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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
11
12
131.0 Overview and history
14------------------------
15fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test
16case programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for
17performance reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing
18such a test app can be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.
19Hence I needed a tool that would be able to simulate a given io workload
20without resorting to writing a tailored test case again and again.
21
22A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number
23of processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own
24way of generating io. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of
25memory in an memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing
26reads using asynchronous io. fio needed to be flexible enough to
27simulate both of these cases, and many more.
28
292.0 How fio works
30-----------------
31The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired io workload, is
32writing a job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain
33any number of threads and/or files - the typical contents of the job file
34is a global section defining shared parameters, and one or more job
35sections describing the jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file
36and sets everything up as described. If we break down a job from top to
37bottom, it contains the following basic parameters:
38
39 IO type Defines the io pattern issued to the file(s).
40 We may only be reading sequentially from this
41 file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
42 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
43
44 Block size In how large chunks are we issuing io? This may be
45 a single value, or it may describe a range of
46 block sizes.
47
48 IO size How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
49
50 IO engine How do we issue io? We could be memory mapping the
51 file, we could be using regular read/write, we
Jens Axboed0ff85d2007-02-14 01:19:41 +010052 could be using splice, async io, syslet, or even
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020053 SG (SCSI generic sg).
54
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +010055 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020056 depth do we want to maintain?
57
58 IO type Should we be doing buffered io, or direct/raw io?
59
60 Num files How many files are we spreading the workload over.
61
62 Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
63 this workload over.
64
65The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
66there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
67job behaves.
68
69
703.0 Running fio
71---------------
72See the README file for command line parameters, there are only a few
73of them.
74
75Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
76(or job files) as parameters:
77
78$ fio job_file
79
80and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
81more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
82of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
83parameter described the the parameter section.
84
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +020085If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
86parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
87to the job parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters
88(see README). For example, for the job file parameter iodepth=2, the
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +010089mirror command line option would be --iodepth 2 or --iodepth=2. You can
90also use the command line for giving more than one job entry. For each
91--name option that fio sees, it will start a new job with that name.
92Command line entries following a --name entry will apply to that job,
93until there are no more entries or a new --name entry is seen. This is
94similar to the job file options, where each option applies to the current
95job until a new [] job entry is seen.
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +020096
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +020097fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified
98in the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted,
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +010099such as memory locking, io scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200100
101
1024.0 Job file format
103-------------------
104As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing
105what it is supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file,
106where the names enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free
107to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
108A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
109may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
110several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
Jens Axboe65db0852007-02-20 10:22:01 +0100111section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
112'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200113
114So lets look at a really simple job file that define to threads, each
115randomly reading from a 128MiB file.
116
117; -- start job file --
118[global]
119rw=randread
120size=128m
121
122[job1]
123
124[job2]
125
126; -- end job file --
127
128As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the
129described parameters are shared. As no filename= option is given, fio
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100130makes up a filename for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command
131line, this job would look as follows:
132
133$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
134
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200135
136Lets look at an example that have a number of processes writing randomly
137to files.
138
139; -- start job file --
140[random-writers]
141ioengine=libaio
142iodepth=4
143rw=randwrite
144bs=32k
145direct=0
146size=64m
147numjobs=4
148
149; -- end job file --
150
151Here we have no global section, as we only have one job defined anyway.
152We want to use async io here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also
153increased the buffer size used to 32KiB and define numjobs to 4 to
154fork 4 identical jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing
Jens Axboeb4692822006-10-27 13:43:22 +0200155to their own 64MiB file. Instead of using the above job file, you could
156have given the parameters on the command line. For this case, you would
157specify:
158
159$ 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 +0200160
161fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
162inspiration.
163
164
1655.0 Detailed list of parameters
166-------------------------------
167
168This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
169Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
170a string. The following types are used:
171
172str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
Jens Axboe7616caf2007-05-25 09:26:05 +0200173int Integer. A whole number value, can be negative.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200174siint SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a postfix
175 describing the base of the number. Accepted postfixes are k/m/g,
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100176 meaning kilo, mega, and giga. So if you want to specify 4096,
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200177 you could either write out '4096' or just give 4k. The postfixes
178 signify base 2 values, so 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on.
Jens Axboe43159d12007-03-15 09:15:51 +0100179 If the option accepts an upper and lower range, use a colon ':'
180 or minus '-' to seperate such values. See irange.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200181bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
182 true and false (1 and 0).
183irange Integer range with postfix. Allows value range to be given, such
Jens Axboe0c9baf92007-01-11 15:59:26 +0100184 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the seperator, eg
185 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
186 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
187 siint.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200188
189With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
190parameters.
191
192name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
193 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100194 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100195 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
Jens Axboec2b1e752006-10-30 09:03:13 +0100196 job.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200197
Jens Axboe61697c32007-02-05 15:04:46 +0100198description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
199 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
200 not parsed.
201
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200202directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to places files
203 in a different location than "./".
204
205filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
206 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
207 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100208 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
209 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host and
Jens Axboe9f9214f2007-03-13 14:02:16 +0100210 port to connect to in the format of =host/port. If the
Jens Axboeaf52b342007-03-13 10:07:47 +0100211 ioengine is file based, you can specify a number of files
212 by seperating the names with a ':' colon. So if you wanted
213 a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb as the two working files,
Jens Axboe66159822007-04-16 21:54:24 +0200214 you would use filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. '-' is a reserved
215 name, meaning stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends
216 on the read/write direction set.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200217
Jens Axboebbf6b542007-03-13 15:28:55 +0100218opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
219 directory and down the file system tree.
220
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100221readwrite=str
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200222rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
223
224 read Sequential reads
225 write Sequential writes
226 randwrite Random writes
227 randread Random reads
228 rw Sequential mixed reads and writes
229 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
230
231 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
232 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
Jens Axboe211097b2007-03-22 18:56:45 +0100233 since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
234 a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset - this
235 is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
236 generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append
237 eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
238 every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
239 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
240 that.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200241
Jens Axboeee738492007-01-10 11:23:16 +0100242randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
243 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
244
Jens Axboed2f3ac32007-03-22 19:24:09 +0100245fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
246 on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
247 want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
248 kernel about it, in which case you can disable this option.
249 If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
250 IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
251
Jens Axboe7616caf2007-05-25 09:26:05 +0200252size=siint The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
253 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
254 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
255 Unless specific nr_files and filesize options are given,
256 fio will divide this size between the available files
257 specified by the job.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200258
Jens Axboe9c60ce62007-03-15 09:14:47 +0100259filesize=siint Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
260 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
261 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
262 given, each created file is the same size.
263
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100264blocksize=siint
Jens Axboef90eff52006-11-06 11:08:21 +0100265bs=siint The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
266 can be given for both read and writes. If a single siint is
267 given, it will apply to both. If a second siint is specified
268 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
269 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
270 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
Jens Axboe787f7e92006-11-06 13:26:29 +0100271 for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
272 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
273 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
Jens Axboea00735e2006-11-03 08:58:08 +0100274
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100275blocksize_range=irange
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200276bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
277 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
278 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
Jens Axboef90eff52006-11-06 11:08:21 +0100279 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
280 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
281 See bs=.
Jens Axboea00735e2006-11-03 08:58:08 +0100282
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100283blocksize_unaligned
Jens Axboe690adba2006-10-30 15:25:09 +0100284bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
285 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
286 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200287
Jens Axboee9459e52007-04-17 15:46:32 +0200288zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
289 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
290
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200291nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
292
Jens Axboe390b1532007-03-09 13:03:00 +0100293openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
294 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
295 simultaneous opens.
296
Jens Axboe5af1c6f2007-03-01 10:06:10 +0100297file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
298 service next. The following types are defined:
299
300 random Just choose a file at random.
301
302 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
303 is the default.
304
Jens Axboe1907dbc2007-03-12 11:44:28 +0100305 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
306 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
307 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
308 have been issued.
309
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200310ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
311 types are defined:
312
313 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
314 used to position the io location.
315
316 libaio Linux native asynchronous io.
317
318 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
319
320 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
321 to/from using memcpy(3).
322
323 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
324 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
325 space to the kernel.
326
Jens Axboed0ff85d2007-02-14 01:19:41 +0100327 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
328 regular read/write async.
329
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200330 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100331 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200332 the target is an sg character device
333 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
334 io.
335
Jens Axboea94ea282006-11-24 12:37:34 +0100336 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
337 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
338 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
339
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100340 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
341 'filename' must be set appropriately to
Jens Axboe9f9214f2007-03-13 14:02:16 +0100342 filename=host/port regardless of send
Jens Axboeed92ac02007-02-06 14:43:52 +0100343 or receive, if the latter only the port
344 argument is used.
345
Jens Axboeba0fbe12007-03-09 14:34:23 +0100346 cpu Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
347 cycles according to the cpuload= and
348 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
349 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
350 85% of the CPU.
351
Jens Axboee9a18062007-03-21 08:51:56 +0100352 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
353 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
354 to async IO. See
355
356 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
357
358 for more info on GUASI.
359
Jens Axboe8a7bd872007-02-28 11:12:25 +0100360 external Prefix to specify loading an external
361 IO engine object file. Append the engine
362 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
363 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
364
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200365iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
366 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
367 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
368 concurrency.
369
Jens Axboecb5ab512007-02-26 12:57:09 +0100370iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
371 It defaults to the same as iodepth, but can be set lower
372 if one so desires.
373
Jens Axboee916b392007-02-20 14:37:26 +0100374iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
375 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
376 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
377 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
378 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
379 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
380
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200381direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
Jens Axboe76a43db2007-01-11 13:24:44 +0100382 O_DIRECT.
383
384buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
385 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200386
387offset=siint Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
388 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
389 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
390
391fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
392 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
393 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
394 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
395 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100396 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200397
398overwrite=bool If writing to a file, setup the file first and do overwrites.
399
400end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when the job exits.
401
Jens Axboeebb14152007-03-13 14:42:15 +0100402fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
403 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
404 file close, not just at the end of the job.
405
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100406rwmixcycle=int Value in milliseconds describing how often to switch between
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200407 reads and writes for a mixed workload. The default is
408 500 msecs.
409
410rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
411
412rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
413 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
414 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
415 the first.
416
Jens Axboebb8895e2006-10-30 15:14:48 +0100417norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
418 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
419 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
420 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
421 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
Jens Axboe7616caf2007-05-25 09:26:05 +0200422 is mutually exclusive with verify= for that reason, since
423 fio doesn't track potential block rewrites which may alter
424 the calculated checksum for that block.
Jens Axboebb8895e2006-10-30 15:14:48 +0100425
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200426nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
427
428prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
429 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
430 See man ionice(1).
431
432prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
433
434thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
435 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
Jens Axboe48097d52007-02-17 06:30:44 +0100436 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
437 thinktime_spin.
438
439thinktime_spin=int
440 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
441 doing something with the data received, before falling back
442 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
443 thinktime.
Jens Axboe9c1f7432007-01-03 20:43:19 +0100444
445thinktime_blocks
446 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
447 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
448 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
449 after every block.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200450
451rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job to this number of KiB/sec.
452
453ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
Jens Axboe4e991c22007-03-15 11:41:11 +0100454 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
455 the job to exit.
456
457rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
458 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
459 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
460 the smallest block size is used as the metric.
461
462rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
463 the job to exit.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200464
465ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100466 of milliseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200467
468cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
469 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. See man
Jens Axboe7dbb6eb2007-05-22 09:13:31 +0200470 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
471 operating systems or kernel versions.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200472
473startdelay=int Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
474 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
475 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
476 time.
477
Jens Axboe03b74b32007-01-11 11:04:31 +0100478runtime=int Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200479 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
480 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
481 cap the total runtime to a given time.
482
Jens Axboecf4464c2007-04-17 20:14:42 +0200483time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
484 specified even if the file(s) are completey read or
485 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
486 as many times as the runtime allows.
487
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200488invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
489 to starting io. Defaults to true.
490
491sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
492 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
493
Jens Axboed3aad8f2007-03-15 14:12:05 +0100494iomem=str
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200495mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
496 The allowed values are:
497
498 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
499
500 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
501 through shmget(2).
502
Jens Axboe74b025b2006-12-19 15:18:14 +0100503 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
504
Jens Axboe313cb202006-12-21 09:50:00 +0100505 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
506 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
507 a filename is given after the option. The
508 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200509
Jens Axboed0bdaf42006-12-20 14:40:44 +0100510 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
511 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
512 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
513
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200514 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
Jens Axboe5394ae52006-12-20 20:15:41 +0100515 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
516 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
517 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
518 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
519 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MiB in size. So
520 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
521 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
522 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
523 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
524 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
525 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100526 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
Jens Axboe5394ae52006-12-20 20:15:41 +0100527
528 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
529 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
530 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200531
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100532hugepage-size=siint
533 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
534 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MiB.
Jens Axboec51074e2006-12-20 20:28:33 +0100535 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
536 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
537 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
Jens Axboe56bb17f2006-12-20 20:27:36 +0100538
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200539exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
540 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
541 desired action.
542
543bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100544 is specified in milliseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200545
546create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
547 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
548 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
549 used and even the number of processors in the system.
550
551create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
552 default.
553
Jens Axboee545a6c2007-01-14 00:00:29 +0100554unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
555 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the fileset
556 again and again.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200557
558loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
559 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
560 to 1.
561
562verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
563 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
564
565 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
566 it in the header of each block.
567
568 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
569 it in the header of each block.
570
Jens Axboe36690c92007-03-26 10:23:34 +0200571 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
572 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
573 else.
574
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100575 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200576 system to make sure that the written data is also
577 correctly read back.
578
Jens Axboe160b9662007-03-27 10:59:49 +0200579verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
580 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
581 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
582 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
583 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
584 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
585 significant.
586
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200587stonewall Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
588 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
Jens Axboeb3d62a72007-03-20 14:23:26 +0100589 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
590 a new reporting group.
591
592new_group Start a new reporting group. If this option isn't given,
593 jobs in a file will be part of the same reporting group
594 unless seperated by a stone wall (or if it's a group
595 by itself, with the numjobs option).
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200596
597numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
598 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
Jens Axboefa28c852007-03-06 15:40:49 +0100599 the same thing. We regard that grouping of jobs as a
600 specific group.
601
602group_reporting If 'numjobs' is set, it may be interesting to display
603 statistics for the group as a whole instead of for each
604 individual job. This is especially true of 'numjobs' is
605 large, looking at individual thread/process output quickly
606 becomes unwieldy. If 'group_reporting' is specified, fio
607 will show the final report per-group instead of per-job.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200608
609thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
610 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
611 instead.
612
613zonesize=siint Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
614
615zoneskip=siint Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
616 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
617 io on zones of a file.
618
Jens Axboe076efc72006-10-27 11:24:25 +0200619write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
620 read_iolog.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200621
Jens Axboe076efc72006-10-27 11:24:25 +0200622read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200623 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
Jens Axboe6df8ada2007-05-15 13:23:19 +0200624 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
625 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
626 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
627 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
628 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
629 file first (blktrace <device> -d file_for_fio.bin).
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200630
631write_bw_log If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
632 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
Jens Axboee0da9bc2006-10-25 13:08:57 +0200633 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
634 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
635 graphs.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200636
637write_lat_log Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
638 completion latencies instead.
639
640lockmem=siint Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
641 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
642 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
643
644exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
645 through system(3).
646
647exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
648 though system(3).
649
650ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
651 io scheduler before running.
652
653cpuload=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, attempt to use the specified
654 percentage of CPU cycles.
655
656cpuchunks=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, split the load into
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100657 cycles of the given time. In milliseconds.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200658
Jens Axboe0a839f32007-04-26 09:02:34 +0200659disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
660 supports it. Defaults to on.
661
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200662
6636.0 Interpreting the output
664---------------------------
665
666fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
667status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
668
Jens Axboe73c8b082007-01-11 19:25:52 +0100669Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200670
671The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
672each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
673
674Idle Run
675---- ---
676P Thread setup, but not started.
677C Thread created.
678I Thread initialized, waiting.
679 R Running, doing sequential reads.
680 r Running, doing random reads.
681 W Running, doing sequential writes.
682 w Running, doing random writes.
683 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
684 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
685 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
686V Running, doing verification of written data.
687E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
688_ Thread reaped.
689
690The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
Jens Axboe6043c572006-11-03 11:37:47 +0100691currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check, and the estimated
692completion percentage and time for the running group. It's impossible to
693estimate runtime of the following groups (if any).
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200694
695When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
696each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
697direction, the output looks like:
698
699Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
700 write: io= 32MiB, bw= 666KiB/s, runt= 50320msec
Jens Axboe6104ddb2007-01-11 14:24:29 +0100701 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
702 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
703 bw (KiB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200704 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969
Jens Axboe71619dc2007-01-13 23:56:33 +0100705 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
Jens Axboe30061b92007-04-17 13:31:34 +0200706 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
Jens Axboe8abdce62007-02-21 10:22:55 +0100707 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
708 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200709
710The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
711thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
712they denote:
713
714io= Number of megabytes io performed
715bw= Average bandwidth rate
716runt= The runtime of that thread
Jens Axboe72fbda22007-03-20 10:02:06 +0100717 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200718 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
719 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
720 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there.
721 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
722 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
723 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
724 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
725 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
726 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
727 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
728 this thread received in this group. This last value is
729 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
730 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
731cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
732 of context switches this thread went through.
Jens Axboe71619dc2007-01-13 23:56:33 +0100733IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
734 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
735 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
736 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
737 range from 16 to 31.
Jens Axboe30061b92007-04-17 13:31:34 +0200738IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
739 of them were short.
Jens Axboeec118302007-02-17 04:38:20 +0100740IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
741 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
742 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
743 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
Jens Axboe8abdce62007-02-21 10:22:55 +0100744 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
745 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200746
747After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
748will look like this:
749
750Run status group 0 (all jobs):
751 READ: io=64MiB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
752 WRITE: io=64MiB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
753
754For each data direction, it prints:
755
756io= Number of megabytes io performed.
757aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
758minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
759maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
760mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
761maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
762
763And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
764
765Disk stats (read/write):
766 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
767
768Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
769numbers denote:
770
771ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
772merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
773ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
774io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
775util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
776 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
777
778
7797.0 Terse output
780----------------
781
782For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
Jens Axboe6af019c2007-03-06 19:50:58 +0100783of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200784The format is one long line of values, such as:
785
Jens Axboe6af019c2007-03-06 19:50:58 +0100786client1;0;0;1906777;1090804;1790;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;929380;1152890;25.510151%;1078276.333333;128948.113404;0;0;0;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000%;0.000000;0.000000;100.000000%;0.000000%;324;100.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;100.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%
787;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200788
789Split up, the format is as follows:
790
791 jobname, groupid, error
792 READ status:
793 KiB IO, bandwidth (KiB/sec), runtime (msec)
794 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
795 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100796 Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200797 WRITE status:
798 KiB IO, bandwidth (KiB/sec), runtime (msec)
799 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
800 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
Jens Axboe6c219762006-11-03 15:51:45 +0100801 Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200802 CPU usage: user, system, context switches
Jens Axboe22708902007-03-06 17:05:32 +0100803 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
804 IO latencies: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, >=2000
805 Text description
Jens Axboe71bfa162006-10-25 11:08:19 +0200806