418 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1419 as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1420 reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1421 used and the port is invalid.
1422
1423[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1424 connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1425 hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
Jens Axboe7aeb1e92012-12-06 20:53:57 +01001426[net] pingpong Normal a network writer will just continue writing data, and
1427 a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
1428 is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
1429 then wait for the reader to send the same payload back. This
1430 allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission
1431 and completion latencies then measure local time spent
1432 sending or receiving, and the completion latency measures
1433 how long it took for the other end to receive and send back.
1434
Dmitry Monakhovd54fce82012-09-20 15:37:17 +04001435[e4defrag] donorname=str
1436 File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
1437[e4defrag] inplace=int
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001438 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
Dmitry Monakhovd54fce82012-09-20 15:37:17 +04001439 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
1440 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
1441 and free right after event
1442
Steven Langde890a12011-11-09 14:03:34 +01001443
1444
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020014456.0 Interpreting the output
1446---------------------------
1447
1448fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
1449status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
1450
Jens Axboe73c8b082007-01-11 19:25:52 +01001451Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001452
1453The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
1454each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
1455
1456Idle Run
1457---- ---
1458P Thread setup, but not started.
1459C Thread created.
Jens Axboe9c6f6312012-11-07 09:15:45 +01001460I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
Jens Axboeb0f65862009-05-20 11:52:15 +02001461 p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001462 R Running, doing sequential reads.
1463 r Running, doing random reads.
1464 W Running, doing sequential writes.
1465 w Running, doing random writes.
1466 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1467 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1468 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
Jens Axboefc6bd432009-04-29 09:52:10 +02001469 V Running, doing verification of written data.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001470E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
Jens Axboe4f7e57a2012-03-30 21:21:20 +02001471_ Thread reaped, or
1472X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
Jens Axboea5e371a2012-04-02 09:47:09 -07001473K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001474
1475The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
Jens Axboec9f60302007-07-20 12:43:05 +02001476currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
1477listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
1478and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
Jens Axboe4f7e57a2012-03-30 21:21:20 +02001479the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
1480so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
1481first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001482
1483When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
1484each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
1485direction, the output looks like:
1486
1487Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
Paul Dubs35649e52011-07-21 16:04:52 +02001488 write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
Jens Axboe6104ddb2007-01-11 14:24:29 +01001489 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
1490 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +02001491 bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
Jens Axboee7823a92007-09-07 20:33:33 +02001492 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969, majf=0, minf=17
Jens Axboe71619dc2007-01-13 23:56:33 +01001493 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
Jens Axboe838bc702008-05-22 13:08:23 +02001494 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
1495 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
Jens Axboe30061b92007-04-17 13:31:34 +02001496 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
Jens Axboe8abdce62007-02-21 10:22:55 +01001497 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
1498 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001499
1500The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
1501thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
1502they denote:
1503
1504io= Number of megabytes io performed
1505bw= Average bandwidth rate
Paul Dubs35649e52011-07-21 16:04:52 +02001506iops= Average IOs performed per second
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001507runt= The runtime of that thread
Jens Axboe72fbda22007-03-20 10:02:06 +01001508 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001509 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
1510 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
Jens Axboe8a35c712007-06-19 09:53:31 +02001511 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
Jens Axboebf9a3ed2008-06-05 11:53:08 +02001512 value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
Jens Axboe8a35c712007-06-19 09:53:31 +02001513 the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
Lucian Adrian Grijincu0d237712012-04-03 14:42:48 -06001514 above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
1515 latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001516 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
1517 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
1518 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
1519 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
1520 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
1521 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
1522 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
1523 this thread received in this group. This last value is
1524 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
1525 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
1526cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
Jens Axboee7823a92007-09-07 20:33:33 +02001527 of context switches this thread went through, usage of
1528 system and user time, and finally the number of major
1529 and minor page faults.
Jens Axboe71619dc2007-01-13 23:56:33 +01001530IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
1531 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
1532 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
1533 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
1534 range from 16 to 31.
Jens Axboe838bc702008-05-22 13:08:23 +02001535IO submit= How many pieces of IO were submitting in a single submit
1536 call. Each entry denotes that amount and below, until
1537 the previous entry - eg, 8=100% mean that we submitted
1538 anywhere in between 5-8 ios per submit call.
1539IO complete= Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
Jens Axboe30061b92007-04-17 13:31:34 +02001540IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
1541 of them were short.
Jens Axboeec118302007-02-17 04:38:20 +01001542IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
1543 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
1544 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
1545 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
Jens Axboe8abdce62007-02-21 10:22:55 +01001546 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
1547 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001548
1549After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
1550will look like this:
1551
1552Run status group 0 (all jobs):
Jens Axboeb22989b2009-07-17 22:29:23 +02001553 READ: io=64MB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
1554 WRITE: io=64MB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001555
1556For each data direction, it prints:
1557
1558io= Number of megabytes io performed.
1559aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
1560minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1561maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1562mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
1563maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
1564
1565And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
1566
1567Disk stats (read/write):
1568 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
1569
1570Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
1571numbers denote:
1572
1573ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
1574merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
1575ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1576io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
1577util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
1578 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
1579
Jens Axboe8423bd12012-04-12 09:18:38 +02001580It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1581running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
1582
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001583
15847.0 Terse output
1585----------------
1586
1587For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
Jens Axboe6af019c2007-03-06 19:50:58 +01001588of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001589The format is one long line of values, such as:
1590
David Nellans562c2d22010-09-23 08:38:17 +020015912;card0;0;0;7139336;121836;60004;1;10109;27.932460;116.933948;220;126861;3495.446807;1085.368601;226;126864;3523.635629;1089.012448;24063;99944;50.275485%;59818.274627;5540.657370;7155060;122104;60004;1;8338;29.086342;117.839068;388;128077;5032.488518;1234.785715;391;128085;5061.839412;1236.909129;23436;100928;50.287926%;59964.832030;5644.844189;14.595833%;19.394167%;123706;0;7313;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;100.0%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.01%;0.02%;0.05%;0.16%;6.04%;40.40%;52.68%;0.64%;0.01%;0.00%;0.01%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%
1592A description of this job goes here.
1593
1594The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001595
Jens Axboe525c2bf2010-06-30 15:22:21 +02001596To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
1597value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
1598be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
1599signify that change.
Jens Axboe6820cb32008-09-27 12:33:53 +02001600
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001601Split up, the format is as follows:
1602
Jens Axboe5e726d02011-10-14 08:08:10 +02001603 terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001604 READ status:
Jens Axboe312b4af2011-10-13 13:11:42 +02001605 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
Jens Axboede196b82012-04-02 07:03:26 -07001606 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1607 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
Jens Axboe1db92cb2011-10-13 13:43:36 +02001608 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
Jens Axboede196b82012-04-02 07:03:26 -07001609 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
Lucian Adrian Grijincu0d237712012-04-03 14:42:48 -06001610 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +02001611 WRITE status:
Jens Axboe312b4af2011-10-13 13:11:42 +02001612 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
Jens Axboede196b82012-04-02 07:03:26 -07001613 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1614 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
Jens Axboe1db92cb2011-10-13 13:43:36 +02001615 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
Jens Axboede196b82012-04-02 07:03:26 -07001616 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
Lucian Adrian Grijincu0d237712012-04-03 14:42:48 -06001617 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
Shawn Lewis046ee302007-11-21 09:38:34 +01001618 CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
Jens Axboe22708902007-03-06 17:05:32 +01001619 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
David Nellans562c2d22010-09-23 08:38:17 +02001620 IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1621 IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
Jens Axboef2f788d2011-10-13 14:03:52 +02001622 Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
1623 Read merges, write merges,
1624 Read ticks, write ticks,
Jens Axboe3d7cd9b2011-10-18 08:31:01 +02001625 Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001626 Additional Info (dependant on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
1627
Jens Axboef42195a2010-10-26 08:10:58 -06001628 Additional Info (dependant on description being set): Text description
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +02001629
Jens Axboe1db92cb2011-10-13 13:43:36 +02001630Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
1631for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
1632
1633 1.00%=6112
1634
1635which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
1636
Jens Axboef2f788d2011-10-13 14:03:52 +02001637For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
1638there will be a disk utilization section.
1639
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +02001640
16418.0 Trace file format
1642---------------------
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001643There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +02001644is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
1645below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
1646
1647In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
1648
1649
16508.1 Trace file format v1
1651------------------------
1652Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
1653
1654rw, offset, length
1655
1656where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
1657
1658This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
1659
1660
16618.2 Trace file format v2
1662------------------------
1663The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
1664It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
1665possible file actions.
1666
1667The first line of the trace file has to be:
1668
1669fio version 2 iolog
1670
1671Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
1672
1673The file management format:
1674
1675filename action
1676
1677The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
1678
1679add Add the given filename to the trace
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001680open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +02001681 been added with the add action before.
1682close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
1683 opened before.
1684
1685
1686The file io action format:
1687
1688filename action offset length
1689
1690The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
Bruce Cran66c098b2012-11-27 12:16:07 +00001691before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
Paul Dubs25c8b9d2011-07-21 17:26:02 +02001692bytes. The action can be one of these:
1693
1694wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
1695read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1696write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1697sync fsync() the file
1698datasync fdatasync() the file
1699trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes
Huadong Liuf2a2ce02013-01-30 13:22:24 +01001700
1701
17029.0 CPU idleness profiling
1703
1704In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
1705we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
1706fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
1707idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
1708By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
1709CPU can be derived accordingly.
1710
1711An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
1712and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
1713work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
1714overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.