engines/xnvme: add subnqn to fio-options
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1How fio works
2-------------
3
4The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired I/O workload, is writing a
5job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain any number of
6threads and/or files -- the typical contents of the job file is a *global*
7section defining shared parameters, and one or more job sections describing the
8jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file and sets everything up as
9described. If we break down a job from top to bottom, it contains the following
10basic parameters:
11
12`I/O type`_
13
14 Defines the I/O pattern issued to the file(s). We may only be reading
15 sequentially from this file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
16 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
17 Should we be doing buffered I/O, or direct/raw I/O?
18
19`Block size`_
20
21 In how large chunks are we issuing I/O? This may be a single value,
22 or it may describe a range of block sizes.
23
24`I/O size`_
25
26 How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
27
28`I/O engine`_
29
30 How do we issue I/O? We could be memory mapping the file, we could be
31 using regular read/write, we could be using splice, async I/O, or even
32 SG (SCSI generic sg).
33
34`I/O depth`_
35
36 If the I/O engine is async, how large a queuing depth do we want to
37 maintain?
38
39
40`Target file/device`_
41
42 How many files are we spreading the workload over.
43
44`Threads, processes and job synchronization`_
45
46 How many threads or processes should we spread this workload over.
47
48The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition there's a
49multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this job behaves.
50
51
52Command line options
53--------------------
54
55.. option:: --debug=type
56
57 Enable verbose tracing `type` of various fio actions. May be ``all`` for all types
58 or individual types separated by a comma (e.g. ``--debug=file,mem`` will
59 enable file and memory debugging). Currently, additional logging is
60 available for:
61
62 *process*
63 Dump info related to processes.
64 *file*
65 Dump info related to file actions.
66 *io*
67 Dump info related to I/O queuing.
68 *mem*
69 Dump info related to memory allocations.
70 *blktrace*
71 Dump info related to blktrace setup.
72 *verify*
73 Dump info related to I/O verification.
74 *all*
75 Enable all debug options.
76 *random*
77 Dump info related to random offset generation.
78 *parse*
79 Dump info related to option matching and parsing.
80 *diskutil*
81 Dump info related to disk utilization updates.
82 *job:x*
83 Dump info only related to job number x.
84 *mutex*
85 Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops.
86 *profile*
87 Dump info related to profile extensions.
88 *time*
89 Dump info related to internal time keeping.
90 *net*
91 Dump info related to networking connections.
92 *rate*
93 Dump info related to I/O rate switching.
94 *compress*
95 Dump info related to log compress/decompress.
96 *steadystate*
97 Dump info related to steadystate detection.
98 *helperthread*
99 Dump info related to the helper thread.
100 *zbd*
101 Dump info related to support for zoned block devices.
102 *?* or *help*
103 Show available debug options.
104
105.. option:: --parse-only
106
107 Parse options only, don't start any I/O.
108
109.. option:: --merge-blktrace-only
110
111 Merge blktraces only, don't start any I/O.
112
113.. option:: --output=filename
114
115 Write output to file `filename`.
116
117.. option:: --output-format=format
118
119 Set the reporting `format` to `normal`, `terse`, `json`, or `json+`. Multiple
120 formats can be selected, separated by a comma. `terse` is a CSV based
121 format. `json+` is like `json`, except it adds a full dump of the latency
122 buckets.
123
124.. option:: --bandwidth-log
125
126 Generate aggregate bandwidth logs.
127
128.. option:: --minimal
129
130 Print statistics in a terse, semicolon-delimited format.
131
132.. option:: --append-terse
133
134 Print statistics in selected mode AND terse, semicolon-delimited format.
135 **Deprecated**, use :option:`--output-format` instead to select multiple
136 formats.
137
138.. option:: --terse-version=version
139
140 Set terse `version` output format (default 3, or 2 or 4 or 5).
141
142.. option:: --version
143
144 Print version information and exit.
145
146.. option:: --help
147
148 Print a summary of the command line options and exit.
149
150.. option:: --cpuclock-test
151
152 Perform test and validation of internal CPU clock.
153
154.. option:: --crctest=[test]
155
156 Test the speed of the built-in checksumming functions. If no argument is
157 given, all of them are tested. Alternatively, a comma separated list can
158 be passed, in which case the given ones are tested.
159
160.. option:: --cmdhelp=command
161
162 Print help information for `command`. May be ``all`` for all commands.
163
164.. option:: --enghelp=[ioengine[,command]]
165
166 List all commands defined by `ioengine`, or print help for `command`
167 defined by `ioengine`. If no `ioengine` is given, list all
168 available ioengines.
169
170.. option:: --showcmd
171
172 Convert given job files to a set of command-line options.
173
174.. option:: --readonly
175
176 Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing writes and trims. The
177 ``--readonly`` option is an extra safety guard to prevent users from
178 accidentally starting a write or trim workload when that is not desired.
179 Fio will only modify the device under test if
180 `rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw/trim/randtrim/trimwrite` is given. This
181 safety net can be used as an extra precaution.
182
183.. option:: --eta=when
184
185 Specifies when real-time ETA estimate should be printed. `when` may be
186 `always`, `never` or `auto`. `auto` is the default, it prints ETA
187 when requested if the output is a TTY. `always` disregards the output
188 type, and prints ETA when requested. `never` never prints ETA.
189
190.. option:: --eta-interval=time
191
192 By default, fio requests client ETA status roughly every second. With
193 this option, the interval is configurable. Fio imposes a minimum
194 allowed time to avoid flooding the console, less than 250 msec is
195 not supported.
196
197.. option:: --eta-newline=time
198
199 Force a new line for every `time` period passed. When the unit is omitted,
200 the value is interpreted in seconds.
201
202.. option:: --status-interval=time
203
204 Force a full status dump of cumulative (from job start) values at `time`
205 intervals. This option does *not* provide per-period measurements. So
206 values such as bandwidth are running averages. When the time unit is omitted,
207 `time` is interpreted in seconds. Note that using this option with
208 ``--output-format=json`` will yield output that technically isn't valid
209 json, since the output will be collated sets of valid json. It will need
210 to be split into valid sets of json after the run.
211
212.. option:: --section=name
213
214 Only run specified section `name` in job file. Multiple sections can be specified.
215 The ``--section`` option allows one to combine related jobs into one file.
216 E.g. one job file could define light, moderate, and heavy sections. Tell
217 fio to run only the "heavy" section by giving ``--section=heavy``
218 command line option. One can also specify the "write" operations in one
219 section and "verify" operation in another section. The ``--section`` option
220 only applies to job sections. The reserved *global* section is always
221 parsed and used.
222
223.. option:: --alloc-size=kb
224
225 Allocate additional internal smalloc pools of size `kb` in KiB. The
226 ``--alloc-size`` option increases shared memory set aside for use by fio.
227 If running large jobs with randommap enabled, fio can run out of memory.
228 Smalloc is an internal allocator for shared structures from a fixed size
229 memory pool and can grow to 16 pools. The pool size defaults to 16MiB.
230
231 NOTE: While running :file:`.fio_smalloc.*` backing store files are visible
232 in :file:`/tmp`.
233
234.. option:: --warnings-fatal
235
236 All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an
237 error.
238
239.. option:: --max-jobs=nr
240
241 Set the maximum number of threads/processes to support to `nr`.
242 NOTE: On Linux, it may be necessary to increase the shared-memory
243 limit (:file:`/proc/sys/kernel/shmmax`) if fio runs into errors while
244 creating jobs.
245
246.. option:: --server=args
247
248 Start a backend server, with `args` specifying what to listen to.
249 See `Client/Server`_ section.
250
251.. option:: --daemonize=pidfile
252
253 Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given `pidfile` file.
254
255.. option:: --client=hostname
256
257 Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given `hostname`
258 or set of `hostname`\s. See `Client/Server`_ section.
259
260.. option:: --remote-config=file
261
262 Tell fio server to load this local `file`.
263
264.. option:: --idle-prof=option
265
266 Report CPU idleness. `option` is one of the following:
267
268 **calibrate**
269 Run unit work calibration only and exit.
270
271 **system**
272 Show aggregate system idleness and unit work.
273
274 **percpu**
275 As **system** but also show per CPU idleness.
276
277.. option:: --inflate-log=log
278
279 Inflate and output compressed `log`.
280
281.. option:: --trigger-file=file
282
283 Execute trigger command when `file` exists.
284
285.. option:: --trigger-timeout=time
286
287 Execute trigger at this `time`.
288
289.. option:: --trigger=command
290
291 Set this `command` as local trigger.
292
293.. option:: --trigger-remote=command
294
295 Set this `command` as remote trigger.
296
297.. option:: --aux-path=path
298
299 Use the directory specified by `path` for generated state files instead
300 of the current working directory.
301
302Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files, unless
303they match a job file parameter. Multiple job files can be listed and each job
304file will be regarded as a separate group. Fio will :option:`stonewall`
305execution between each group.
306
307
308Job file format
309---------------
310
311As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing what it is
312supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file, where the names
313enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free to use any ASCII name
314you want, except *global* which has special meaning. Following the job name is
315a sequence of zero or more parameters, one per line, that define the behavior of
316the job. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a '#', the entire line is
317discarded as a comment.
318
319A *global* section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job may
320override a *global* section parameter, and a job file may even have several
321*global* sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a *global* section
322residing above it.
323
324The :option:`--cmdhelp` option also lists all options. If used with a `command`
325argument, :option:`--cmdhelp` will detail the given `command`.
326
327See the `examples/` directory for inspiration on how to write job files. Note
328the copyright and license requirements currently apply to `examples/` files.
329
330So let's look at a really simple job file that defines two processes, each
331randomly reading from a 128MiB file:
332
333.. code-block:: ini
334
335 ; -- start job file --
336 [global]
337 rw=randread
338 size=128m
339
340 [job1]
341
342 [job2]
343
344 ; -- end job file --
345
346As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the described
347parameters are shared. As no :option:`filename` option is given, fio makes up a
348`filename` for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command line, this job
349would look as follows::
350
351$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
352
353
354Let's look at an example that has a number of processes writing randomly to
355files:
356
357.. code-block:: ini
358
359 ; -- start job file --
360 [random-writers]
361 ioengine=libaio
362 iodepth=4
363 rw=randwrite
364 bs=32k
365 direct=0
366 size=64m
367 numjobs=4
368 ; -- end job file --
369
370Here we have no *global* section, as we only have one job defined anyway. We
371want to use async I/O here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also increased
372the buffer size used to 32KiB and define numjobs to 4 to fork 4 identical
373jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing to their own 64MiB
374file. Instead of using the above job file, you could have given the parameters
375on the command line. For this case, you would specify::
376
377$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
378
379When fio is utilized as a basis of any reasonably large test suite, it might be
380desirable to share a set of standardized settings across multiple job files.
381Instead of copy/pasting such settings, any section may pull in an external
382:file:`filename.fio` file with *include filename* directive, as in the following
383example::
384
385 ; -- start job file including.fio --
386 [global]
387 filename=/tmp/test
388 filesize=1m
389 include glob-include.fio
390
391 [test]
392 rw=randread
393 bs=4k
394 time_based=1
395 runtime=10
396 include test-include.fio
397 ; -- end job file including.fio --
398
399.. code-block:: ini
400
401 ; -- start job file glob-include.fio --
402 thread=1
403 group_reporting=1
404 ; -- end job file glob-include.fio --
405
406.. code-block:: ini
407
408 ; -- start job file test-include.fio --
409 ioengine=libaio
410 iodepth=4
411 ; -- end job file test-include.fio --
412
413Settings pulled into a section apply to that section only (except *global*
414section). Include directives may be nested in that any included file may contain
415further include directive(s). Include files may not contain [] sections.
416
417
418Environment variables
419~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
420
421Fio also supports environment variable expansion in job files. Any sub-string of
422the form ``${VARNAME}`` as part of an option value (in other words, on the right
423of the '='), will be expanded to the value of the environment variable called
424`VARNAME`. If no such environment variable is defined, or `VARNAME` is the
425empty string, the empty string will be substituted.
426
427As an example, let's look at a sample fio invocation and job file::
428
429$ SIZE=64m NUMJOBS=4 fio jobfile.fio
430
431.. code-block:: ini
432
433 ; -- start job file --
434 [random-writers]
435 rw=randwrite
436 size=${SIZE}
437 numjobs=${NUMJOBS}
438 ; -- end job file --
439
440This will expand to the following equivalent job file at runtime:
441
442.. code-block:: ini
443
444 ; -- start job file --
445 [random-writers]
446 rw=randwrite
447 size=64m
448 numjobs=4
449 ; -- end job file --
450
451Fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for inspiration.
452
453Reserved keywords
454~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
455
456Additionally, fio has a set of reserved keywords that will be replaced
457internally with the appropriate value. Those keywords are:
458
459**$pagesize**
460
461 The architecture page size of the running system.
462
463**$mb_memory**
464
465 Megabytes of total memory in the system.
466
467**$ncpus**
468
469 Number of online available CPUs.
470
471These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
472automatically substituted with the current system values when the job is
473run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can perform actions
474like::
475
476 size=8*$mb_memory
477
478and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the machine.
479
480
481Job file parameters
482-------------------
483
484This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job. Some
485parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or a
486string. Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression may be
487used, provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators are:
488
489 - addition (+)
490 - subtraction (-)
491 - multiplication (*)
492 - division (/)
493 - modulus (%)
494 - exponentiation (^)
495
496For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
497different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
498parentheses). The following types are used:
499
500
501Parameter types
502~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
503
504**str**
505 String: A sequence of alphanumeric characters.
506
507**time**
508 Integer with possible time suffix. Without a unit value is interpreted as
509 seconds unless otherwise specified. Accepts a suffix of 'd' for days, 'h' for
510 hours, 'm' for minutes, 's' for seconds, 'ms' (or 'msec') for milliseconds and
511 'us' (or 'usec') for microseconds. For example, use 10m for 10 minutes.
512
513.. _int:
514
515**int**
516 Integer. A whole number value, which may contain an integer prefix
517 and an integer suffix:
518
519 [*integer prefix*] **number** [*integer suffix*]
520
521 The optional *integer prefix* specifies the number's base. The default
522 is decimal. *0x* specifies hexadecimal.
523
524 The optional *integer suffix* specifies the number's units, and includes an
525 optional unit prefix and an optional unit. For quantities of data, the
526 default unit is bytes. For quantities of time, the default unit is seconds
527 unless otherwise specified.
528
529 With :option:`kb_base`\=1000, fio follows international standards for unit
530 prefixes. To specify power-of-10 decimal values defined in the
531 International System of Units (SI):
532
533 * *K* -- means kilo (K) or 1000
534 * *M* -- means mega (M) or 1000**2
535 * *G* -- means giga (G) or 1000**3
536 * *T* -- means tera (T) or 1000**4
537 * *P* -- means peta (P) or 1000**5
538
539 To specify power-of-2 binary values defined in IEC 80000-13:
540
541 * *Ki* -- means kibi (Ki) or 1024
542 * *Mi* -- means mebi (Mi) or 1024**2
543 * *Gi* -- means gibi (Gi) or 1024**3
544 * *Ti* -- means tebi (Ti) or 1024**4
545 * *Pi* -- means pebi (Pi) or 1024**5
546
547 For Zone Block Device Mode:
548 * *z* -- means Zone
549
550 With :option:`kb_base`\=1024 (the default), the unit prefixes are opposite
551 from those specified in the SI and IEC 80000-13 standards to provide
552 compatibility with old scripts. For example, 4k means 4096.
553
554 For quantities of data, an optional unit of 'B' may be included
555 (e.g., 'kB' is the same as 'k').
556
557 The *integer suffix* is not case sensitive (e.g., m/mi mean mebi/mega,
558 not milli). 'b' and 'B' both mean byte, not bit.
559
560 Examples with :option:`kb_base`\=1000:
561
562 * *4 KiB*: 4096, 4096b, 4096B, 4ki, 4kib, 4kiB, 4Ki, 4KiB
563 * *1 MiB*: 1048576, 1mi, 1024ki
564 * *1 MB*: 1000000, 1m, 1000k
565 * *1 TiB*: 1099511627776, 1ti, 1024gi, 1048576mi
566 * *1 TB*: 1000000000, 1t, 1000m, 1000000k
567
568 Examples with :option:`kb_base`\=1024 (default):
569
570 * *4 KiB*: 4096, 4096b, 4096B, 4k, 4kb, 4kB, 4K, 4KB
571 * *1 MiB*: 1048576, 1m, 1024k
572 * *1 MB*: 1000000, 1mi, 1000ki
573 * *1 TiB*: 1099511627776, 1t, 1024g, 1048576m
574 * *1 TB*: 1000000000, 1ti, 1000mi, 1000000ki
575
576 To specify times (units are not case sensitive):
577
578 * *D* -- means days
579 * *H* -- means hours
580 * *M* -- means minutes
581 * *s* -- or sec means seconds (default)
582 * *ms* -- or *msec* means milliseconds
583 * *us* -- or *usec* means microseconds
584
585 If the option accepts an upper and lower range, use a colon ':' or
586 minus '-' to separate such values. See :ref:`irange <irange>`.
587 If the lower value specified happens to be larger than the upper value
588 the two values are swapped.
589
590.. _bool:
591
592**bool**
593 Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
594 true and false (1 and 0).
595
596.. _irange:
597
598**irange**
599 Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such as
600 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the separator, e.g. 1k:4k. If the
601 option allows two sets of ranges, they can be specified with a ',' or '/'
602 delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see :ref:`int <int>`.
603
604**float_list**
605 A list of floating point numbers, separated by a ':' character.
606
607With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job parameters.
608
609
610Units
611~~~~~
612
613.. option:: kb_base=int
614
615 Select the interpretation of unit prefixes in input parameters.
616
617 **1000**
618 Inputs comply with IEC 80000-13 and the International
619 System of Units (SI). Use:
620
621 - power-of-2 values with IEC prefixes (e.g., KiB)
622 - power-of-10 values with SI prefixes (e.g., kB)
623
624 **1024**
625 Compatibility mode (default). To avoid breaking old scripts:
626
627 - power-of-2 values with SI prefixes
628 - power-of-10 values with IEC prefixes
629
630 See :option:`bs` for more details on input parameters.
631
632 Outputs always use correct prefixes. Most outputs include both
633 side-by-side, like::
634
635 bw=2383.3kB/s (2327.4KiB/s)
636
637 If only one value is reported, then kb_base selects the one to use:
638
639 **1000** -- SI prefixes
640
641 **1024** -- IEC prefixes
642
643.. option:: unit_base=int
644
645 Base unit for reporting. Allowed values are:
646
647 **0**
648 Use auto-detection (default).
649 **8**
650 Byte based.
651 **1**
652 Bit based.
653
654
655Job description
656~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
657
658.. option:: name=str
659
660 ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the name printed by fio
661 for this job. Otherwise the job name is used. On the command line this
662 parameter has the special purpose of also signaling the start of a new job.
663
664.. option:: description=str
665
666 Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except dump this text
667 description when this job is run. It's not parsed.
668
669.. option:: loops=int
670
671 Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used to repeat the same
672 workload a given number of times. Defaults to 1.
673
674.. option:: numjobs=int
675
676 Create the specified number of clones of this job. Each clone of job
677 is spawned as an independent thread or process. May be used to setup a
678 larger number of threads/processes doing the same thing. Each thread is
679 reported separately; to see statistics for all clones as a whole, use
680 :option:`group_reporting` in conjunction with :option:`new_group`.
681 See :option:`--max-jobs`. Default: 1.
682
683
684Time related parameters
685~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
686
687.. option:: runtime=time
688
689 Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified period of time. It
690 can be quite hard to determine for how long a specified job will run, so
691 this parameter is handy to cap the total runtime to a given time. When
692 the unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in seconds.
693
694.. option:: time_based
695
696 If set, fio will run for the duration of the :option:`runtime` specified
697 even if the file(s) are completely read or written. It will simply loop over
698 the same workload as many times as the :option:`runtime` allows.
699
700.. option:: startdelay=irange(time)
701
702 Delay the start of job for the specified amount of time. Can be a single
703 value or a range. When given as a range, each thread will choose a value
704 randomly from within the range. Value is in seconds if a unit is omitted.
705
706.. option:: ramp_time=time
707
708 If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
709 logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle
710 before logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable
711 results. Note that the ``ramp_time`` is considered lead in time for a job,
712 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout or
713 :option:`runtime` is specified. When the unit is omitted, the value is
714 given in seconds.
715
716.. option:: clocksource=str
717
718 Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
719
720 **gettimeofday**
721 :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)`
722
723 **clock_gettime**
724 :manpage:`clock_gettime(2)`
725
726 **cpu**
727 Internal CPU clock source
728
729 cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast (and
730 fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource if
731 it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
732 unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
733 means supporting TSC Invariant.
734
735.. option:: gtod_reduce=bool
736
737 Enable all of the :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)` reducing options
738 (:option:`disable_clat`, :option:`disable_slat`, :option:`disable_bw_measurement`) plus
739 reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
740 :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)` call count. With this option enabled, we only do
741 about 0.4% of the :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)` calls we would have done if all
742 time keeping was enabled.
743
744.. option:: gtod_cpu=int
745
746 Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just
747 getting the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very
748 intensive on :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)` calls. With this option, you can set
749 one CPU aside for doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
750 location. Then the other threads/processes that run I/O workloads need only
751 copy that segment, instead of entering the kernel with a
752 :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)` call. The CPU set aside for doing these time
753 calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it from the
754 CPU mask of other jobs.
755
756
757Target file/device
758~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
759
760.. option:: directory=str
761
762 Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files in a different
763 location than :file:`./`. You can specify a number of directories by
764 separating the names with a ':' character. These directories will be
765 assigned equally distributed to job clones created by :option:`numjobs` as
766 long as they are using generated filenames. If specific `filename(s)` are
767 set fio will use the first listed directory, and thereby matching the
768 `filename` semantic (which generates a file for each clone if not
769 specified, but lets all clones use the same file if set).
770
771 See the :option:`filename` option for information on how to escape "``:``"
772 characters within the directory path itself.
773
774 Note: To control the directory fio will use for internal state files
775 use :option:`--aux-path`.
776
777.. option:: filename=str
778
779 Fio normally makes up a `filename` based on the job name, thread number, and
780 file number (see :option:`filename_format`). If you want to share files
781 between threads in a job or several
782 jobs with fixed file paths, specify a `filename` for each of them to override
783 the default. If the ioengine is file based, you can specify a number of files
784 by separating the names with a ':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open
785 :file:`/dev/sda` and :file:`/dev/sdb` as the two working files, you would use
786 ``filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb``. This also means that whenever this option is
787 specified, :option:`nrfiles` is ignored. The size of regular files specified
788 by this option will be :option:`size` divided by number of files unless an
789 explicit size is specified by :option:`filesize`.
790
791 Each colon in the wanted path must be escaped with a ``\``
792 character. For instance, if the path is :file:`/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c` then you
793 would use ``filename=/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c`` and if the path is
794 :file:`F:\\filename` then you would use ``filename=F\:\filename``.
795
796 On Windows, disk devices are accessed as :file:`\\\\.\\PhysicalDrive0` for
797 the first device, :file:`\\\\.\\PhysicalDrive1` for the second etc.
798 Note: Windows and FreeBSD prevent write access to areas
799 of the disk containing in-use data (e.g. filesystems).
800
801 The filename "`-`" is a reserved name, meaning *stdin* or *stdout*. Which
802 of the two depends on the read/write direction set.
803
804.. option:: filename_format=str
805
806 If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have fio
807 generate the exact names that you want. By default, fio will name a file
808 based on the default file format specification of
809 :file:`jobname.jobnumber.filenumber`. With this option, that can be
810 customized. Fio will recognize and replace the following keywords in this
811 string:
812
813 **$jobname**
814 The name of the worker thread or process.
815 **$clientuid**
816 IP of the fio process when using client/server mode.
817 **$jobnum**
818 The incremental number of the worker thread or process.
819 **$filenum**
820 The incremental number of the file for that worker thread or
821 process.
822
823 To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can be set to have
824 fio generate filenames that are shared between the two. For instance, if
825 :file:`testfiles.$filenum` is specified, file number 4 for any job will be
826 named :file:`testfiles.4`. The default of :file:`$jobname.$jobnum.$filenum`
827 will be used if no other format specifier is given.
828
829 If you specify a path then the directories will be created up to the
830 main directory for the file. So for example if you specify
831 ``filename_format=a/b/c/$jobnum`` then the directories a/b/c will be
832 created before the file setup part of the job. If you specify
833 :option:`directory` then the path will be relative that directory,
834 otherwise it is treated as the absolute path.
835
836.. option:: unique_filename=bool
837
838 To avoid collisions between networked clients, fio defaults to prefixing any
839 generated filenames (with a directory specified) with the source of the
840 client connecting. To disable this behavior, set this option to 0.
841
842.. option:: opendir=str
843
844 Recursively open any files below directory `str`.
845
846.. option:: lockfile=str
847
848 Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does I/O to them. If a file
849 or file descriptor is shared, fio can serialize I/O to that file to make the
850 end result consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that share
851 files. The lock modes are:
852
853 **none**
854 No locking. The default.
855 **exclusive**
856 Only one thread or process may do I/O at a time, excluding all
857 others.
858 **readwrite**
859 Read-write locking on the file. Many readers may
860 access the file at the same time, but writes get exclusive access.
861
862.. option:: nrfiles=int
863
864 Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1. The size of files
865 will be :option:`size` divided by this unless explicit size is specified by
866 :option:`filesize`. Files are created for each thread separately, and each
867 file will have a file number within its name by default, as explained in
868 :option:`filename` section.
869
870
871.. option:: openfiles=int
872
873 Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to the same as
874 :option:`nrfiles`, can be set smaller to limit the number simultaneous
875 opens.
876
877.. option:: file_service_type=str
878
879 Defines how fio decides which file from a job to service next. The following
880 types are defined:
881
882 **random**
883 Choose a file at random.
884
885 **roundrobin**
886 Round robin over opened files. This is the default.
887
888 **sequential**
889 Finish one file before moving on to the next. Multiple files can
890 still be open depending on :option:`openfiles`.
891
892 **zipf**
893 Use a *Zipf* distribution to decide what file to access.
894
895 **pareto**
896 Use a *Pareto* distribution to decide what file to access.
897
898 **normal**
899 Use a *Gaussian* (normal) distribution to decide what file to
900 access.
901
902 **gauss**
903 Alias for normal.
904
905 For *random*, *roundrobin*, and *sequential*, a postfix can be appended to
906 tell fio how many I/Os to issue before switching to a new file. For example,
907 specifying ``file_service_type=random:8`` would cause fio to issue
908 8 I/Os before selecting a new file at random. For the non-uniform
909 distributions, a floating point postfix can be given to influence how the
910 distribution is skewed. See :option:`random_distribution` for a description
911 of how that would work.
912
913.. option:: ioscheduler=str
914
915 Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler
916 before running.
917
918.. option:: create_serialize=bool
919
920 If true, serialize the file creation for the jobs. This may be handy to
921 avoid interleaving of data files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
922 used and even the number of processors in the system. Default: true.
923
924.. option:: create_fsync=bool
925
926 :manpage:`fsync(2)` the data file after creation. This is the default.
927
928.. option:: create_on_open=bool
929
930 If true, don't pre-create files but allow the job's open() to create a file
931 when it's time to do I/O. Default: false -- pre-create all necessary files
932 when the job starts.
933
934.. option:: create_only=bool
935
936 If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
937 laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done -- the actual job contents
938 are not executed. Default: false.
939
940.. option:: allow_file_create=bool
941
942 If true, fio is permitted to create files as part of its workload. If this
943 option is false, then fio will error out if
944 the files it needs to use don't already exist. Default: true.
945
946.. option:: allow_mounted_write=bool
947
948 If this isn't set, fio will abort jobs that are destructive (e.g. that write)
949 to what appears to be a mounted device or partition. This should help catch
950 creating inadvertently destructive tests, not realizing that the test will
951 destroy data on the mounted file system. Note that some platforms don't allow
952 writing against a mounted device regardless of this option. Default: false.
953
954.. option:: pre_read=bool
955
956 If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the
957 given I/O operation. This will also clear the :option:`invalidate` flag,
958 since it is pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only
959 work for I/O engines that are seek-able, since they allow you to read the
960 same data multiple times. Thus it will not work on non-seekable I/O engines
961 (e.g. network, splice). Default: false.
962
963.. option:: unlink=bool
964
965 Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated runs of that
966 job would then waste time recreating the file set again and again. Default:
967 false.
968
969.. option:: unlink_each_loop=bool
970
971 Unlink job files after each iteration or loop. Default: false.
972
973.. option:: zonemode=str
974
975 Accepted values are:
976
977 **none**
978 The :option:`zonerange`, :option:`zonesize`,
979 :option `zonecapacity` and option:`zoneskip`
980 parameters are ignored.
981 **strided**
982 I/O happens in a single zone until
983 :option:`zonesize` bytes have been transferred.
984 After that number of bytes has been
985 transferred processing of the next zone
986 starts. :option `zonecapacity` is ignored.
987 **zbd**
988 Zoned block device mode. I/O happens
989 sequentially in each zone, even if random I/O
990 has been selected. Random I/O happens across
991 all zones instead of being restricted to a
992 single zone. The :option:`zoneskip` parameter
993 is ignored. :option:`zonerange` and
994 :option:`zonesize` must be identical.
995 Trim is handled using a zone reset operation.
996 Trim only considers non-empty sequential write
997 required and sequential write preferred zones.
998
999.. option:: zonerange=int
1000
1001 Size of a single zone. See also :option:`zonesize` and
1002 :option:`zoneskip`.
1003
1004.. option:: zonesize=int
1005
1006 For :option:`zonemode` =strided, this is the number of bytes to
1007 transfer before skipping :option:`zoneskip` bytes. If this parameter
1008 is smaller than :option:`zonerange` then only a fraction of each zone
1009 with :option:`zonerange` bytes will be accessed. If this parameter is
1010 larger than :option:`zonerange` then each zone will be accessed
1011 multiple times before skipping to the next zone.
1012
1013 For :option:`zonemode` =zbd, this is the size of a single zone. The
1014 :option:`zonerange` parameter is ignored in this mode.
1015
1016
1017.. option:: zonecapacity=int
1018
1019 For :option:`zonemode` =zbd, this defines the capacity of a single zone,
1020 which is the accessible area starting from the zone start address.
1021 This parameter only applies when using :option:`zonemode` =zbd in
1022 combination with regular block devices. If not specified it defaults to
1023 the zone size. If the target device is a zoned block device, the zone
1024 capacity is obtained from the device information and this option is
1025 ignored.
1026
1027.. option:: zoneskip=int
1028
1029 For :option:`zonemode` =strided, the number of bytes to skip after
1030 :option:`zonesize` bytes of data have been transferred. This parameter
1031 must be zero for :option:`zonemode` =zbd.
1032
1033.. option:: read_beyond_wp=bool
1034
1035 This parameter applies to :option:`zonemode` =zbd only.
1036
1037 Zoned block devices are block devices that consist of multiple zones.
1038 Each zone has a type, e.g. conventional or sequential. A conventional
1039 zone can be written at any offset that is a multiple of the block
1040 size. Sequential zones must be written sequentially. The position at
1041 which a write must occur is called the write pointer. A zoned block
1042 device can be either drive managed, host managed or host aware. For
1043 host managed devices the host must ensure that writes happen
1044 sequentially. Fio recognizes host managed devices and serializes
1045 writes to sequential zones for these devices.
1046
1047 If a read occurs in a sequential zone beyond the write pointer then
1048 the zoned block device will complete the read without reading any data
1049 from the storage medium. Since such reads lead to unrealistically high
1050 bandwidth and IOPS numbers fio only reads beyond the write pointer if
1051 explicitly told to do so. Default: false.
1052
1053.. option:: max_open_zones=int
1054
1055 A zone of a zoned block device is in the open state when it is partially
1056 written (i.e. not all sectors of the zone have been written). Zoned
1057 block devices may have a limit on the total number of zones that can
1058 be simultaneously in the open state, that is, the number of zones that
1059 can be written to simultaneously. The :option:`max_open_zones` parameter
1060 limits the number of zones to which write commands are issued by all fio
1061 jobs, that is, limits the number of zones that will be in the open
1062 state. This parameter is relevant only if the :option:`zonemode` =zbd is
1063 used. The default value is always equal to maximum number of open zones
1064 of the target zoned block device and a value higher than this limit
1065 cannot be specified by users unless the option
1066 :option:`ignore_zone_limits` is specified. When
1067 :option:`ignore_zone_limits` is specified or the target device has no
1068 limit on the number of zones that can be in an open state,
1069 :option:`max_open_zones` can specify 0 to disable any limit on the
1070 number of zones that can be simultaneously written to by all jobs.
1071
1072.. option:: job_max_open_zones=int
1073
1074 In the same manner as :option:`max_open_zones`, limit the number of open
1075 zones per fio job, that is, the number of zones that a single job can
1076 simultaneously write to. A value of zero indicates no limit.
1077 Default: zero.
1078
1079.. option:: ignore_zone_limits=bool
1080
1081 If this option is used, fio will ignore the maximum number of open
1082 zones limit of the zoned block device in use, thus allowing the
1083 option :option:`max_open_zones` value to be larger than the device
1084 reported limit. Default: false.
1085
1086.. option:: zone_reset_threshold=float
1087
1088 A number between zero and one that indicates the ratio of logical
1089 blocks with data to the total number of logical blocks in the test
1090 above which zones should be reset periodically.
1091
1092.. option:: zone_reset_frequency=float
1093
1094 A number between zero and one that indicates how often a zone reset
1095 should be issued if the zone reset threshold has been exceeded. A zone
1096 reset is submitted after each (1 / zone_reset_frequency) write
1097 requests. This and the previous parameter can be used to simulate
1098 garbage collection activity.
1099
1100
1101I/O type
1102~~~~~~~~
1103
1104.. option:: direct=bool
1105
1106 If value is true, use non-buffered I/O. This is usually O_DIRECT. Note that
1107 OpenBSD and ZFS on Solaris don't support direct I/O. On Windows the synchronous
1108 ioengines don't support direct I/O. Default: false.
1109
1110.. option:: atomic=bool
1111
1112 If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct I/O. Atomic writes are
1113 guaranteed to be stable once acknowledged by the operating system. Only
1114 Linux supports O_ATOMIC right now.
1115
1116.. option:: buffered=bool
1117
1118 If value is true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the
1119 :option:`direct` option. Defaults to true.
1120
1121.. option:: readwrite=str, rw=str
1122
1123 Type of I/O pattern. Accepted values are:
1124
1125 **read**
1126 Sequential reads.
1127 **write**
1128 Sequential writes.
1129 **trim**
1130 Sequential trims (Linux block devices and SCSI
1131 character devices only).
1132 **randread**
1133 Random reads.
1134 **randwrite**
1135 Random writes.
1136 **randtrim**
1137 Random trims (Linux block devices and SCSI
1138 character devices only).
1139 **rw,readwrite**
1140 Sequential mixed reads and writes.
1141 **randrw**
1142 Random mixed reads and writes.
1143 **trimwrite**
1144 Sequential trim+write sequences. Blocks will be trimmed first,
1145 then the same blocks will be written to. So if ``io_size=64K``
1146 is specified, Fio will trim a total of 64K bytes and also
1147 write 64K bytes on the same trimmed blocks. This behaviour
1148 will be consistent with ``number_ios`` or other Fio options
1149 limiting the total bytes or number of I/O's.
1150 **randtrimwrite**
1151 Like trimwrite, but uses random offsets rather
1152 than sequential writes.
1153
1154 Fio defaults to read if the option is not specified. For the mixed I/O
1155 types, the default is to split them 50/50. For certain types of I/O the
1156 result may still be skewed a bit, since the speed may be different.
1157
1158 It is possible to specify the number of I/Os to do before getting a new
1159 offset by appending ``:<nr>`` to the end of the string given. For a
1160 random read, it would look like ``rw=randread:8`` for passing in an offset
1161 modifier with a value of 8. If the suffix is used with a sequential I/O
1162 pattern, then the *<nr>* value specified will be **added** to the generated
1163 offset for each I/O turning sequential I/O into sequential I/O with holes.
1164 For instance, using ``rw=write:4k`` will skip 4k for every write. Also see
1165 the :option:`rw_sequencer` option.
1166
1167.. option:: rw_sequencer=str
1168
1169 If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to the ``rw=<str>``
1170 line, then this option controls how that number modifies the I/O offset
1171 being generated. Accepted values are:
1172
1173 **sequential**
1174 Generate sequential offset.
1175 **identical**
1176 Generate the same offset.
1177
1178 ``sequential`` is only useful for random I/O, where fio would normally
1179 generate a new random offset for every I/O. If you append e.g. 8 to randread,
1180 you would get a new random offset for every 8 I/Os. The result would be a
1181 seek for only every 8 I/Os, instead of for every I/O. Use ``rw=randread:8``
1182 to specify that. As sequential I/O is already sequential, setting
1183 ``sequential`` for that would not result in any differences. ``identical``
1184 behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends the same offset 8 number of
1185 times before generating a new offset.
1186
1187.. option:: unified_rw_reporting=str
1188
1189 Fio normally reports statistics on a per data direction basis, meaning that
1190 reads, writes, and trims are accounted and reported separately. This option
1191 determines whether fio reports the results normally, summed together, or as
1192 both options.
1193 Accepted values are:
1194
1195 **none**
1196 Normal statistics reporting.
1197
1198 **mixed**
1199 Statistics are summed per data direction and reported together.
1200
1201 **both**
1202 Statistics are reported normally, followed by the mixed statistics.
1203
1204 **0**
1205 Backward-compatible alias for **none**.
1206
1207 **1**
1208 Backward-compatible alias for **mixed**.
1209
1210 **2**
1211 Alias for **both**.
1212
1213.. option:: randrepeat=bool
1214
1215 Seed the random number generator used for random I/O patterns in a
1216 predictable way so the pattern is repeatable across runs. Default: true.
1217
1218.. option:: allrandrepeat=bool
1219
1220 Seed all random number generators in a predictable way so results are
1221 repeatable across runs. Default: false.
1222
1223.. option:: randseed=int
1224
1225 Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to be able to
1226 control what sequence of output is being generated. If not set, the random
1227 sequence depends on the :option:`randrepeat` setting.
1228
1229.. option:: fallocate=str
1230
1231 Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
1232 Accepted values are:
1233
1234 **none**
1235 Do not pre-allocate space.
1236
1237 **native**
1238 Use a platform's native pre-allocation call but fall back to
1239 **none** behavior if it fails/is not implemented.
1240
1241 **posix**
1242 Pre-allocate via :manpage:`posix_fallocate(3)`.
1243
1244 **keep**
1245 Pre-allocate via :manpage:`fallocate(2)` with
1246 FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
1247
1248 **truncate**
1249 Extend file to final size via :manpage:`ftruncate(2)`
1250 instead of allocating.
1251
1252 **0**
1253 Backward-compatible alias for **none**.
1254
1255 **1**
1256 Backward-compatible alias for **posix**.
1257
1258 May not be available on all supported platforms. **keep** is only available
1259 on Linux. If using ZFS on Solaris this cannot be set to **posix**
1260 because ZFS doesn't support pre-allocation. Default: **native** if any
1261 pre-allocation methods except **truncate** are available, **none** if not.
1262
1263 Note that using **truncate** on Windows will interact surprisingly
1264 with non-sequential write patterns. When writing to a file that has
1265 been extended by setting the end-of-file information, Windows will
1266 backfill the unwritten portion of the file up to that offset with
1267 zeroes before issuing the new write. This means that a single small
1268 write to the end of an extended file will stall until the entire
1269 file has been filled with zeroes.
1270
1271.. option:: fadvise_hint=str
1272
1273 Use :manpage:`posix_fadvise(2)` or :manpage:`posix_fadvise(2)` to
1274 advise the kernel on what I/O patterns are likely to be issued.
1275 Accepted values are:
1276
1277 **0**
1278 Backwards-compatible hint for "no hint".
1279
1280 **1**
1281 Backwards compatible hint for "advise with fio workload type". This
1282 uses **FADV_RANDOM** for a random workload, and **FADV_SEQUENTIAL**
1283 for a sequential workload.
1284
1285 **sequential**
1286 Advise using **FADV_SEQUENTIAL**.
1287
1288 **random**
1289 Advise using **FADV_RANDOM**.
1290
1291.. option:: write_hint=str
1292
1293 Use :manpage:`fcntl(2)` to advise the kernel what life time to expect
1294 from a write. Only supported on Linux, as of version 4.13. Accepted
1295 values are:
1296
1297 **none**
1298 No particular life time associated with this file.
1299
1300 **short**
1301 Data written to this file has a short life time.
1302
1303 **medium**
1304 Data written to this file has a medium life time.
1305
1306 **long**
1307 Data written to this file has a long life time.
1308
1309 **extreme**
1310 Data written to this file has a very long life time.
1311
1312 The values are all relative to each other, and no absolute meaning
1313 should be associated with them.
1314
1315.. option:: offset=int
1316
1317 Start I/O at the provided offset in the file, given as either a fixed size in
1318 bytes, zones or a percentage. If a percentage is given, the generated offset will be
1319 aligned to the minimum ``blocksize`` or to the value of ``offset_align`` if
1320 provided. Data before the given offset will not be touched. This
1321 effectively caps the file size at `real_size - offset`. Can be combined with
1322 :option:`size` to constrain the start and end range of the I/O workload.
1323 A percentage can be specified by a number between 1 and 100 followed by '%',
1324 for example, ``offset=20%`` to specify 20%. In ZBD mode, value can be set as
1325 number of zones using 'z'.
1326
1327.. option:: offset_align=int
1328
1329 If set to non-zero value, the byte offset generated by a percentage ``offset``
1330 is aligned upwards to this value. Defaults to 0 meaning that a percentage
1331 offset is aligned to the minimum block size.
1332
1333.. option:: offset_increment=int
1334
1335 If this is provided, then the real offset becomes `offset + offset_increment
1336 * thread_number`, where the thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and
1337 is incremented for each sub-job (i.e. when :option:`numjobs` option is
1338 specified). This option is useful if there are several jobs which are
1339 intended to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with even
1340 spacing between the starting points. Percentages can be used for this option.
1341 If a percentage is given, the generated offset will be aligned to the minimum
1342 ``blocksize`` or to the value of ``offset_align`` if provided. In ZBD mode, value can
1343 also be set as number of zones using 'z'.
1344
1345.. option:: number_ios=int
1346
1347 Fio will normally perform I/Os until it has exhausted the size of the region
1348 set by :option:`size`, or if it exhaust the allocated time (or hits an error
1349 condition). With this setting, the range/size can be set independently of
1350 the number of I/Os to perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit
1351 normally and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount of I/O
1352 that will be done, it will only stop fio if this condition is met before
1353 other end-of-job criteria.
1354
1355.. option:: fsync=int
1356
1357 If writing to a file, issue an :manpage:`fsync(2)` (or its equivalent) of
1358 the dirty data for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give 32
1359 as a parameter, fio will sync the file after every 32 writes issued. If fio is
1360 using non-buffered I/O, we may not sync the file. The exception is the sg
1361 I/O engine, which synchronizes the disk cache anyway. Defaults to 0, which
1362 means fio does not periodically issue and wait for a sync to complete. Also
1363 see :option:`end_fsync` and :option:`fsync_on_close`.
1364
1365.. option:: fdatasync=int
1366
1367 Like :option:`fsync` but uses :manpage:`fdatasync(2)` to only sync data and
1368 not metadata blocks. In Windows, DragonFlyBSD or OSX there is no
1369 :manpage:`fdatasync(2)` so this falls back to using :manpage:`fsync(2)`.
1370 Defaults to 0, which means fio does not periodically issue and wait for a
1371 data-only sync to complete.
1372
1373.. option:: write_barrier=int
1374
1375 Make every `N-th` write a barrier write.
1376
1377.. option:: sync_file_range=str:int
1378
1379 Use :manpage:`sync_file_range(2)` for every `int` number of write
1380 operations. Fio will track range of writes that have happened since the last
1381 :manpage:`sync_file_range(2)` call. `str` can currently be one or more of:
1382
1383 **wait_before**
1384 SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
1385 **write**
1386 SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
1387 **wait_after**
1388 SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
1389
1390 So if you do ``sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8``, fio would use
1391 ``SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE`` for every 8
1392 writes. Also see the :manpage:`sync_file_range(2)` man page. This option is
1393 Linux specific.
1394
1395.. option:: overwrite=bool
1396
1397 If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing data. If the file
1398 doesn't already exist, it will be created before the write phase begins. If
1399 the file exists and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
1400 will be done. Default: false.
1401
1402.. option:: end_fsync=bool
1403
1404 If true, :manpage:`fsync(2)` file contents when a write stage has completed.
1405 Default: false.
1406
1407.. option:: fsync_on_close=bool
1408
1409 If true, fio will :manpage:`fsync(2)` a dirty file on close. This differs
1410 from :option:`end_fsync` in that it will happen on every file close, not
1411 just at the end of the job. Default: false.
1412
1413.. option:: rwmixread=int
1414
1415 Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
1416
1417.. option:: rwmixwrite=int
1418
1419 Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If both
1420 :option:`rwmixread` and :option:`rwmixwrite` is given and the values do not
1421 add up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override the
1422 first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is asked to
1423 limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then the
1424 distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
1425
1426.. option:: random_distribution=str:float[:float][,str:float][,str:float]
1427
1428 By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
1429 to perform random I/O. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
1430 specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
1431 fio includes the following distribution models:
1432
1433 **random**
1434 Uniform random distribution
1435
1436 **zipf**
1437 Zipf distribution
1438
1439 **pareto**
1440 Pareto distribution
1441
1442 **normal**
1443 Normal (Gaussian) distribution
1444
1445 **zoned**
1446 Zoned random distribution
1447
1448 **zoned_abs**
1449 Zone absolute random distribution
1450
1451 When using a **zipf** or **pareto** distribution, an input value is also
1452 needed to define the access pattern. For **zipf**, this is the `Zipf
1453 theta`. For **pareto**, it's the `Pareto power`. Fio includes a test
1454 program, :command:`fio-genzipf`, that can be used visualize what the given input
1455 values will yield in terms of hit rates. If you wanted to use **zipf** with
1456 a `theta` of 1.2, you would use ``random_distribution=zipf:1.2`` as the
1457 option. If a non-uniform model is used, fio will disable use of the random
1458 map. For the **normal** distribution, a normal (Gaussian) deviation is
1459 supplied as a value between 0 and 100.
1460
1461 The second, optional float is allowed for **pareto**, **zipf** and **normal** distributions.
1462 It allows one to set base of distribution in non-default place, giving more control
1463 over most probable outcome. This value is in range [0-1] which maps linearly to
1464 range of possible random values.
1465 Defaults are: random for **pareto** and **zipf**, and 0.5 for **normal**.
1466 If you wanted to use **zipf** with a `theta` of 1.2 centered on 1/4 of allowed value range,
1467 you would use ``random_distribution=zipf:1.2:0.25``.
1468
1469 For a **zoned** distribution, fio supports specifying percentages of I/O
1470 access that should fall within what range of the file or device. For
1471 example, given a criteria of:
1472
1473 * 60% of accesses should be to the first 10%
1474 * 30% of accesses should be to the next 20%
1475 * 8% of accesses should be to the next 30%
1476 * 2% of accesses should be to the next 40%
1477
1478 we can define that through zoning of the random accesses. For the above
1479 example, the user would do::
1480
1481 random_distribution=zoned:60/10:30/20:8/30:2/40
1482
1483 A **zoned_abs** distribution works exactly like the **zoned**, except
1484 that it takes absolute sizes. For example, let's say you wanted to
1485 define access according to the following criteria:
1486
1487 * 60% of accesses should be to the first 20G
1488 * 30% of accesses should be to the next 100G
1489 * 10% of accesses should be to the next 500G
1490
1491 we can define an absolute zoning distribution with:
1492
1493 random_distribution=zoned_abs=60/20G:30/100G:10/500g
1494
1495 For both **zoned** and **zoned_abs**, fio supports defining up to
1496 256 separate zones.
1497
1498 Similarly to how :option:`bssplit` works for setting ranges and
1499 percentages of block sizes. Like :option:`bssplit`, it's possible to
1500 specify separate zones for reads, writes, and trims. If just one set
1501 is given, it'll apply to all of them. This goes for both **zoned**
1502 **zoned_abs** distributions.
1503
1504.. option:: percentage_random=int[,int][,int]
1505
1506 For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This
1507 defaults to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set
1508 from anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
1509 sequential. Any setting in between will result in a random mix of sequential
1510 and random I/O, at the given percentages. Comma-separated values may be
1511 specified for reads, writes, and trims as described in :option:`blocksize`.
1512
1513.. option:: norandommap
1514
1515 Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
1516 this option is given, fio will just get a new random offset without looking
1517 at past I/O history. This means that some blocks may not be read or written,
1518 and that some blocks may be read/written more than once. If this option is
1519 used with :option:`verify` and multiple blocksizes (via :option:`bsrange`),
1520 only intact blocks are verified, i.e., partially-overwritten blocks are
1521 ignored. With an async I/O engine and an I/O depth > 1, it is possible for
1522 the same block to be overwritten, which can cause verification errors. Either
1523 do not use norandommap in this case, or also use the lfsr random generator.
1524
1525.. option:: softrandommap=bool
1526
1527 See :option:`norandommap`. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and
1528 it fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without
1529 a random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps,
1530 this option is disabled by default.
1531
1532.. option:: random_generator=str
1533
1534 Fio supports the following engines for generating I/O offsets for random I/O:
1535
1536 **tausworthe**
1537 Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator.
1538 **lfsr**
1539 Linear feedback shift register generator.
1540 **tausworthe64**
1541 Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator.
1542
1543 **tausworthe** is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking
1544 on the side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written
1545 once. **lfsr** guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and
1546 it's also less computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator,
1547 however, though for I/O purposes it's typically good enough. **lfsr** only
1548 works with single block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
1549 sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write some blocks
1550 multiple times. The default value is **tausworthe**, unless the required
1551 space exceeds 2^32 blocks. If it does, then **tausworthe64** is
1552 selected automatically.
1553
1554
1555Block size
1556~~~~~~~~~~
1557
1558.. option:: blocksize=int[,int][,int], bs=int[,int][,int]
1559
1560 The block size in bytes used for I/O units. Default: 4096. A single value
1561 applies to reads, writes, and trims. Comma-separated values may be
1562 specified for reads, writes, and trims. A value not terminated in a comma
1563 applies to subsequent types.
1564
1565 Examples:
1566
1567 **bs=256k**
1568 means 256k for reads, writes and trims.
1569
1570 **bs=8k,32k**
1571 means 8k for reads, 32k for writes and trims.
1572
1573 **bs=8k,32k,**
1574 means 8k for reads, 32k for writes, and default for trims.
1575
1576 **bs=,8k**
1577 means default for reads, 8k for writes and trims.
1578
1579 **bs=,8k,**
1580 means default for reads, 8k for writes, and default for trims.
1581
1582.. option:: blocksize_range=irange[,irange][,irange], bsrange=irange[,irange][,irange]
1583
1584 A range of block sizes in bytes for I/O units. The issued I/O unit will
1585 always be a multiple of the minimum size, unless
1586 :option:`blocksize_unaligned` is set.
1587
1588 Comma-separated ranges may be specified for reads, writes, and trims as
1589 described in :option:`blocksize`.
1590
1591 Example: ``bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k``.
1592
1593.. option:: bssplit=str[,str][,str]
1594
1595 Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the block sizes
1596 issued, not just an even split between them. This option allows you to
1597 weight various block sizes, so that you are able to define a specific
1598 amount of block sizes issued. The format for this option is::
1599
1600 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
1601
1602 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define a workload
1603 that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and 40% 32k blocks, you would
1604 write::
1605
1606 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
1607
1608 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank, fio will
1609 fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit option like this one::
1610
1611 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
1612
1613 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages always
1614 add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds up to more, it
1615 will error out.
1616
1617 Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and trims as
1618 described in :option:`blocksize`.
1619
1620 If you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads, while
1621 having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would specify::
1622
1623 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90:8k/10
1624
1625 Fio supports defining up to 64 different weights for each data
1626 direction.
1627
1628.. option:: blocksize_unaligned, bs_unaligned
1629
1630 If set, fio will issue I/O units with any size within
1631 :option:`blocksize_range`, not just multiples of the minimum size. This
1632 typically won't work with direct I/O, as that normally requires sector
1633 alignment.
1634
1635.. option:: bs_is_seq_rand=bool
1636
1637 If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write blocksize settings
1638 as sequential,random blocksize settings instead. Any random read or write
1639 will use the WRITE blocksize settings, and any sequential read or write will
1640 use the READ blocksize settings.
1641
1642.. option:: blockalign=int[,int][,int], ba=int[,int][,int]
1643
1644 Boundary to which fio will align random I/O units. Default:
1645 :option:`blocksize`. Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct
1646 I/O, though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This option is
1647 mutually exclusive with using a random map for files, so it will turn off
1648 that option. Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and
1649 trims as described in :option:`blocksize`.
1650
1651
1652Buffers and memory
1653~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1654
1655.. option:: zero_buffers
1656
1657 Initialize buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
1658
1659.. option:: refill_buffers
1660
1661 If this option is given, fio will refill the I/O buffers on every
1662 submit. Only makes sense if :option:`zero_buffers` isn't specified,
1663 naturally. Defaults to being unset i.e., the buffer is only filled at
1664 init time and the data in it is reused when possible but if any of
1665 :option:`verify`, :option:`buffer_compress_percentage` or
1666 :option:`dedupe_percentage` are enabled then `refill_buffers` is also
1667 automatically enabled.
1668
1669.. option:: scramble_buffers=bool
1670
1671 If :option:`refill_buffers` is too costly and the target is using data
1672 deduplication, then setting this option will slightly modify the I/O buffer
1673 contents to defeat normal de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat
1674 more clever block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
1675 blocks. Default: true.
1676
1677.. option:: buffer_compress_percentage=int
1678
1679 If this is set, then fio will attempt to provide I/O buffer content
1680 (on WRITEs) that compresses to the specified level. Fio does this by
1681 providing a mix of random data followed by fixed pattern data. The
1682 fixed pattern is either zeros, or the pattern specified by
1683 :option:`buffer_pattern`. If the `buffer_pattern` option is used, it
1684 might skew the compression ratio slightly. Setting
1685 `buffer_compress_percentage` to a value other than 100 will also
1686 enable :option:`refill_buffers` in order to reduce the likelihood that
1687 adjacent blocks are so similar that they over compress when seen
1688 together. See :option:`buffer_compress_chunk` for how to set a finer or
1689 coarser granularity for the random/fixed data region. Defaults to unset
1690 i.e., buffer data will not adhere to any compression level.
1691
1692.. option:: buffer_compress_chunk=int
1693
1694 This setting allows fio to manage how big the random/fixed data region
1695 is when using :option:`buffer_compress_percentage`. When
1696 `buffer_compress_chunk` is set to some non-zero value smaller than the
1697 block size, fio can repeat the random/fixed region throughout the I/O
1698 buffer at the specified interval (which particularly useful when
1699 bigger block sizes are used for a job). When set to 0, fio will use a
1700 chunk size that matches the block size resulting in a single
1701 random/fixed region within the I/O buffer. Defaults to 512. When the
1702 unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in bytes.
1703
1704.. option:: buffer_pattern=str
1705
1706 If set, fio will fill the I/O buffers with this pattern or with the contents
1707 of a file. If not set, the contents of I/O buffers are defined by the other
1708 options related to buffer contents. The setting can be any pattern of bytes,
1709 and can be prefixed with 0x for hex values. It may also be a string, where
1710 the string must then be wrapped with ``""``. Or it may also be a filename,
1711 where the filename must be wrapped with ``''`` in which case the file is
1712 opened and read. Note that not all the file contents will be read if that
1713 would cause the buffers to overflow. So, for example::
1714
1715 buffer_pattern='filename'
1716
1717 or::
1718
1719 buffer_pattern="abcd"
1720
1721 or::
1722
1723 buffer_pattern=-12
1724
1725 or::
1726
1727 buffer_pattern=0xdeadface
1728
1729 Also you can combine everything together in any order::
1730
1731 buffer_pattern=0xdeadface"abcd"-12'filename'
1732
1733.. option:: dedupe_percentage=int
1734
1735 If set, fio will generate this percentage of identical buffers when
1736 writing. These buffers will be naturally dedupable. The contents of the
1737 buffers depend on what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's
1738 possible to have the individual buffers either fully compressible, or not at
1739 all -- this option only controls the distribution of unique buffers. Setting
1740 this option will also enable :option:`refill_buffers` to prevent every buffer
1741 being identical.
1742
1743.. option:: dedupe_mode=str
1744
1745 If ``dedupe_percentage=<int>`` is given, then this option controls how fio
1746 generates the dedupe buffers.
1747
1748 **repeat**
1749 Generate dedupe buffers by repeating previous writes
1750 **working_set**
1751 Generate dedupe buffers from working set
1752
1753 ``repeat`` is the default option for fio. Dedupe buffers are generated
1754 by repeating previous unique write.
1755
1756 ``working_set`` is a more realistic workload.
1757 With ``working_set``, ``dedupe_working_set_percentage=<int>`` should be provided.
1758 Given that, fio will use the initial unique write buffers as its working set.
1759 Upon deciding to dedupe, fio will randomly choose a buffer from the working set.
1760 Note that by using ``working_set`` the dedupe percentage will converge
1761 to the desired over time while ``repeat`` maintains the desired percentage
1762 throughout the job.
1763
1764.. option:: dedupe_working_set_percentage=int
1765
1766 If ``dedupe_mode=<str>`` is set to ``working_set``, then this controls
1767 the percentage of size of the file or device used as the buffers
1768 fio will choose to generate the dedupe buffers from
1769
1770 Note that size needs to be explicitly provided and only 1 file per
1771 job is supported
1772
1773.. option:: dedupe_global=bool
1774
1775 This controls whether the deduplication buffers will be shared amongst
1776 all jobs that have this option set. The buffers are spread evenly between
1777 participating jobs.
1778
1779.. option:: invalidate=bool
1780
1781 Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts of the files to be used prior to
1782 starting I/O if the platform and file type support it. Defaults to true.
1783 This will be ignored if :option:`pre_read` is also specified for the
1784 same job.
1785
1786.. option:: sync=str
1787
1788 Whether, and what type, of synchronous I/O to use for writes. The allowed
1789 values are:
1790
1791 **none**
1792 Do not use synchronous IO, the default.
1793
1794 **0**
1795 Same as **none**.
1796
1797 **sync**
1798 Use synchronous file IO. For the majority of I/O engines,
1799 this means using O_SYNC.
1800
1801 **1**
1802 Same as **sync**.
1803
1804 **dsync**
1805 Use synchronous data IO. For the majority of I/O engines,
1806 this means using O_DSYNC.
1807
1808
1809.. option:: iomem=str, mem=str
1810
1811 Fio can use various types of memory as the I/O unit buffer. The allowed
1812 values are:
1813
1814 **malloc**
1815 Use memory from :manpage:`malloc(3)` as the buffers. Default memory
1816 type.
1817
1818 **shm**
1819 Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated through
1820 :manpage:`shmget(2)`.
1821
1822 **shmhuge**
1823 Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
1824
1825 **mmap**
1826 Use :manpage:`mmap(2)` to allocate buffers. May either be anonymous memory, or can
1827 be file backed if a filename is given after the option. The format
1828 is `mem=mmap:/path/to/file`.
1829
1830 **mmaphuge**
1831 Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer backing. Append filename
1832 after mmaphuge, ala `mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file`.
1833
1834 **mmapshared**
1835 Same as mmap, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
1836
1837 **cudamalloc**
1838 Use GPU memory as the buffers for GPUDirect RDMA benchmark.
1839 The :option:`ioengine` must be `rdma`.
1840
1841 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed bs size for the job,
1842 multiplied by the I/O depth given. Note that for **shmhuge** and
1843 **mmaphuge** to work, the system must have free huge pages allocated. This
1844 can normally be checked and set by reading/writing
1845 :file:`/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages` on a Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page
1846 is 2 or 4MiB in size depending on the platform. So to calculate the
1847 number of huge pages you need for a given job file, add up the I/O
1848 depth of all jobs (normally one unless :option:`iodepth` is used) and
1849 multiply by the maximum bs set. Then divide that number by the huge
1850 page size. You can see the size of the huge pages in
1851 :file:`/proc/meminfo`. If no huge pages are allocated by having a
1852 non-zero number in `nr_hugepages`, using **mmaphuge** or **shmhuge**
1853 will fail. Also see :option:`hugepage-size`.
1854
1855 **mmaphuge** also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file location
1856 should point there. So if it's mounted in :file:`/huge`, you would use
1857 `mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile`.
1858
1859.. option:: iomem_align=int, mem_align=int
1860
1861 This indicates the memory alignment of the I/O memory buffers. Note that
1862 the given alignment is applied to the first I/O unit buffer, if using
1863 :option:`iodepth` the alignment of the following buffers are given by the
1864 :option:`bs` used. In other words, if using a :option:`bs` that is a
1865 multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will be aligned to
1866 this value. If using a :option:`bs` that is not page aligned, the alignment
1867 of subsequent I/O memory buffers is the sum of the :option:`iomem_align` and
1868 :option:`bs` used.
1869
1870.. option:: hugepage-size=int
1871
1872 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal to the system
1873 setting, see :file:`/proc/meminfo` and
1874 :file:`/sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/`. Defaults to 2 or 4MiB depending on
1875 the platform. Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so
1876 using ``hugepage-size=Xm`` is the preferred way to set this to avoid
1877 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
1878
1879.. option:: lockmem=int
1880
1881 Pin the specified amount of memory with :manpage:`mlock(2)`. Can be used to
1882 simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1883
1884
1885I/O size
1886~~~~~~~~
1887
1888.. option:: size=int
1889
1890 The total size of file I/O for each thread of this job. Fio will run until
1891 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is altered by other means
1892 such as (1) :option:`runtime`, (2) :option:`io_size` (3) :option:`number_ios`,
1893 (4) gaps/holes while doing I/O's such as ``rw=read:16K``, or (5) sequential
1894 I/O reaching end of the file which is possible when :option:`percentage_random`
1895 is less than 100.
1896 Fio will divide this size between the available files determined by options
1897 such as :option:`nrfiles`, :option:`filename`, unless :option:`filesize` is
1898 specified by the job. If the result of division happens to be 0, the size is
1899 set to the physical size of the given files or devices if they exist.
1900 If this option is not specified, fio will use the full size of the given
1901 files or devices. If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is also
1902 possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If ``size=20%`` is
1903 given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given files or devices.
1904 In ZBD mode, value can also be set as number of zones using 'z'.
1905 Can be combined with :option:`offset` to constrain the start and end range
1906 that I/O will be done within.
1907
1908.. option:: io_size=int, io_limit=int
1909
1910 Normally fio operates within the region set by :option:`size`, which means
1911 that the :option:`size` option sets both the region and size of I/O to be
1912 performed. Sometimes that is not what you want. With this option, it is
1913 possible to define just the amount of I/O that fio should do. For instance,
1914 if :option:`size` is set to 20GiB and :option:`io_size` is set to 5GiB, fio
1915 will perform I/O within the first 20GiB but exit when 5GiB have been
1916 done. The opposite is also possible -- if :option:`size` is set to 20GiB,
1917 and :option:`io_size` is set to 40GiB, then fio will do 40GiB of I/O within
1918 the 0..20GiB region.
1919
1920.. option:: filesize=irange(int)
1921
1922 Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio will select sizes for
1923 files at random within the given range. If not given, each created file is the
1924 same size. This option overrides :option:`size` in terms of file size, i.e. if
1925 :option:`filesize` is specified then :option:`size` becomes merely the default
1926 for :option:`io_size` and has no effect at all if :option:`io_size` is set
1927 explicitly.
1928
1929.. option:: file_append=bool
1930
1931 Perform I/O after the end of the file. Normally fio will operate within the
1932 size of a file. If this option is set, then fio will append to the file
1933 instead. This has identical behavior to setting :option:`offset` to the size
1934 of a file. This option is ignored on non-regular files.
1935
1936.. option:: fill_device=bool, fill_fs=bool
1937
1938 Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no space left on
1939 device) or EDQUOT (disk quota exceeded)
1940 as the terminating condition. Only makes sense with sequential
1941 write. For a read workload, the mount point will be filled first then I/O
1942 started on the result. This option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw
1943 device node, since the size of that is already known by the file system.
1944 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return ENOSPC there.
1945
1946
1947I/O engine
1948~~~~~~~~~~
1949
1950.. option:: ioengine=str
1951
1952 Defines how the job issues I/O to the file. The following types are defined:
1953
1954 **sync**
1955 Basic :manpage:`read(2)` or :manpage:`write(2)`
1956 I/O. :manpage:`lseek(2)` is used to position the I/O location.
1957 See :option:`fsync` and :option:`fdatasync` for syncing write I/Os.
1958
1959 **psync**
1960 Basic :manpage:`pread(2)` or :manpage:`pwrite(2)` I/O. Default on
1961 all supported operating systems except for Windows.
1962
1963 **vsync**
1964 Basic :manpage:`readv(2)` or :manpage:`writev(2)` I/O. Will emulate
1965 queuing by coalescing adjacent I/Os into a single submission.
1966
1967 **pvsync**
1968 Basic :manpage:`preadv(2)` or :manpage:`pwritev(2)` I/O.
1969
1970 **pvsync2**
1971 Basic :manpage:`preadv2(2)` or :manpage:`pwritev2(2)` I/O.
1972
1973 **io_uring**
1974 Fast Linux native asynchronous I/O. Supports async IO
1975 for both direct and buffered IO.
1976 This engine defines engine specific options.
1977
1978 **io_uring_cmd**
1979 Fast Linux native asynchronous I/O for pass through commands.
1980 This engine defines engine specific options.
1981
1982 **libaio**
1983 Linux native asynchronous I/O. Note that Linux may only support
1984 queued behavior with non-buffered I/O (set ``direct=1`` or
1985 ``buffered=0``).
1986 This engine defines engine specific options.
1987
1988 **posixaio**
1989 POSIX asynchronous I/O using :manpage:`aio_read(3)` and
1990 :manpage:`aio_write(3)`.
1991
1992 **solarisaio**
1993 Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
1994
1995 **windowsaio**
1996 Windows native asynchronous I/O. Default on Windows.
1997
1998 **mmap**
1999 File is memory mapped with :manpage:`mmap(2)` and data copied
2000 to/from using :manpage:`memcpy(3)`.
2001
2002 **splice**
2003 :manpage:`splice(2)` is used to transfer the data and
2004 :manpage:`vmsplice(2)` to transfer data from user space to the
2005 kernel.
2006
2007 **sg**
2008 SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May either be synchronous using the SG_IO
2009 ioctl, or if the target is an sg character device we use
2010 :manpage:`read(2)` and :manpage:`write(2)` for asynchronous
2011 I/O. Requires :option:`filename` option to specify either block or
2012 character devices. This engine supports trim operations.
2013 The sg engine includes engine specific options.
2014
2015 **libzbc**
2016 Read, write, trim and ZBC/ZAC operations to a zoned
2017 block device using libzbc library. The target can be
2018 either an SG character device or a block device file.
2019
2020 **null**
2021 Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. This is mainly used to
2022 exercise fio itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
2023
2024 **net**
2025 Transfer over the network to given ``host:port``. Depending on the
2026 :option:`protocol` used, the :option:`hostname`, :option:`port`,
2027 :option:`listen` and :option:`filename` options are used to specify
2028 what sort of connection to make, while the :option:`protocol` option
2029 determines which protocol will be used. This engine defines engine
2030 specific options.
2031
2032 **netsplice**
2033 Like **net**, but uses :manpage:`splice(2)` and
2034 :manpage:`vmsplice(2)` to map data and send/receive.
2035 This engine defines engine specific options.
2036
2037 **cpuio**
2038 Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to the
2039 :option:`cpuload`, :option:`cpuchunks` and :option:`cpumode` options.
2040 Setting :option:`cpuload`\=85 will cause that job to do nothing but burn 85%
2041 of the CPU. In case of SMP machines, use :option:`numjobs`\=<nr_of_cpu>
2042 to get desired CPU usage, as the cpuload only loads a
2043 single CPU at the desired rate. A job never finishes unless there is
2044 at least one non-cpuio job.
2045 Setting :option:`cpumode`\=qsort replace the default noop instructions loop
2046 by a qsort algorithm to consume more energy.
2047
2048 **rdma**
2049 The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics
2050 (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
2051 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols. This engine defines engine
2052 specific options.
2053
2054 **falloc**
2055 I/O engine that does regular fallocate to simulate data transfer as
2056 fio ioengine.
2057
2058 DDIR_READ
2059 does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,).
2060
2061 DDIR_WRITE
2062 does fallocate(,mode = 0).
2063
2064 DDIR_TRIM
2065 does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE).
2066
2067 **ftruncate**
2068 I/O engine that sends :manpage:`ftruncate(2)` operations in response
2069 to write (DDIR_WRITE) events. Each ftruncate issued sets the file's
2070 size to the current block offset. :option:`blocksize` is ignored.
2071
2072 **e4defrag**
2073 I/O engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate
2074 defragment activity in request to DDIR_WRITE event.
2075
2076 **rados**
2077 I/O engine supporting direct access to Ceph Reliable Autonomic
2078 Distributed Object Store (RADOS) via librados. This ioengine
2079 defines engine specific options.
2080
2081 **rbd**
2082 I/O engine supporting direct access to Ceph Rados Block Devices
2083 (RBD) via librbd without the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This
2084 ioengine defines engine specific options.
2085
2086 **http**
2087 I/O engine supporting GET/PUT requests over HTTP(S) with libcurl to
2088 a WebDAV or S3 endpoint. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
2089
2090 This engine only supports direct IO of iodepth=1; you need to scale this
2091 via numjobs. blocksize defines the size of the objects to be created.
2092
2093 TRIM is translated to object deletion.
2094
2095 **gfapi**
2096 Using GlusterFS libgfapi sync interface to direct access to
2097 GlusterFS volumes without having to go through FUSE. This ioengine
2098 defines engine specific options.
2099
2100 **gfapi_async**
2101 Using GlusterFS libgfapi async interface to direct access to
2102 GlusterFS volumes without having to go through FUSE. This ioengine
2103 defines engine specific options.
2104
2105 **libhdfs**
2106 Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS). The :option:`filename` option
2107 is used to specify host,port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This
2108 engine interprets offsets a little differently. In HDFS, files once
2109 created cannot be modified so random writes are not possible. To
2110 imitate this the libhdfs engine expects a bunch of small files to be
2111 created over HDFS and will randomly pick a file from them
2112 based on the offset generated by fio backend (see the example
2113 job file to create such files, use ``rw=write`` option). Please
2114 note, it may be necessary to set environment variables to work
2115 with HDFS/libhdfs properly. Each job uses its own connection to
2116 HDFS.
2117
2118 **mtd**
2119 Read, write and erase an MTD character device (e.g.,
2120 :file:`/dev/mtd0`). Discards are treated as erases. Depending on the
2121 underlying device type, the I/O may have to go in a certain pattern,
2122 e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially to erase blocks and discarding
2123 before overwriting. The `trimwrite` mode works well for this
2124 constraint.
2125
2126 **pmemblk**
2127 Read and write using filesystem DAX to a file on a filesystem
2128 mounted with DAX on a persistent memory device through the PMDK
2129 libpmemblk library.
2130
2131 **dev-dax**
2132 Read and write using device DAX to a persistent memory device (e.g.,
2133 /dev/dax0.0) through the PMDK libpmem library.
2134
2135 **external**
2136 Prefix to specify loading an external I/O engine object file. Append
2137 the engine filename, e.g. ``ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o`` to load
2138 ioengine :file:`foo.o` in :file:`/tmp`. The path can be either
2139 absolute or relative. See :file:`engines/skeleton_external.c` for
2140 details of writing an external I/O engine.
2141
2142 **filecreate**
2143 Simply create the files and do no I/O to them. You still need to
2144 set `filesize` so that all the accounting still occurs, but no
2145 actual I/O will be done other than creating the file.
2146
2147 **filestat**
2148 Simply do stat() and do no I/O to the file. You need to set 'filesize'
2149 and 'nrfiles', so that files will be created.
2150 This engine is to measure file lookup and meta data access.
2151
2152 **filedelete**
2153 Simply delete the files by unlink() and do no I/O to them. You need to set 'filesize'
2154 and 'nrfiles', so that the files will be created.
2155 This engine is to measure file delete.
2156
2157 **libpmem**
2158 Read and write using mmap I/O to a file on a filesystem
2159 mounted with DAX on a persistent memory device through the PMDK
2160 libpmem library.
2161
2162 **ime_psync**
2163 Synchronous read and write using DDN's Infinite Memory Engine (IME).
2164 This engine is very basic and issues calls to IME whenever an IO is
2165 queued.
2166
2167 **ime_psyncv**
2168 Synchronous read and write using DDN's Infinite Memory Engine (IME).
2169 This engine uses iovecs and will try to stack as much IOs as possible
2170 (if the IOs are "contiguous" and the IO depth is not exceeded)
2171 before issuing a call to IME.
2172
2173 **ime_aio**
2174 Asynchronous read and write using DDN's Infinite Memory Engine (IME).
2175 This engine will try to stack as much IOs as possible by creating
2176 requests for IME. FIO will then decide when to commit these requests.
2177
2178 **libiscsi**
2179 Read and write iscsi lun with libiscsi.
2180
2181 **nbd**
2182 Read and write a Network Block Device (NBD).
2183
2184 **libcufile**
2185 I/O engine supporting libcufile synchronous access to nvidia-fs and a
2186 GPUDirect Storage-supported filesystem. This engine performs
2187 I/O without transferring buffers between user-space and the kernel,
2188 unless :option:`verify` is set or :option:`cuda_io` is `posix`.
2189 :option:`iomem` must not be `cudamalloc`. This ioengine defines
2190 engine specific options.
2191
2192 **dfs**
2193 I/O engine supporting asynchronous read and write operations to the
2194 DAOS File System (DFS) via libdfs.
2195
2196 **nfs**
2197 I/O engine supporting asynchronous read and write operations to
2198 NFS filesystems from userspace via libnfs. This is useful for
2199 achieving higher concurrency and thus throughput than is possible
2200 via kernel NFS.
2201
2202 **exec**
2203 Execute 3rd party tools. Could be used to perform monitoring during jobs runtime.
2204
2205 **xnvme**
2206 I/O engine using the xNVMe C API, for NVMe devices. The xnvme engine provides
2207 flexibility to access GNU/Linux Kernel NVMe driver via libaio, IOCTLs, io_uring,
2208 the SPDK NVMe driver, or your own custom NVMe driver. The xnvme engine includes
2209 engine specific options. (See https://xnvme.io).
2210
2211 **libblkio**
2212 Use the libblkio library
2213 (https://gitlab.com/libblkio/libblkio). The specific
2214 *driver* to use must be set using
2215 :option:`libblkio_driver`. If
2216 :option:`mem`/:option:`iomem` is not specified, memory
2217 allocation is delegated to libblkio (and so is
2218 guaranteed to work with the selected *driver*). One
2219 libblkio instance is used per process, so all jobs
2220 setting option :option:`thread` will share a single
2221 instance (with one queue per thread) and must specify
2222 compatible options. Note that some drivers don't allow
2223 several instances to access the same device or file
2224 simultaneously, but allow it for threads.
2225
2226I/O engine specific parameters
2227~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2228
2229In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
2230:option:`ioengine` is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters,
2231with the caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the
2232:option:`ioengine` that defines them is selected.
2233
2234.. option:: cmdprio_percentage=int[,int] : [io_uring] [libaio]
2235
2236 Set the percentage of I/O that will be issued with the highest priority.
2237 Default: 0. A single value applies to reads and writes. Comma-separated
2238 values may be specified for reads and writes. For this option to be
2239 effective, NCQ priority must be supported and enabled, and the :option:`direct`
2240 option must be set. fio must also be run as the root user. Unlike
2241 slat/clat/lat stats, which can be tracked and reported independently, per
2242 priority stats only track and report a single type of latency. By default,
2243 completion latency (clat) will be reported, if :option:`lat_percentiles` is
2244 set, total latency (lat) will be reported.
2245
2246.. option:: cmdprio_class=int[,int] : [io_uring] [libaio]
2247
2248 Set the I/O priority class to use for I/Os that must be issued with
2249 a priority when :option:`cmdprio_percentage` or
2250 :option:`cmdprio_bssplit` is set. If not specified when
2251 :option:`cmdprio_percentage` or :option:`cmdprio_bssplit` is set,
2252 this defaults to the highest priority class. A single value applies
2253 to reads and writes. Comma-separated values may be specified for
2254 reads and writes. See :manpage:`ionice(1)`. See also the
2255 :option:`prioclass` option.
2256
2257.. option:: cmdprio=int[,int] : [io_uring] [libaio]
2258
2259 Set the I/O priority value to use for I/Os that must be issued with
2260 a priority when :option:`cmdprio_percentage` or
2261 :option:`cmdprio_bssplit` is set. If not specified when
2262 :option:`cmdprio_percentage` or :option:`cmdprio_bssplit` is set,
2263 this defaults to 0.
2264 Linux limits us to a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the
2265 highest. A single value applies to reads and writes. Comma-separated
2266 values may be specified for reads and writes. See :manpage:`ionice(1)`.
2267 Refer to an appropriate manpage for other operating systems since
2268 meaning of priority may differ. See also the :option:`prio` option.
2269
2270.. option:: cmdprio_bssplit=str[,str] : [io_uring] [libaio]
2271
2272 To get a finer control over I/O priority, this option allows
2273 specifying the percentage of IOs that must have a priority set
2274 depending on the block size of the IO. This option is useful only
2275 when used together with the :option:`bssplit` option, that is,
2276 multiple different block sizes are used for reads and writes.
2277
2278 The first accepted format for this option is the same as the format of
2279 the :option:`bssplit` option:
2280
2281 cmdprio_bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
2282
2283 In this case, each entry will use the priority class and priority
2284 level defined by the options :option:`cmdprio_class` and
2285 :option:`cmdprio` respectively.
2286
2287 The second accepted format for this option is:
2288
2289 cmdprio_bssplit=blocksize/percentage/class/level:blocksize/percentage/class/level
2290
2291 In this case, the priority class and priority level is defined inside
2292 each entry. In comparison with the first accepted format, the second
2293 accepted format does not restrict all entries to have the same priority
2294 class and priority level.
2295
2296 For both formats, only the read and write data directions are supported,
2297 values for trim IOs are ignored. This option is mutually exclusive with
2298 the :option:`cmdprio_percentage` option.
2299
2300.. option:: fixedbufs : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2301
2302 If fio is asked to do direct IO, then Linux will map pages for each
2303 IO call, and release them when IO is done. If this option is set, the
2304 pages are pre-mapped before IO is started. This eliminates the need to
2305 map and release for each IO. This is more efficient, and reduces the
2306 IO latency as well.
2307
2308.. option:: nonvectored=int : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2309
2310 With this option, fio will use non-vectored read/write commands, where
2311 address must contain the address directly. Default is -1.
2312
2313.. option:: force_async=int : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2314
2315 Normal operation for io_uring is to try and issue an sqe as
2316 non-blocking first, and if that fails, execute it in an async manner.
2317 With this option set to N, then every N request fio will ask sqe to
2318 be issued in an async manner. Default is 0.
2319
2320.. option:: registerfiles : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2321
2322 With this option, fio registers the set of files being used with the
2323 kernel. This avoids the overhead of managing file counts in the kernel,
2324 making the submission and completion part more lightweight. Required
2325 for the below :option:`sqthread_poll` option.
2326
2327.. option:: sqthread_poll : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd] [xnvme]
2328
2329 Normally fio will submit IO by issuing a system call to notify the
2330 kernel of available items in the SQ ring. If this option is set, the
2331 act of submitting IO will be done by a polling thread in the kernel.
2332 This frees up cycles for fio, at the cost of using more CPU in the
2333 system. As submission is just the time it takes to fill in the sqe
2334 entries and any syscall required to wake up the idle kernel thread,
2335 fio will not report submission latencies.
2336
2337.. option:: sqthread_poll_cpu=int : [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2338
2339 When :option:`sqthread_poll` is set, this option provides a way to
2340 define which CPU should be used for the polling thread.
2341
2342.. option:: cmd_type=str : [io_uring_cmd]
2343
2344 Specifies the type of uring passthrough command to be used. Supported
2345 value is nvme. Default is nvme.
2346
2347.. option:: hipri
2348
2349 [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd] [xnvme]
2350
2351 If this option is set, fio will attempt to use polled IO completions.
2352 Normal IO completions generate interrupts to signal the completion of
2353 IO, polled completions do not. Hence they are require active reaping
2354 by the application. The benefits are more efficient IO for high IOPS
2355 scenarios, and lower latencies for low queue depth IO.
2356
2357 [libblkio]
2358
2359 Use poll queues. This is incompatible with
2360 :option:`libblkio_wait_mode=eventfd <libblkio_wait_mode>` and
2361 :option:`libblkio_force_enable_completion_eventfd`.
2362
2363 [pvsync2]
2364
2365 Set RWF_HIPRI on I/O, indicating to the kernel that it's of higher priority
2366 than normal.
2367
2368 [sg]
2369
2370 If this option is set, fio will attempt to use polled IO completions.
2371 This will have a similar effect as (io_uring)hipri. Only SCSI READ and
2372 WRITE commands will have the SGV4_FLAG_HIPRI set (not UNMAP (trim) nor
2373 VERIFY). Older versions of the Linux sg driver that do not support
2374 hipri will simply ignore this flag and do normal IO. The Linux SCSI
2375 Low Level Driver (LLD) that "owns" the device also needs to support
2376 hipri (also known as iopoll and mq_poll). The MegaRAID driver is an
2377 example of a SCSI LLD. Default: clear (0) which does normal
2378 (interrupted based) IO.
2379
2380.. option:: userspace_reap : [libaio]
2381
2382 Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use the
2383 :manpage:`io_getevents(2)` system call to reap newly returned events. With
2384 this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly from user-space to
2385 reap events. The reaping mode is only enabled when polling for a minimum of
2386 0 events (e.g. when :option:`iodepth_batch_complete` `=0`).
2387
2388.. option:: hipri_percentage : [pvsync2]
2389
2390 When hipri is set this determines the probability of a pvsync2 I/O being high
2391 priority. The default is 100%.
2392
2393.. option:: nowait=bool : [pvsync2] [libaio] [io_uring] [io_uring_cmd]
2394
2395 By default if a request cannot be executed immediately (e.g. resource starvation,
2396 waiting on locks) it is queued and the initiating process will be blocked until
2397 the required resource becomes free.
2398
2399 This option sets the RWF_NOWAIT flag (supported from the 4.14 Linux kernel) and
2400 the call will return instantly with EAGAIN or a partial result rather than waiting.
2401
2402 It is useful to also use ignore_error=EAGAIN when using this option.
2403
2404 Note: glibc 2.27, 2.28 have a bug in syscall wrappers preadv2, pwritev2.
2405 They return EOPNOTSUP instead of EAGAIN.
2406
2407 For cached I/O, using this option usually means a request operates only with
2408 cached data. Currently the RWF_NOWAIT flag does not supported for cached write.
2409
2410 For direct I/O, requests will only succeed if cache invalidation isn't required,
2411 file blocks are fully allocated and the disk request could be issued immediately.
2412
2413.. option:: cpuload=int : [cpuio]
2414
2415 Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles. This is a mandatory
2416 option when using cpuio I/O engine.
2417
2418.. option:: cpuchunks=int : [cpuio]
2419
2420 Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
2421
2422.. option:: cpumode=str : [cpuio]
2423
2424 Specify how to stress the CPU. It can take these two values:
2425
2426 **noop**
2427 This is the default where the CPU executes noop instructions.
2428 **qsort**
2429 Replace the default noop instructions loop with a qsort algorithm to
2430 consume more energy.
2431
2432.. option:: exit_on_io_done=bool : [cpuio]
2433
2434 Detect when I/O threads are done, then exit.
2435
2436.. option:: namenode=str : [libhdfs]
2437
2438 The hostname or IP address of a HDFS cluster namenode to contact.
2439
2440.. option:: port=int
2441
2442 [libhdfs]
2443
2444 The listening port of the HFDS cluster namenode.
2445
2446 [netsplice], [net]
2447
2448 The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used with
2449 :option:`numjobs` to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then
2450 this will be the starting port number since fio will use a range of
2451 ports.
2452
2453 [rdma], [librpma_*]
2454
2455 The port to use for RDMA-CM communication. This should be the same value
2456 on the client and the server side.
2457
2458.. option:: hostname=str : [netsplice] [net] [rdma]
2459
2460 The hostname or IP address to use for TCP, UDP or RDMA-CM based I/O. If the job
2461 is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not used and must be omitted
2462 unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
2463
2464.. option:: serverip=str : [librpma_*]
2465
2466 The IP address to be used for RDMA-CM based I/O.
2467
2468.. option:: direct_write_to_pmem=bool : [librpma_*]
2469
2470 Set to 1 only when Direct Write to PMem from the remote host is possible.
2471 Otherwise, set to 0.
2472
2473.. option:: busy_wait_polling=bool : [librpma_*_server]
2474
2475 Set to 0 to wait for completion instead of busy-wait polling completion.
2476 Default: 1.
2477
2478.. option:: interface=str : [netsplice] [net]
2479
2480 The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP
2481 multicast.
2482
2483.. option:: ttl=int : [netsplice] [net]
2484
2485 Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1.
2486
2487.. option:: nodelay=bool : [netsplice] [net]
2488
2489 Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
2490
2491.. option:: protocol=str, proto=str : [netsplice] [net]
2492
2493 The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
2494
2495 **tcp**
2496 Transmission control protocol.
2497 **tcpv6**
2498 Transmission control protocol V6.
2499 **udp**
2500 User datagram protocol.
2501 **udpv6**
2502 User datagram protocol V6.
2503 **unix**
2504 UNIX domain socket.
2505
2506 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given, as well as the
2507 hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader. For unix sockets, the
2508 normal :option:`filename` option should be used and the port is invalid.
2509
2510.. option:: listen : [netsplice] [net]
2511
2512 For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming connections
2513 rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The :option:`hostname` must
2514 be omitted if this option is used.
2515
2516.. option:: pingpong : [netsplice] [net]
2517
2518 Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network
2519 reader will just consume packages. If ``pingpong=1`` is set, a writer will
2520 send its normal payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the
2521 same payload back. This allows fio to measure network latencies. The
2522 submission and completion latencies then measure local time spent sending or
2523 receiving, and the completion latency measures how long it took for the
2524 other end to receive and send back. For UDP multicast traffic
2525 ``pingpong=1`` should only be set for a single reader when multiple readers
2526 are listening to the same address.
2527
2528.. option:: window_size : [netsplice] [net]
2529
2530 Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
2531
2532.. option:: mss : [netsplice] [net]
2533
2534 Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
2535
2536.. option:: donorname=str : [e4defrag]
2537
2538 File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files).
2539
2540.. option:: inplace=int : [e4defrag]
2541
2542 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy:
2543
2544 **0**
2545 Default. Preallocate donor's file on init.
2546 **1**
2547 Allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right
2548 after event.
2549
2550.. option:: clustername=str : [rbd,rados]
2551
2552 Specifies the name of the Ceph cluster.
2553
2554.. option:: rbdname=str : [rbd]
2555
2556 Specifies the name of the RBD.
2557
2558.. option:: clientname=str : [rbd,rados]
2559
2560 Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the
2561 Ceph cluster. If the *clustername* is specified, the *clientname* shall be
2562 the full *type.id* string. If no type. prefix is given, fio will add
2563 'client.' by default.
2564
2565.. option:: conf=str : [rados]
2566
2567 Specifies the configuration path of ceph cluster, so conf file does not
2568 have to be /etc/ceph/ceph.conf.
2569
2570.. option:: busy_poll=bool : [rbd,rados]
2571
2572 Poll store instead of waiting for completion. Usually this provides better
2573 throughput at cost of higher(up to 100%) CPU utilization.
2574
2575.. option:: touch_objects=bool : [rados]
2576
2577 During initialization, touch (create if do not exist) all objects (files).
2578 Touching all objects affects ceph caches and likely impacts test results.
2579 Enabled by default.
2580
2581.. option:: pool=str :
2582
2583 [rbd,rados]
2584
2585 Specifies the name of the Ceph pool containing RBD or RADOS data.
2586
2587 [dfs]
2588
2589 Specify the label or UUID of the DAOS pool to connect to.
2590
2591.. option:: cont=str : [dfs]
2592
2593 Specify the label or UUID of the DAOS container to open.
2594
2595.. option:: chunk_size=int
2596
2597 [dfs]
2598
2599 Specify a different chunk size (in bytes) for the dfs file.
2600 Use DAOS container's chunk size by default.
2601
2602 [libhdfs]
2603
2604 The size of the chunk to use for each file.
2605
2606.. option:: object_class=str : [dfs]
2607
2608 Specify a different object class for the dfs file.
2609 Use DAOS container's object class by default.
2610
2611.. option:: skip_bad=bool : [mtd]
2612
2613 Skip operations against known bad blocks.
2614
2615.. option:: hdfsdirectory : [libhdfs]
2616
2617 libhdfs will create chunk in this HDFS directory.
2618
2619.. option:: verb=str : [rdma]
2620
2621 The RDMA verb to use on this side of the RDMA ioengine connection. Valid
2622 values are write, read, send and recv. These correspond to the equivalent
2623 RDMA verbs (e.g. write = rdma_write etc.). Note that this only needs to be
2624 specified on the client side of the connection. See the examples folder.
2625
2626.. option:: bindname=str : [rdma]
2627
2628 The name to use to bind the local RDMA-CM connection to a local RDMA device.
2629 This could be a hostname or an IPv4 or IPv6 address. On the server side this
2630 will be passed into the rdma_bind_addr() function and on the client site it
2631 will be used in the rdma_resolve_add() function. This can be useful when
2632 multiple paths exist between the client and the server or in certain loopback
2633 configurations.
2634
2635.. option:: stat_type=str : [filestat]
2636
2637 Specify stat system call type to measure lookup/getattr performance.
2638 Default is **stat** for :manpage:`stat(2)`.
2639
2640.. option:: readfua=bool : [sg]
2641
2642 With readfua option set to 1, read operations include
2643 the force unit access (fua) flag. Default is 0.
2644
2645.. option:: writefua=bool : [sg]
2646
2647 With writefua option set to 1, write operations include
2648 the force unit access (fua) flag. Default is 0.
2649
2650.. option:: sg_write_mode=str : [sg]
2651
2652 Specify the type of write commands to issue. This option can take three values:
2653
2654 **write**
2655 This is the default where write opcodes are issued as usual.
2656 **write_and_verify**
2657 Issue WRITE AND VERIFY commands. The BYTCHK bit is set to 0. This
2658 directs the device to carry out a medium verification with no data
2659 comparison. The writefua option is ignored with this selection.
2660 **verify**
2661 This option is deprecated. Use write_and_verify instead.
2662 **write_same**
2663 Issue WRITE SAME commands. This transfers a single block to the device
2664 and writes this same block of data to a contiguous sequence of LBAs
2665 beginning at the specified offset. fio's block size parameter specifies
2666 the amount of data written with each command. However, the amount of data
2667 actually transferred to the device is equal to the device's block
2668 (sector) size. For a device with 512 byte sectors, blocksize=8k will
2669 write 16 sectors with each command. fio will still generate 8k of data
2670 for each command but only the first 512 bytes will be used and
2671 transferred to the device. The writefua option is ignored with this
2672 selection.
2673 **same**
2674 This option is deprecated. Use write_same instead.
2675 **write_same_ndob**
2676 Issue WRITE SAME(16) commands as above but with the No Data Output
2677 Buffer (NDOB) bit set. No data will be transferred to the device with
2678 this bit set. Data written will be a pre-determined pattern such as
2679 all zeroes.
2680 **write_stream**
2681 Issue WRITE STREAM(16) commands. Use the **stream_id** option to specify
2682 the stream identifier.
2683 **verify_bytchk_00**
2684 Issue VERIFY commands with BYTCHK set to 00. This directs the
2685 device to carry out a medium verification with no data comparison.
2686 **verify_bytchk_01**
2687 Issue VERIFY commands with BYTCHK set to 01. This directs the device to
2688 compare the data on the device with the data transferred to the device.
2689 **verify_bytchk_11**
2690 Issue VERIFY commands with BYTCHK set to 11. This transfers a
2691 single block to the device and compares the contents of this block with the
2692 data on the device beginning at the specified offset. fio's block size
2693 parameter specifies the total amount of data compared with this command.
2694 However, only one block (sector) worth of data is transferred to the device.
2695 This is similar to the WRITE SAME command except that data is compared instead
2696 of written.
2697
2698.. option:: stream_id=int : [sg]
2699
2700 Set the stream identifier for WRITE STREAM commands. If this is set to 0 (which is not
2701 a valid stream identifier) fio will open a stream and then close it when done. Default
2702 is 0.
2703
2704.. option:: http_host=str : [http]
2705
2706 Hostname to connect to. For S3, this could be the bucket hostname.
2707 Default is **localhost**
2708
2709.. option:: http_user=str : [http]
2710
2711 Username for HTTP authentication.
2712
2713.. option:: http_pass=str : [http]
2714
2715 Password for HTTP authentication.
2716
2717.. option:: https=str : [http]
2718
2719 Enable HTTPS instead of http. *on* enables HTTPS; *insecure*
2720 will enable HTTPS, but disable SSL peer verification (use with
2721 caution!). Default is **off**
2722
2723.. option:: http_mode=str : [http]
2724
2725 Which HTTP access mode to use: *webdav*, *swift*, or *s3*.
2726 Default is **webdav**
2727
2728.. option:: http_s3_region=str : [http]
2729
2730 The S3 region/zone string.
2731 Default is **us-east-1**
2732
2733.. option:: http_s3_key=str : [http]
2734
2735 The S3 secret key.
2736
2737.. option:: http_s3_keyid=str : [http]
2738
2739 The S3 key/access id.
2740
2741.. option:: http_s3_sse_customer_key=str : [http]
2742
2743 The encryption customer key in SSE server side.
2744
2745.. option:: http_s3_sse_customer_algorithm=str : [http]
2746
2747 The encryption customer algorithm in SSE server side.
2748 Default is **AES256**
2749
2750.. option:: http_s3_storage_class=str : [http]
2751
2752 Which storage class to access. User-customizable settings.
2753 Default is **STANDARD**
2754
2755.. option:: http_swift_auth_token=str : [http]
2756
2757 The Swift auth token. See the example configuration file on how
2758 to retrieve this.
2759
2760.. option:: http_verbose=int : [http]
2761
2762 Enable verbose requests from libcurl. Useful for debugging. 1
2763 turns on verbose logging from libcurl, 2 additionally enables
2764 HTTP IO tracing. Default is **0**
2765
2766.. option:: uri=str : [nbd]
2767
2768 Specify the NBD URI of the server to test. The string
2769 is a standard NBD URI
2770 (see https://github.com/NetworkBlockDevice/nbd/tree/master/doc).
2771 Example URIs: nbd://localhost:10809
2772 nbd+unix:///?socket=/tmp/socket
2773 nbds://tlshost/exportname
2774
2775.. option:: gpu_dev_ids=str : [libcufile]
2776
2777 Specify the GPU IDs to use with CUDA. This is a colon-separated list of
2778 int. GPUs are assigned to workers roundrobin. Default is 0.
2779
2780.. option:: cuda_io=str : [libcufile]
2781
2782 Specify the type of I/O to use with CUDA. Default is **cufile**.
2783
2784 **cufile**
2785 Use libcufile and nvidia-fs. This option performs I/O directly
2786 between a GPUDirect Storage filesystem and GPU buffers,
2787 avoiding use of a bounce buffer. If :option:`verify` is set,
2788 cudaMemcpy is used to copy verificaton data between RAM and GPU.
2789 Verification data is copied from RAM to GPU before a write
2790 and from GPU to RAM after a read. :option:`direct` must be 1.
2791 **posix**
2792 Use POSIX to perform I/O with a RAM buffer, and use cudaMemcpy
2793 to transfer data between RAM and the GPUs. Data is copied from
2794 GPU to RAM before a write and copied from RAM to GPU after a
2795 read. :option:`verify` does not affect use of cudaMemcpy.
2796
2797.. option:: nfs_url=str : [nfs]
2798
2799 URL in libnfs format, eg nfs://<server|ipv4|ipv6>/path[?arg=val[&arg=val]*]
2800 Refer to the libnfs README for more details.
2801
2802.. option:: program=str : [exec]
2803
2804 Specify the program to execute.
2805
2806.. option:: arguments=str : [exec]
2807
2808 Specify arguments to pass to program.
2809 Some special variables can be expanded to pass fio's job details to the program.
2810
2811 **%r**
2812 Replaced by the duration of the job in seconds.
2813 **%n**
2814 Replaced by the name of the job.
2815
2816.. option:: grace_time=int : [exec]
2817
2818 Specify the time between the SIGTERM and SIGKILL signals. Default is 1 second.
2819
2820.. option:: std_redirect=bool : [exec]
2821
2822 If set, stdout and stderr streams are redirected to files named from the job name. Default is true.
2823
2824.. option:: xnvme_async=str : [xnvme]
2825
2826 Select the xnvme async command interface. This can take these values.
2827
2828 **emu**
2829 This is default and use to emulate asynchronous I/O by using a
2830 single thread to create a queue pair on top of a synchronous
2831 I/O interface using the NVMe driver IOCTL.
2832 **thrpool**
2833 Emulate an asynchronous I/O interface with a pool of userspace
2834 threads on top of a synchronous I/O interface using the NVMe
2835 driver IOCTL. By default four threads are used.
2836 **io_uring**
2837 Linux native asynchronous I/O interface which supports both
2838 direct and buffered I/O.
2839 **io_uring_cmd**
2840 Fast Linux native asynchronous I/O interface for NVMe pass
2841 through commands. This only works with NVMe character device
2842 (/dev/ngXnY).
2843 **libaio**
2844 Use Linux aio for Asynchronous I/O.
2845 **posix**
2846 Use the posix asynchronous I/O interface to perform one or
2847 more I/O operations asynchronously.
2848 **vfio**
2849 Use the user-space VFIO-based backend, implemented using
2850 libvfn instead of SPDK.
2851 **nil**
2852 Do not transfer any data; just pretend to. This is mainly used
2853 for introspective performance evaluation.
2854
2855.. option:: xnvme_sync=str : [xnvme]
2856
2857 Select the xnvme synchronous command interface. This can take these values.
2858
2859 **nvme**
2860 This is default and uses Linux NVMe Driver ioctl() for
2861 synchronous I/O.
2862 **psync**
2863 This supports regular as well as vectored pread() and pwrite()
2864 commands.
2865 **block**
2866 This is the same as psync except that it also supports zone
2867 management commands using Linux block layer IOCTLs.
2868
2869.. option:: xnvme_admin=str : [xnvme]
2870
2871 Select the xnvme admin command interface. This can take these values.
2872
2873 **nvme**
2874 This is default and uses linux NVMe Driver ioctl() for admin
2875 commands.
2876 **block**
2877 Use Linux Block Layer ioctl() and sysfs for admin commands.
2878
2879.. option:: xnvme_dev_nsid=int : [xnvme]
2880
2881 xnvme namespace identifier for userspace NVMe driver, SPDK or vfio.
2882
2883.. option:: xnvme_dev_subnqn=str : [xnvme]
2884
2885 Sets the subsystem NQN for fabrics. This is for xNVMe to utilize a
2886 fabrics target with multiple systems.
2887
2888.. option:: xnvme_iovec=int : [xnvme]
2889
2890 If this option is set. xnvme will use vectored read/write commands.
2891
2892.. option:: libblkio_driver=str : [libblkio]
2893
2894 The libblkio *driver* to use. Different drivers access devices through
2895 different underlying interfaces. Available drivers depend on the
2896 libblkio version in use and are listed at
2897 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#drivers
2898
2899.. option:: libblkio_path=str : [libblkio]
2900
2901 Sets the value of the driver-specific "path" property before connecting
2902 the libblkio instance, which identifies the target device or file on
2903 which to perform I/O. Its exact semantics are driver-dependent and not
2904 all drivers may support it; see
2905 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#drivers
2906
2907.. option:: libblkio_pre_connect_props=str : [libblkio]
2908
2909 A colon-separated list of additional libblkio properties to be set after
2910 creating but before connecting the libblkio instance. Each property must
2911 have the format ``<name>=<value>``. Colons can be escaped as ``\:``.
2912 These are set after the engine sets any other properties, so those can
2913 be overriden. Available properties depend on the libblkio version in use
2914 and are listed at
2915 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#properties
2916
2917.. option:: libblkio_num_entries=int : [libblkio]
2918
2919 Sets the value of the driver-specific "num-entries" property before
2920 starting the libblkio instance. Its exact semantics are driver-dependent
2921 and not all drivers may support it; see
2922 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#drivers
2923
2924.. option:: libblkio_queue_size=int : [libblkio]
2925
2926 Sets the value of the driver-specific "queue-size" property before
2927 starting the libblkio instance. Its exact semantics are driver-dependent
2928 and not all drivers may support it; see
2929 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#drivers
2930
2931.. option:: libblkio_pre_start_props=str : [libblkio]
2932
2933 A colon-separated list of additional libblkio properties to be set after
2934 connecting but before starting the libblkio instance. Each property must
2935 have the format ``<name>=<value>``. Colons can be escaped as ``\:``.
2936 These are set after the engine sets any other properties, so those can
2937 be overriden. Available properties depend on the libblkio version in use
2938 and are listed at
2939 https://libblkio.gitlab.io/libblkio/blkio.html#properties
2940
2941.. option:: libblkio_vectored : [libblkio]
2942
2943 Submit vectored read and write requests.
2944
2945.. option:: libblkio_write_zeroes_on_trim : [libblkio]
2946
2947 Submit trims as "write zeroes" requests instead of discard requests.
2948
2949.. option:: libblkio_wait_mode=str : [libblkio]
2950
2951 How to wait for completions:
2952
2953 **block** (default)
2954 Use a blocking call to ``blkioq_do_io()``.
2955 **eventfd**
2956 Use a blocking call to ``read()`` on the completion eventfd.
2957 **loop**
2958 Use a busy loop with a non-blocking call to ``blkioq_do_io()``.
2959
2960.. option:: libblkio_force_enable_completion_eventfd : [libblkio]
2961
2962 Enable the queue's completion eventfd even when unused. This may impact
2963 performance. The default is to enable it only if
2964 :option:`libblkio_wait_mode=eventfd <libblkio_wait_mode>`.
2965
2966I/O depth
2967~~~~~~~~~
2968
2969.. option:: iodepth=int
2970
2971 Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that
2972 increasing *iodepth* beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except
2973 for small degrees when :option:`verify_async` is in use). Even async
2974 engines may impose OS restrictions causing the desired depth not to be
2975 achieved. This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
2976 :option:`direct`\=1, since buffered I/O is not async on that OS. Keep an
2977 eye on the I/O depth distribution in the fio output to verify that the
2978 achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
2979
2980.. option:: iodepth_batch_submit=int, iodepth_batch=int
2981
2982 This defines how many pieces of I/O to submit at once. It defaults to 1
2983 which means that we submit each I/O as soon as it is available, but can be
2984 raised to submit bigger batches of I/O at the time. If it is set to 0 the
2985 :option:`iodepth` value will be used.
2986
2987.. option:: iodepth_batch_complete_min=int, iodepth_batch_complete=int
2988
2989 This defines how many pieces of I/O to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1
2990 which means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 I/O in the retrieval process
2991 from the kernel. The I/O retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
2992 :option:`iodepth_low`. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always
2993 check for completed events before queuing more I/O. This helps reduce I/O
2994 latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
2995
2996.. option:: iodepth_batch_complete_max=int
2997
2998 This defines maximum pieces of I/O to retrieve at once. This variable should
2999 be used along with :option:`iodepth_batch_complete_min`\=int variable,
3000 specifying the range of min and max amount of I/O which should be
3001 retrieved. By default it is equal to the :option:`iodepth_batch_complete_min`
3002 value.
3003
3004 Example #1::
3005
3006 iodepth_batch_complete_min=1
3007 iodepth_batch_complete_max=<iodepth>
3008
3009 which means that we will retrieve at least 1 I/O and up to the whole
3010 submitted queue depth. If none of I/O has been completed yet, we will wait.
3011
3012 Example #2::
3013
3014 iodepth_batch_complete_min=0
3015 iodepth_batch_complete_max=<iodepth>
3016
3017 which means that we can retrieve up to the whole submitted queue depth, but
3018 if none of I/O has been completed yet, we will NOT wait and immediately exit
3019 the system call. In this example we simply do polling.
3020
3021.. option:: iodepth_low=int
3022
3023 The low water mark indicating when to start filling the queue
3024 again. Defaults to the same as :option:`iodepth`, meaning that fio will
3025 attempt to keep the queue full at all times. If :option:`iodepth` is set to
3026 e.g. 16 and *iodepth_low* is set to 4, then after fio has filled the queue of
3027 16 requests, it will let the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill
3028 it again.
3029
3030.. option:: serialize_overlap=bool
3031
3032 Serialize in-flight I/Os that might otherwise cause or suffer from data races.
3033 When two or more I/Os are submitted simultaneously, there is no guarantee that
3034 the I/Os will be processed or completed in the submitted order. Further, if
3035 two or more of those I/Os are writes, any overlapping region between them can
3036 become indeterminate/undefined on certain storage. These issues can cause
3037 verification to fail erratically when at least one of the racing I/Os is
3038 changing data and the overlapping region has a non-zero size. Setting
3039 ``serialize_overlap`` tells fio to avoid provoking this behavior by explicitly
3040 serializing in-flight I/Os that have a non-zero overlap. Note that setting
3041 this option can reduce both performance and the :option:`iodepth` achieved.
3042
3043 This option only applies to I/Os issued for a single job except when it is
3044 enabled along with :option:`io_submit_mode`\=offload. In offload mode, fio
3045 will check for overlap among all I/Os submitted by offload jobs with :option:`serialize_overlap`
3046 enabled.
3047
3048 Default: false.
3049
3050.. option:: io_submit_mode=str
3051
3052 This option controls how fio submits the I/O to the I/O engine. The default
3053 is `inline`, which means that the fio job threads submit and reap I/O
3054 directly. If set to `offload`, the job threads will offload I/O submission
3055 to a dedicated pool of I/O threads. This requires some coordination and thus
3056 has a bit of extra overhead, especially for lower queue depth I/O where it
3057 can increase latencies. The benefit is that fio can manage submission rates
3058 independently of the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
3059 reporting if I/O gets backed up on the device side (the coordinated omission
3060 problem). Note that this option cannot reliably be used with async IO
3061 engines.
3062
3063
3064I/O rate
3065~~~~~~~~
3066
3067.. option:: thinktime=time
3068
3069 Stall the job for the specified period of time after an I/O has completed before issuing the
3070 next. May be used to simulate processing being done by an application.
3071 When the unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in microseconds. See
3072 :option:`thinktime_blocks`, :option:`thinktime_iotime` and :option:`thinktime_spin`.
3073
3074.. option:: thinktime_spin=time
3075
3076 Only valid if :option:`thinktime` is set - pretend to spend CPU time doing
3077 something with the data received, before falling back to sleeping for the
3078 rest of the period specified by :option:`thinktime`. When the unit is
3079 omitted, the value is interpreted in microseconds.
3080
3081.. option:: thinktime_blocks=int
3082
3083 Only valid if :option:`thinktime` is set - control how many blocks to issue,
3084 before waiting :option:`thinktime` usecs. If not set, defaults to 1 which will make
3085 fio wait :option:`thinktime` usecs after every block. This effectively makes any
3086 queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 I/O will be queued
3087 before we have to complete it and do our :option:`thinktime`. In other words, this
3088 setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
3089
3090.. option:: thinktime_blocks_type=str
3091
3092 Only valid if :option:`thinktime` is set - control how :option:`thinktime_blocks`
3093 triggers. The default is `complete`, which triggers thinktime when fio completes
3094 :option:`thinktime_blocks` blocks. If this is set to `issue`, then the trigger happens
3095 at the issue side.
3096
3097.. option:: thinktime_iotime=time
3098
3099 Only valid if :option:`thinktime` is set - control :option:`thinktime`
3100 interval by time. The :option:`thinktime` stall is repeated after IOs
3101 are executed for :option:`thinktime_iotime`. For example,
3102 ``--thinktime_iotime=9s --thinktime=1s`` repeat 10-second cycle with IOs
3103 for 9 seconds and stall for 1 second. When the unit is omitted,
3104 :option:`thinktime_iotime` is interpreted as a number of seconds. If
3105 this option is used together with :option:`thinktime_blocks`, the
3106 :option:`thinktime` stall is repeated after :option:`thinktime_iotime`
3107 or after :option:`thinktime_blocks` IOs, whichever happens first.
3108
3109.. option:: rate=int[,int][,int]
3110
3111 Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal
3112 suffix rules apply. Comma-separated values may be specified for reads,
3113 writes, and trims as described in :option:`blocksize`.
3114
3115 For example, using `rate=1m,500k` would limit reads to 1MiB/sec and writes to
3116 500KiB/sec. Capping only reads or writes can be done with `rate=,500k` or
3117 `rate=500k,` where the former will only limit writes (to 500KiB/sec) and the
3118 latter will only limit reads.
3119
3120.. option:: rate_min=int[,int][,int]
3121
3122 Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this bandwidth. Failing
3123 to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. Comma-separated values
3124 may be specified for reads, writes, and trims as described in
3125 :option:`blocksize`.
3126
3127.. option:: rate_iops=int[,int][,int]
3128
3129 Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as
3130 :option:`rate`, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the job is
3131 given a block size range instead of a fixed value, the smallest block size
3132 is used as the metric. Comma-separated values may be specified for reads,
3133 writes, and trims as described in :option:`blocksize`.
3134
3135.. option:: rate_iops_min=int[,int][,int]
3136
3137 If fio doesn't meet this rate of I/O, it will cause the job to exit.
3138 Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and trims as
3139 described in :option:`blocksize`.
3140
3141.. option:: rate_process=str
3142
3143 This option controls how fio manages rated I/O submissions. The default is
3144 `linear`, which submits I/O in a linear fashion with fixed delays between
3145 I/Os that gets adjusted based on I/O completion rates. If this is set to
3146 `poisson`, fio will submit I/O based on a more real world random request
3147 flow, known as the Poisson process
3148 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_point_process). The lambda will be
3149 10^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
3150
3151.. option:: rate_ignore_thinktime=bool
3152
3153 By default, fio will attempt to catch up to the specified rate setting,
3154 if any kind of thinktime setting was used. If this option is set, then
3155 fio will ignore the thinktime and continue doing IO at the specified
3156 rate, instead of entering a catch-up mode after thinktime is done.
3157
3158
3159I/O latency
3160~~~~~~~~~~~
3161
3162.. option:: latency_target=time
3163
3164 If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance point that the given
3165 workload will run at while maintaining a latency below this target. When
3166 the unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in microseconds. See
3167 :option:`latency_window` and :option:`latency_percentile`.
3168
3169.. option:: latency_window=time
3170
3171 Used with :option:`latency_target` to specify the sample window that the job
3172 is run at varying queue depths to test the performance. When the unit is
3173 omitted, the value is interpreted in microseconds.
3174
3175.. option:: latency_percentile=float
3176
3177 The percentage of I/Os that must fall within the criteria specified by
3178 :option:`latency_target` and :option:`latency_window`. If not set, this
3179 defaults to 100.0, meaning that all I/Os must be equal or below to the value
3180 set by :option:`latency_target`.
3181
3182.. option:: latency_run=bool
3183
3184 Used with :option:`latency_target`. If false (default), fio will find
3185 the highest queue depth that meets :option:`latency_target` and exit. If
3186 true, fio will continue running and try to meet :option:`latency_target`
3187 by adjusting queue depth.
3188
3189.. option:: max_latency=time[,time][,time]
3190
3191 If set, fio will exit the job with an ETIMEDOUT error if it exceeds this
3192 maximum latency. When the unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in
3193 microseconds. Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes,
3194 and trims as described in :option:`blocksize`.
3195
3196.. option:: rate_cycle=int
3197
3198 Average bandwidth for :option:`rate` and :option:`rate_min` over this number
3199 of milliseconds. Defaults to 1000.
3200
3201
3202I/O replay
3203~~~~~~~~~~
3204
3205.. option:: write_iolog=str
3206
3207 Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. See
3208 :option:`read_iolog`. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise the
3209 iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt. This file will
3210 be opened in append mode.
3211
3212.. option:: read_iolog=str
3213
3214 Open an iolog with the specified filename and replay the I/O patterns it
3215 contains. This can be used to store a workload and replay it sometime
3216 later. The iolog given may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
3217 to replay a workload captured by :command:`blktrace`. See
3218 :manpage:`blktrace(8)` for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace
3219 replay, the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data file first
3220 (``blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin``).
3221 You can specify a number of files by separating the names with a ':'
3222 character. See the :option:`filename` option for information on how to
3223 escape ':' characters within the file names. These files will
3224 be sequentially assigned to job clones created by :option:`numjobs`.
3225 '-' is a reserved name, meaning read from stdin, notably if
3226 :option:`filename` is set to '-' which means stdin as well, then
3227 this flag can't be set to '-'.
3228
3229.. option:: read_iolog_chunked=bool
3230
3231 Determines how iolog is read. If false(default) entire :option:`read_iolog`
3232 will be read at once. If selected true, input from iolog will be read
3233 gradually. Useful when iolog is very large, or it is generated.
3234
3235.. option:: merge_blktrace_file=str
3236
3237 When specified, rather than replaying the logs passed to :option:`read_iolog`,
3238 the logs go through a merge phase which aggregates them into a single
3239 blktrace. The resulting file is then passed on as the :option:`read_iolog`
3240 parameter. The intention here is to make the order of events consistent.
3241 This limits the influence of the scheduler compared to replaying multiple
3242 blktraces via concurrent jobs.
3243
3244.. option:: merge_blktrace_scalars=float_list
3245
3246 This is a percentage based option that is index paired with the list of
3247 files passed to :option:`read_iolog`. When merging is performed, scale
3248 the time of each event by the corresponding amount. For example,
3249 ``--merge_blktrace_scalars="50:100"`` runs the first trace in halftime
3250 and the second trace in realtime. This knob is separately tunable from
3251 :option:`replay_time_scale` which scales the trace during runtime and
3252 does not change the output of the merge unlike this option.
3253
3254.. option:: merge_blktrace_iters=float_list
3255
3256 This is a whole number option that is index paired with the list of files
3257 passed to :option:`read_iolog`. When merging is performed, run each trace
3258 for the specified number of iterations. For example,
3259 ``--merge_blktrace_iters="2:1"`` runs the first trace for two iterations
3260 and the second trace for one iteration.
3261
3262.. option:: replay_no_stall=bool
3263
3264 When replaying I/O with :option:`read_iolog` the default behavior is to
3265 attempt to respect the timestamps within the log and replay them with the
3266 appropriate delay between IOPS. By setting this variable fio will not
3267 respect the timestamps and attempt to replay them as fast as possible while
3268 still respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a given
3269 device, but different timings.
3270
3271.. option:: replay_time_scale=int
3272
3273 When replaying I/O with :option:`read_iolog`, fio will honor the
3274 original timing in the trace. With this option, it's possible to scale
3275 the time. It's a percentage option, if set to 50 it means run at 50%
3276 the original IO rate in the trace. If set to 200, run at twice the
3277 original IO rate. Defaults to 100.
3278
3279.. option:: replay_redirect=str
3280
3281 While replaying I/O patterns using :option:`read_iolog` the default behavior
3282 is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
3283 from. This is sometimes undesirable because on a different machine those
3284 major/minor numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on the
3285 same system can also result in a different major/minor mapping.
3286 ``replay_redirect`` causes all I/Os to be replayed onto the single specified
3287 device regardless of the device it was recorded
3288 from. i.e. :option:`replay_redirect`\= :file:`/dev/sdc` would cause all I/O
3289 in the blktrace or iolog to be replayed onto :file:`/dev/sdc`. This means
3290 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single device, if the trace
3291 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be replayed
3292 concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must blkparse your trace
3293 into separate traces and replay them with independent fio invocations.
3294 Unfortunately this also breaks the strict time ordering between multiple
3295 device accesses.
3296
3297.. option:: replay_align=int
3298
3299 Force alignment of the byte offsets in a trace to this value. The value
3300 must be a power of 2.
3301
3302.. option:: replay_scale=int
3303
3304 Scale byte offsets down by this factor when replaying traces. Should most
3305 likely use :option:`replay_align` as well.
3306
3307.. option:: replay_skip=str
3308
3309 Sometimes it's useful to skip certain IO types in a replay trace.
3310 This could be, for instance, eliminating the writes in the trace.
3311 Or not replaying the trims/discards, if you are redirecting to
3312 a device that doesn't support them. This option takes a comma
3313 separated list of read, write, trim, sync.
3314
3315
3316Threads, processes and job synchronization
3317~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3318
3319.. option:: thread
3320
3321 Fio defaults to creating jobs by using fork, however if this option is
3322 given, fio will create jobs by using POSIX Threads' function
3323 :manpage:`pthread_create(3)` to create threads instead.
3324
3325.. option:: wait_for=str
3326
3327 If set, the current job won't be started until all workers of the specified
3328 waitee job are done.
3329
3330 ``wait_for`` operates on the job name basis, so there are a few
3331 limitations. First, the waitee must be defined prior to the waiter job
3332 (meaning no forward references). Second, if a job is being referenced as a
3333 waitee, it must have a unique name (no duplicate waitees).
3334
3335.. option:: nice=int
3336
3337 Run the job with the given nice value. See man :manpage:`nice(2)`.
3338
3339 On Windows, values less than -15 set the process class to "High"; -1 through
3340 -15 set "Above Normal"; 1 through 15 "Below Normal"; and above 15 "Idle"
3341 priority class.
3342
3343.. option:: prio=int
3344
3345 Set the I/O priority value of this job. Linux limits us to a positive value
3346 between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest. See man
3347 :manpage:`ionice(1)`. Refer to an appropriate manpage for other operating
3348 systems since meaning of priority may differ. For per-command priority
3349 setting, see I/O engine specific :option:`cmdprio_percentage` and
3350 :option:`cmdprio` options.
3351
3352.. option:: prioclass=int
3353
3354 Set the I/O priority class. See man :manpage:`ionice(1)`. For per-command
3355 priority setting, see I/O engine specific :option:`cmdprio_percentage`
3356 and :option:`cmdprio_class` options.
3357
3358.. option:: cpus_allowed=str
3359
3360 Controls the same options as :option:`cpumask`, but accepts a textual
3361 specification of the permitted CPUs instead and CPUs are indexed from 0. So
3362 to use CPUs 0 and 5 you would specify ``cpus_allowed=0,5``. This option also
3363 allows a range of CPUs to be specified -- say you wanted a binding to CPUs
3364 0, 5, and 8 to 15, you would set ``cpus_allowed=0,5,8-15``.
3365
3366 On Windows, when ``cpus_allowed`` is unset only CPUs from fio's current
3367 processor group will be used and affinity settings are inherited from the
3368 system. An fio build configured to target Windows 7 makes options that set
3369 CPUs processor group aware and values will set both the processor group
3370 and a CPU from within that group. For example, on a system where processor
3371 group 0 has 40 CPUs and processor group 1 has 32 CPUs, ``cpus_allowed``
3372 values between 0 and 39 will bind CPUs from processor group 0 and
3373 ``cpus_allowed`` values between 40 and 71 will bind CPUs from processor
3374 group 1. When using ``cpus_allowed_policy=shared`` all CPUs specified by a
3375 single ``cpus_allowed`` option must be from the same processor group. For
3376 Windows fio builds not built for Windows 7, CPUs will only be selected from
3377 (and be relative to) whatever processor group fio happens to be running in
3378 and CPUs from other processor groups cannot be used.
3379
3380.. option:: cpus_allowed_policy=str
3381
3382 Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs specified by
3383 :option:`cpus_allowed` or :option:`cpumask`. Two policies are supported:
3384
3385 **shared**
3386 All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
3387 **split**
3388 Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
3389
3390 **shared** is the default behavior, if the option isn't specified. If
3391 **split** is specified, then fio will assign one cpu per job. If not
3392 enough CPUs are given for the jobs listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs
3393 in the set.
3394
3395.. option:: cpumask=int
3396
3397 Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a bit mask of
3398 allowed CPUs the job may run on. So if you want the allowed CPUs to be 1
3399 and 5, you would pass the decimal value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
3400 :manpage:`sched_setaffinity(2)`. This may not work on all supported
3401 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't work well for a
3402 higher CPU count than what you can store in an integer mask, so it can only
3403 control cpus 1-32. For boxes with larger CPU counts, use
3404 :option:`cpus_allowed`.
3405
3406.. option:: numa_cpu_nodes=str
3407
3408 Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
3409 comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or `all`. Note, to enable
3410 NUMA options support, fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el)
3411 installed.
3412
3413.. option:: numa_mem_policy=str
3414
3415 Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of the
3416 arguments::
3417
3418 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
3419
3420 ``mode`` is one of the following memory policies: ``default``, ``prefer``,
3421 ``bind``, ``interleave`` or ``local``. For ``default`` and ``local`` memory
3422 policies, no node needs to be specified. For ``prefer``, only one node is
3423 allowed. For ``bind`` and ``interleave`` the ``nodelist`` may be as
3424 follows: a comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or `all`.
3425
3426.. option:: cgroup=str
3427
3428 Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created. The
3429 system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
3430 your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with::
3431
3432 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
3433
3434.. option:: cgroup_weight=int
3435
3436 Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
3437 with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
3438
3439.. option:: cgroup_nodelete=bool
3440
3441 Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job
3442 completion. To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the
3443 job completion, set ``cgroup_nodelete=1``. This can be useful if one wants
3444 to inspect various cgroup files after job completion. Default: false.
3445
3446.. option:: flow_id=int
3447
3448 The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global
3449 flow. See :option:`flow`.
3450
3451.. option:: flow=int
3452
3453 Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then fio
3454 regulates the activity between two or more jobs sharing the same
3455 flow_id. Fio attempts to keep each job activity proportional to other
3456 jobs' activities in the same flow_id group, with respect to requested
3457 weight per job. That is, if one job has `flow=3', another job has
3458 `flow=2' and another with `flow=1`, then there will be a roughly 3:2:1
3459 ratio in how much one runs vs the others.
3460
3461.. option:: flow_sleep=int
3462
3463 The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow counter
3464 has exceeded its proportion before retrying operations.
3465
3466.. option:: stonewall, wait_for_previous
3467
3468 Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit, before starting this
3469 one. Can be used to insert serialization points in the job file. A stone
3470 wall also implies starting a new reporting group, see
3471 :option:`group_reporting`.
3472
3473.. option:: exitall
3474
3475 By default, fio will continue running all other jobs when one job finishes.
3476 Sometimes this is not the desired action. Setting ``exitall`` will instead
3477 make fio terminate all jobs in the same group, as soon as one job of that
3478 group finishes.
3479
3480.. option:: exit_what=str
3481
3482 By default, fio will continue running all other jobs when one job finishes.
3483 Sometimes this is not the desired action. Setting ``exitall`` will
3484 instead make fio terminate all jobs in the same group. The option
3485 ``exit_what`` allows to control which jobs get terminated when ``exitall`` is
3486 enabled. The default is ``group`` and does not change the behaviour of
3487 ``exitall``. The setting ``all`` terminates all jobs. The setting ``stonewall``
3488 terminates all currently running jobs across all groups and continues execution
3489 with the next stonewalled group.
3490
3491.. option:: exec_prerun=str
3492
3493 Before running this job, issue the command specified through
3494 :manpage:`system(3)`. Output is redirected in a file called
3495 :file:`jobname.prerun.txt`.
3496
3497.. option:: exec_postrun=str
3498
3499 After the job completes, issue the command specified though
3500 :manpage:`system(3)`. Output is redirected in a file called
3501 :file:`jobname.postrun.txt`.
3502
3503.. option:: uid=int
3504
3505 Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value
3506 before the thread/process does any work.
3507
3508.. option:: gid=int
3509
3510 Set group ID, see :option:`uid`.
3511
3512
3513Verification
3514~~~~~~~~~~~~
3515
3516.. option:: verify_only
3517
3518 Do not perform specified workload, only verify data still matches previous
3519 invocation of this workload. This option allows one to check data multiple
3520 times at a later date without overwriting it. This option makes sense only
3521 for workloads that write data, and does not support workloads with the
3522 :option:`time_based` option set.
3523
3524.. option:: do_verify=bool
3525
3526 Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if :option:`verify` is
3527 set. Default: true.
3528
3529.. option:: verify=str
3530
3531 If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents after each iteration
3532 of the job. Each verification method also implies verification of special
3533 header, which is written to the beginning of each block. This header also
3534 includes meta information, like offset of the block, block number, timestamp
3535 when block was written, etc. :option:`verify` can be combined with
3536 :option:`verify_pattern` option. The allowed values are:
3537
3538 **md5**
3539 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store it in the header of
3540 each block.
3541
3542 **crc64**
3543 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data area and store it in the
3544 header of each block.
3545
3546 **crc32c**
3547 Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store it in the header of
3548 each block. This will automatically use hardware acceleration
3549 (e.g. SSE4.2 on an x86 or CRC crypto extensions on ARM64) but will
3550 fall back to software crc32c if none is found. Generally the
3551 fastest checksum fio supports when hardware accelerated.
3552
3553 **crc32c-intel**
3554 Synonym for crc32c.
3555
3556 **crc32**
3557 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store it in the header of each
3558 block.
3559
3560 **crc16**
3561 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store it in the header of each
3562 block.
3563
3564 **crc7**
3565 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store it in the header of each
3566 block.
3567
3568 **xxhash**
3569 Use xxhash as the checksum function. Generally the fastest software
3570 checksum that fio supports.
3571
3572 **sha512**
3573 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
3574
3575 **sha256**
3576 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
3577
3578 **sha1**
3579 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
3580
3581 **sha3-224**
3582 Use optimized sha3-224 as the checksum function.
3583
3584 **sha3-256**
3585 Use optimized sha3-256 as the checksum function.
3586
3587 **sha3-384**
3588 Use optimized sha3-384 as the checksum function.
3589
3590 **sha3-512**
3591 Use optimized sha3-512 as the checksum function.
3592
3593 **meta**
3594 This option is deprecated, since now meta information is included in
3595 generic verification header and meta verification happens by
3596 default. For detailed information see the description of the
3597 :option:`verify` setting. This option is kept because of
3598 compatibility's sake with old configurations. Do not use it.
3599
3600 **pattern**
3601 Verify a strict pattern. Normally fio includes a header with some
3602 basic information and checksumming, but if this option is set, only
3603 the specific pattern set with :option:`verify_pattern` is verified.
3604
3605 **null**
3606 Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing internals with
3607 :option:`ioengine`\=null, not for much else.
3608
3609 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
3610 that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction
3611 given is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a
3612 previously written file. If the data direction includes any form of write,
3613 the verify will be of the newly written data.
3614
3615 To avoid false verification errors, do not use the norandommap option when
3616 verifying data with async I/O engines and I/O depths > 1. Or use the
3617 norandommap and the lfsr random generator together to avoid writing to the
3618 same offset with multiple outstanding I/Os.
3619
3620.. option:: verify_offset=int
3621
3622 Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
3623 writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
3624
3625.. option:: verify_interval=int
3626
3627 Write the verification header at a finer granularity than the
3628 :option:`blocksize`. It will be written for chunks the size of
3629 ``verify_interval``. :option:`blocksize` should divide this evenly.
3630
3631.. option:: verify_pattern=str
3632
3633 If set, fio will fill the I/O buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to
3634 filling with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill
3635 with a known pattern for I/O verification purposes. Depending on the width
3636 of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time (it can
3637 be either a decimal or a hex number). The ``verify_pattern`` if larger than
3638 a 32-bit quantity has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or
3639 "0X". Use with :option:`verify`. Also, ``verify_pattern`` supports %o
3640 format, which means that for each block offset will be written and then
3641 verified back, e.g.::
3642
3643 verify_pattern=%o
3644
3645 Or use combination of everything::
3646
3647 verify_pattern=0xff%o"abcd"-12
3648
3649.. option:: verify_fatal=bool
3650
3651 Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents before quitting on a
3652 block verification failure. If this option is set, fio will exit the job on
3653 the first observed failure. Default: false.
3654
3655.. option:: verify_dump=bool
3656
3657 If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block
3658 we read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what
3659 kind of data corruption occurred. Off by default.
3660
3661.. option:: verify_async=int
3662
3663 Fio will normally verify I/O inline from the submitting thread. This option
3664 takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for I/O
3665 verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying I/O
3666 contents to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even
3667 sync I/O engines can benefit from using an :option:`iodepth` setting higher
3668 than 1, as it allows them to have I/O in flight while verifies are running.
3669 Defaults to 0 async threads, i.e. verification is not asynchronous.
3670
3671.. option:: verify_async_cpus=str
3672
3673 Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async I/O verification
3674 threads. See :option:`cpus_allowed` for the format used.
3675
3676.. option:: verify_backlog=int
3677
3678 Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
3679 once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
3680 everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
3681 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with
3682 an I/O block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory
3683 would be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will
3684 write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
3685
3686.. option:: verify_backlog_batch=int
3687
3688 Control how many blocks fio will verify if :option:`verify_backlog` is
3689 set. If not set, will default to the value of :option:`verify_backlog`
3690 (meaning the entire queue is read back and verified). If
3691 ``verify_backlog_batch`` is less than :option:`verify_backlog` then not all
3692 blocks will be verified, if ``verify_backlog_batch`` is larger than
3693 :option:`verify_backlog`, some blocks will be verified more than once.
3694
3695.. option:: verify_state_save=bool
3696
3697 When a job exits during the write phase of a verify workload, save its
3698 current state. This allows fio to replay up until that point, if the verify
3699 state is loaded for the verify read phase. The format of the filename is,
3700 roughly::
3701
3702 <type>-<jobname>-<jobindex>-verify.state.
3703
3704 <type> is "local" for a local run, "sock" for a client/server socket
3705 connection, and "ip" (192.168.0.1, for instance) for a networked
3706 client/server connection. Defaults to true.
3707
3708.. option:: verify_state_load=bool
3709
3710 If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores the current write state
3711 of each thread. This can be used at verification time so that fio knows how
3712 far it should verify. Without this information, fio will run a full
3713 verification pass, according to the settings in the job file used. Default
3714 false.
3715
3716.. option:: trim_percentage=int
3717
3718 Number of verify blocks to discard/trim.
3719
3720.. option:: trim_verify_zero=bool
3721
3722 Verify that trim/discarded blocks are returned as zeros.
3723
3724.. option:: trim_backlog=int
3725
3726 Trim after this number of blocks are written.
3727
3728.. option:: trim_backlog_batch=int
3729
3730 Trim this number of I/O blocks.
3731
3732.. option:: experimental_verify=bool
3733
3734 Enable experimental verification. Standard verify records I/O metadata
3735 for later use during the verification phase. Experimental verify
3736 instead resets the file after the write phase and then replays I/Os for
3737 the verification phase.
3738
3739Steady state
3740~~~~~~~~~~~~
3741
3742.. option:: steadystate=str:float, ss=str:float
3743
3744 Define the criterion and limit for assessing steady state performance. The
3745 first parameter designates the criterion whereas the second parameter sets
3746 the threshold. When the criterion falls below the threshold for the
3747 specified duration, the job will stop. For example, `iops_slope:0.1%` will
3748 direct fio to terminate the job when the least squares regression slope
3749 falls below 0.1% of the mean IOPS. If :option:`group_reporting` is enabled
3750 this will apply to all jobs in the group. Below is the list of available
3751 steady state assessment criteria. All assessments are carried out using only
3752 data from the rolling collection window. Threshold limits can be expressed
3753 as a fixed value or as a percentage of the mean in the collection window.
3754
3755 When using this feature, most jobs should include the :option:`time_based`
3756 and :option:`runtime` options or the :option:`loops` option so that fio does not
3757 stop running after it has covered the full size of the specified file(s) or device(s).
3758
3759 **iops**
3760 Collect IOPS data. Stop the job if all individual IOPS measurements
3761 are within the specified limit of the mean IOPS (e.g., ``iops:2``
3762 means that all individual IOPS values must be within 2 of the mean,
3763 whereas ``iops:0.2%`` means that all individual IOPS values must be
3764 within 0.2% of the mean IOPS to terminate the job).
3765
3766 **iops_slope**
3767 Collect IOPS data and calculate the least squares regression
3768 slope. Stop the job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
3769
3770 **bw**
3771 Collect bandwidth data. Stop the job if all individual bandwidth
3772 measurements are within the specified limit of the mean bandwidth.
3773
3774 **bw_slope**
3775 Collect bandwidth data and calculate the least squares regression
3776 slope. Stop the job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
3777
3778.. option:: steadystate_duration=time, ss_dur=time
3779
3780 A rolling window of this duration will be used to judge whether steady state
3781 has been reached. Data will be collected once per second. The default is 0
3782 which disables steady state detection. When the unit is omitted, the
3783 value is interpreted in seconds.
3784
3785.. option:: steadystate_ramp_time=time, ss_ramp=time
3786
3787 Allow the job to run for the specified duration before beginning data
3788 collection for checking the steady state job termination criterion. The
3789 default is 0. When the unit is omitted, the value is interpreted in seconds.
3790
3791
3792Measurements and reporting
3793~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3794
3795.. option:: per_job_logs=bool
3796
3797 If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per file private filenames. If
3798 not set, jobs with identical names will share the log filename. Default:
3799 true.
3800
3801.. option:: group_reporting
3802
3803 It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for groups of jobs as
3804 a whole instead of for each individual job. This is especially true if
3805 :option:`numjobs` is used; looking at individual thread/process output
3806 quickly becomes unwieldy. To see the final report per-group instead of
3807 per-job, use :option:`group_reporting`. Jobs in a file will be part of the
3808 same reporting group, unless if separated by a :option:`stonewall`, or by
3809 using :option:`new_group`.
3810
3811.. option:: new_group
3812
3813 Start a new reporting group. See: :option:`group_reporting`. If not given,
3814 all jobs in a file will be part of the same reporting group, unless
3815 separated by a :option:`stonewall`.
3816
3817.. option:: stats=bool
3818
3819 By default, fio collects and shows final output results for all jobs
3820 that run. If this option is set to 0, then fio will ignore it in
3821 the final stat output.
3822
3823.. option:: write_bw_log=str
3824
3825 If given, write a bandwidth log for this job. Can be used to store data of
3826 the bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime.
3827
3828 If no str argument is given, the default filename of
3829 :file:`jobname_type.x.log` is used. Even when the argument is given, fio
3830 will still append the type of log. So if one specifies::
3831
3832 write_bw_log=foo
3833
3834 The actual log name will be :file:`foo_bw.x.log` where `x` is the index
3835 of the job (`1..N`, where `N` is the number of jobs). If
3836 :option:`per_job_logs` is false, then the filename will not include the
3837 `.x` job index.
3838
3839 The included :command:`fio_generate_plots` script uses :command:`gnuplot` to turn these
3840 text files into nice graphs. See `Log File Formats`_ for how data is
3841 structured within the file.
3842
3843.. option:: write_lat_log=str
3844
3845 Same as :option:`write_bw_log`, except this option creates I/O
3846 submission (e.g., :file:`name_slat.x.log`), completion (e.g.,
3847 :file:`name_clat.x.log`), and total (e.g., :file:`name_lat.x.log`)
3848 latency files instead. See :option:`write_bw_log` for details about
3849 the filename format and `Log File Formats`_ for how data is structured
3850 within the files.
3851
3852.. option:: write_hist_log=str
3853
3854 Same as :option:`write_bw_log` but writes an I/O completion latency
3855 histogram file (e.g., :file:`name_hist.x.log`) instead. Note that this
3856 file will be empty unless :option:`log_hist_msec` has also been set.
3857 See :option:`write_bw_log` for details about the filename format and
3858 `Log File Formats`_ for how data is structured within the file.
3859
3860.. option:: write_iops_log=str
3861
3862 Same as :option:`write_bw_log`, but writes an IOPS file (e.g.
3863 :file:`name_iops.x.log`) instead. Because fio defaults to individual
3864 I/O logging, the value entry in the IOPS log will be 1 unless windowed
3865 logging (see :option:`log_avg_msec`) has been enabled. See
3866 :option:`write_bw_log` for details about the filename format and `Log
3867 File Formats`_ for how data is structured within the file.
3868
3869.. option:: log_entries=int
3870
3871 By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for
3872 every I/O that completes. The initial number of I/O log entries is 1024.
3873 When the log entries are all used, new log entries are dynamically
3874 allocated. This dynamic log entry allocation may negatively impact
3875 time-related statistics such as I/O tail latencies (e.g. 99.9th percentile
3876 completion latency). This option allows specifying a larger initial
3877 number of log entries to avoid run-time allocations of new log entries,
3878 resulting in more precise time-related I/O statistics.
3879 Also see :option:`log_avg_msec`. Defaults to 1024.
3880
3881.. option:: log_avg_msec=int
3882
3883 By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
3884 I/O that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
3885 very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
3886 over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
3887 :option:`log_max_value` as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
3888 Also see `Log File Formats`_.
3889
3890.. option:: log_hist_msec=int
3891
3892 Same as :option:`log_avg_msec`, but logs entries for completion latency
3893 histograms. Computing latency percentiles from averages of intervals using
3894 :option:`log_avg_msec` is inaccurate. Setting this option makes fio log
3895 histogram entries over the specified period of time, reducing log sizes for
3896 high IOPS devices while retaining percentile accuracy. See
3897 :option:`log_hist_coarseness` and :option:`write_hist_log` as well.
3898 Defaults to 0, meaning histogram logging is disabled.
3899
3900.. option:: log_hist_coarseness=int
3901
3902 Integer ranging from 0 to 6, defining the coarseness of the resolution of
3903 the histogram logs enabled with :option:`log_hist_msec`. For each increment
3904 in coarseness, fio outputs half as many bins. Defaults to 0, for which
3905 histogram logs contain 1216 latency bins. See :option:`write_hist_log`
3906 and `Log File Formats`_.
3907
3908.. option:: log_max_value=bool
3909
3910 If :option:`log_avg_msec` is set, fio logs the average over that window. If
3911 you instead want to log the maximum value, set this option to 1. Defaults to
3912 0, meaning that averaged values are logged.
3913
3914.. option:: log_offset=bool
3915
3916 If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte offset for the I/O
3917 entry as well as the other data values. Defaults to 0 meaning that
3918 offsets are not present in logs. Also see `Log File Formats`_.
3919
3920.. option:: log_compression=int
3921
3922 If this is set, fio will compress the I/O logs as it goes, to keep the
3923 memory footprint lower. When a log reaches the specified size, that chunk is
3924 removed and compressed in the background. Given that I/O logs are fairly
3925 highly compressible, this yields a nice memory savings for longer runs. The
3926 downside is that the compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so
3927 it may impact the run. This, however, is also true if the logging ends up
3928 consuming most of the system memory. So pick your poison. The I/O logs are
3929 saved normally at the end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing
3930 them in the specified log file. This feature depends on the availability of
3931 zlib.
3932
3933.. option:: log_compression_cpus=str
3934
3935 Define the set of CPUs that are allowed to handle online log compression for
3936 the I/O jobs. This can provide better isolation between performance
3937 sensitive jobs, and background compression work. See
3938 :option:`cpus_allowed` for the format used.
3939
3940.. option:: log_store_compressed=bool
3941
3942 If set, fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They can be
3943 decompressed with fio, using the :option:`--inflate-log` command line
3944 parameter. The files will be stored with a :file:`.fz` suffix.
3945
3946.. option:: log_unix_epoch=bool
3947
3948 If set, fio will log Unix timestamps to the log files produced by enabling
3949 write_type_log for each log type, instead of the default zero-based
3950 timestamps.
3951
3952.. option:: log_alternate_epoch=bool
3953
3954 If set, fio will log timestamps based on the epoch used by the clock specified
3955 in the log_alternate_epoch_clock_id option, to the log files produced by
3956 enabling write_type_log for each log type, instead of the default zero-based
3957 timestamps.
3958
3959.. option:: log_alternate_epoch_clock_id=int
3960
3961 Specifies the clock_id to be used by clock_gettime to obtain the alternate epoch
3962 if either log_unix_epoch or log_alternate_epoch are true. Otherwise has no
3963 effect. Default value is 0, or CLOCK_REALTIME.
3964
3965.. option:: block_error_percentiles=bool
3966
3967 If set, record errors in trim block-sized units from writes and trims and
3968 output a histogram of how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind
3969 of error was encountered.
3970
3971.. option:: bwavgtime=int
3972
3973 Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value is specified in
3974 milliseconds. If the job also does bandwidth logging through
3975 :option:`write_bw_log`, then the minimum of this option and
3976 :option:`log_avg_msec` will be used. Default: 500ms.
3977
3978.. option:: iopsavgtime=int
3979
3980 Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value is specified in
3981 milliseconds. If the job also does IOPS logging through
3982 :option:`write_iops_log`, then the minimum of this option and
3983 :option:`log_avg_msec` will be used. Default: 500ms.
3984
3985.. option:: disk_util=bool
3986
3987 Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform supports it.
3988 Default: true.
3989
3990.. option:: disable_lat=bool
3991
3992 Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting back
3993 the number of calls to :manpage:`gettimeofday(2)`, as that does impact
3994 performance at really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a
3995 large amount of these calls, this option must be used with
3996 :option:`disable_slat` and :option:`disable_bw_measurement` as well.
3997
3998.. option:: disable_clat=bool
3999
4000 Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
4001 :option:`disable_lat`.
4002
4003.. option:: disable_slat=bool
4004
4005 Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
4006 :option:`disable_lat`.
4007
4008.. option:: disable_bw_measurement=bool, disable_bw=bool
4009
4010 Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
4011 :option:`disable_lat`.
4012
4013.. option:: slat_percentiles=bool
4014
4015 Report submission latency percentiles. Submission latency is not recorded
4016 for synchronous ioengines.
4017
4018.. option:: clat_percentiles=bool
4019
4020 Report completion latency percentiles.
4021
4022.. option:: lat_percentiles=bool
4023
4024 Report total latency percentiles. Total latency is the sum of submission
4025 latency and completion latency.
4026
4027.. option:: percentile_list=float_list
4028
4029 Overwrite the default list of percentiles for latencies and the block error
4030 histogram. Each number is a floating point number in the range (0,100], and
4031 the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ``:`` to separate the numbers. For
4032 example, ``--percentile_list=99.5:99.9`` will cause fio to report the
4033 latency durations below which 99.5% and 99.9% of the observed latencies fell,
4034 respectively.
4035
4036.. option:: significant_figures=int
4037
4038 If using :option:`--output-format` of `normal`, set the significant
4039 figures to this value. Higher values will yield more precise IOPS and
4040 throughput units, while lower values will round. Requires a minimum
4041 value of 1 and a maximum value of 10. Defaults to 4.
4042
4043
4044Error handling
4045~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4046
4047.. option:: exitall_on_error
4048
4049 When one job finishes in error, terminate the rest. The default is to wait
4050 for each job to finish.
4051
4052.. option:: continue_on_error=str
4053
4054 Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed failure. If this option
4055 is set, fio will continue the job when there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or
4056 EILSEQ) until the runtime is exceeded or the I/O size specified is
4057 completed. If this option is used, there are two more stats that are
4058 appended, the total error count and the first error. The error field given
4059 in the stats is the first error that was hit during the run.
4060
4061 Note: a write error from the device may go unnoticed by fio when using
4062 buffered IO, as the write() (or similar) system call merely dirties the
4063 kernel pages, unless :option:`sync` or :option:`direct` is used. Device IO
4064 errors occur when the dirty data is actually written out to disk. If fully
4065 sync writes aren't desirable, :option:`fsync` or :option:`fdatasync` can be
4066 used as well. This is specific to writes, as reads are always synchronous.
4067
4068 The allowed values are:
4069
4070 **none**
4071 Exit on any I/O or verify errors.
4072
4073 **read**
4074 Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
4075
4076 **write**
4077 Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
4078
4079 **io**
4080 Continue on any I/O error, exit on all others.
4081
4082 **verify**
4083 Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
4084
4085 **all**
4086 Continue on all errors.
4087
4088 **0**
4089 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
4090
4091 **1**
4092 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
4093
4094.. option:: ignore_error=str
4095
4096 Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can
4097 specify error list for each error type, instead of only being able to
4098 ignore the default 'non-fatal error' using :option:`continue_on_error`.
4099 ``ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST`` errors for
4100 given error type is separated with ':'. Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC',
4101 'ENOMEM') or integer. Example::
4102
4103 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
4104
4105 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from
4106 WRITE. This option works by overriding :option:`continue_on_error` with
4107 the list of errors for each error type if any.
4108
4109.. option:: error_dump=bool
4110
4111 If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If
4112 disabled only fatal error will be dumped.
4113
4114Running predefined workloads
4115----------------------------
4116
4117Fio includes predefined profiles that mimic the I/O workloads generated by
4118other tools.
4119
4120.. option:: profile=str
4121
4122 The predefined workload to run. Current profiles are:
4123
4124 **tiobench**
4125 Threaded I/O bench (tiotest/tiobench) like workload.
4126
4127 **act**
4128 Aerospike Certification Tool (ACT) like workload.
4129
4130To view a profile's additional options use :option:`--cmdhelp` after specifying
4131the profile. For example::
4132
4133 $ fio --profile=act --cmdhelp
4134
4135Act profile options
4136~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4137
4138.. option:: device-names=str
4139 :noindex:
4140
4141 Devices to use.
4142
4143.. option:: load=int
4144 :noindex:
4145
4146 ACT load multiplier. Default: 1.
4147
4148.. option:: test-duration=time
4149 :noindex:
4150
4151 How long the entire test takes to run. When the unit is omitted, the value
4152 is given in seconds. Default: 24h.
4153
4154.. option:: threads-per-queue=int
4155 :noindex:
4156
4157 Number of read I/O threads per device. Default: 8.
4158
4159.. option:: read-req-num-512-blocks=int
4160 :noindex:
4161
4162 Number of 512B blocks to read at the time. Default: 3.
4163
4164.. option:: large-block-op-kbytes=int
4165 :noindex:
4166
4167 Size of large block ops in KiB (writes). Default: 131072.
4168
4169.. option:: prep
4170 :noindex:
4171
4172 Set to run ACT prep phase.
4173
4174Tiobench profile options
4175~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4176
4177.. option:: size=str
4178 :noindex:
4179
4180 Size in MiB.
4181
4182.. option:: block=int
4183 :noindex:
4184
4185 Block size in bytes. Default: 4096.
4186
4187.. option:: numruns=int
4188 :noindex:
4189
4190 Number of runs.
4191
4192.. option:: dir=str
4193 :noindex:
4194
4195 Test directory.
4196
4197.. option:: threads=int
4198 :noindex:
4199
4200 Number of threads.
4201
4202Interpreting the output
4203-----------------------
4204
4205..
4206 Example output was based on the following:
4207 TZ=UTC fio --iodepth=8 --ioengine=null --size=100M --time_based \
4208 --rate=1256k --bs=14K --name=quick --runtime=1s --name=mixed \
4209 --runtime=2m --rw=rw
4210
4211Fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the status of the
4212jobs created. An example of that would be::
4213
4214 Jobs: 1 (f=1): [_(1),M(1)][24.8%][r=20.5MiB/s,w=23.5MiB/s][r=82,w=94 IOPS][eta 01m:31s]
4215
4216The characters inside the first set of square brackets denote the current status of
4217each thread. The first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so
4218forth. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
4219
4220+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4221| Idle | Run | |
4222+======+=====+===========================================================+
4223| P | | Thread setup, but not started. |
4224+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4225| C | | Thread created. |
4226+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4227| I | | Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data. |
4228+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4229| | p | Thread running pre-reading file(s). |
4230+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4231| | / | Thread is in ramp period. |
4232+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4233| | R | Running, doing sequential reads. |
4234+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4235| | r | Running, doing random reads. |
4236+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4237| | W | Running, doing sequential writes. |
4238+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4239| | w | Running, doing random writes. |
4240+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4241| | M | Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes. |
4242+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4243| | m | Running, doing mixed random reads/writes. |
4244+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4245| | D | Running, doing sequential trims. |
4246+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4247| | d | Running, doing random trims. |
4248+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4249| | F | Running, currently waiting for :manpage:`fsync(2)`. |
4250+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4251| | V | Running, doing verification of written data. |
4252+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4253| f | | Thread finishing. |
4254+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4255| E | | Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet. |
4256+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4257| _ | | Thread reaped. |
4258+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4259| X | | Thread reaped, exited with an error. |
4260+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4261| K | | Thread reaped, exited due to signal. |
4262+------+-----+-----------------------------------------------------------+
4263
4264..
4265 Example output was based on the following:
4266 TZ=UTC fio --iodepth=8 --ioengine=null --size=100M --runtime=58m \
4267 --time_based --rate=2512k --bs=256K --numjobs=10 \
4268 --name=readers --rw=read --name=writers --rw=write
4269
4270Fio will condense the thread string as not to take up more space on the command
4271line than needed. For instance, if you have 10 readers and 10 writers running,
4272the output would look like this::
4273
4274 Jobs: 20 (f=20): [R(10),W(10)][4.0%][r=20.5MiB/s,w=23.5MiB/s][r=82,w=94 IOPS][eta 57m:36s]
4275
4276Note that the status string is displayed in order, so it's possible to tell which of
4277the jobs are currently doing what. In the example above this means that jobs 1--10
4278are readers and 11--20 are writers.
4279
4280The other values are fairly self explanatory -- number of threads currently
4281running and doing I/O, the number of currently open files (f=), the estimated
4282completion percentage, the rate of I/O since last check (read speed listed first,
4283then write speed and optionally trim speed) in terms of bandwidth and IOPS,
4284and time to completion for the current running group. It's impossible to estimate
4285runtime of the following groups (if any).
4286
4287..
4288 Example output was based on the following:
4289 TZ=UTC fio --iodepth=16 --ioengine=posixaio --filename=/tmp/fiofile \
4290 --direct=1 --size=100M --time_based --runtime=50s --rate_iops=89 \
4291 --bs=7K --name=Client1 --rw=write
4292
4293When fio is done (or interrupted by :kbd:`Ctrl-C`), it will show the data for
4294each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each overall thread (or
4295group) the output looks like::
4296
4297 Client1: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=16109: Sat Jun 24 12:07:54 2017
4298 write: IOPS=88, BW=623KiB/s (638kB/s)(30.4MiB/50032msec)
4299 slat (nsec): min=500, max=145500, avg=8318.00, stdev=4781.50
4300 clat (usec): min=170, max=78367, avg=4019.02, stdev=8293.31
4301 lat (usec): min=174, max=78375, avg=4027.34, stdev=8291.79
4302 clat percentiles (usec):
4303 | 1.00th=[ 302], 5.00th=[ 326], 10.00th=[ 343], 20.00th=[ 363],
4304 | 30.00th=[ 392], 40.00th=[ 404], 50.00th=[ 416], 60.00th=[ 445],
4305 | 70.00th=[ 816], 80.00th=[ 6718], 90.00th=[12911], 95.00th=[21627],
4306 | 99.00th=[43779], 99.50th=[51643], 99.90th=[68682], 99.95th=[72877],
4307 | 99.99th=[78119]
4308 bw ( KiB/s): min= 532, max= 686, per=0.10%, avg=622.87, stdev=24.82, samples= 100
4309 iops : min= 76, max= 98, avg=88.98, stdev= 3.54, samples= 100
4310 lat (usec) : 250=0.04%, 500=64.11%, 750=4.81%, 1000=2.79%
4311 lat (msec) : 2=4.16%, 4=1.84%, 10=4.90%, 20=11.33%, 50=5.37%
4312 lat (msec) : 100=0.65%
4313 cpu : usr=0.27%, sys=0.18%, ctx=12072, majf=0, minf=21
4314 IO depths : 1=85.0%, 2=13.1%, 4=1.8%, 8=0.1%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
4315 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
4316 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
4317 issued rwt: total=0,4450,0, short=0,0,0, dropped=0,0,0
4318 latency : target=0, window=0, percentile=100.00%, depth=8
4319
4320The job name (or first job's name when using :option:`group_reporting`) is printed,
4321along with the group id, count of jobs being aggregated, last error id seen (which
4322is 0 when there are no errors), pid/tid of that thread and the time the job/group
4323completed. Below are the I/O statistics for each data direction performed (showing
4324writes in the example above). In the order listed, they denote:
4325
4326**read/write/trim**
4327 The string before the colon shows the I/O direction the statistics
4328 are for. **IOPS** is the average I/Os performed per second. **BW**
4329 is the average bandwidth rate shown as: value in power of 2 format
4330 (value in power of 10 format). The last two values show: (**total
4331 I/O performed** in power of 2 format / **runtime** of that thread).
4332
4333**slat**
4334 Submission latency (**min** being the minimum, **max** being the
4335 maximum, **avg** being the average, **stdev** being the standard
4336 deviation). This is the time from when fio initialized the I/O
4337 to submission. For synchronous ioengines this includes the time
4338 up until just before the ioengine's queue function is called.
4339 For asynchronous ioengines this includes the time up through the
4340 completion of the ioengine's queue function (and commit function
4341 if it is defined). For sync I/O this row is not displayed as the
4342 slat is negligible. This value can be in nanoseconds,
4343 microseconds or milliseconds --- fio will choose the most
4344 appropriate base and print that (in the example above
4345 nanoseconds was the best scale). Note: in :option:`--minimal`
4346 mode latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
4347
4348**clat**
4349 Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the time from
4350 submission to completion of the I/O pieces. For sync I/O, this
4351 represents the time from when the I/O was submitted to the
4352 operating system to when it was completed. For asynchronous
4353 ioengines this is the time from when the ioengine's queue (and
4354 commit if available) functions were completed to when the I/O's
4355 completion was reaped by fio.
4356
4357**lat**
4358 Total latency. Same names as slat and clat, this denotes the time from
4359 when fio created the I/O unit to completion of the I/O operation.
4360 It is the sum of submission and completion latency.
4361
4362**bw**
4363 Bandwidth statistics based on samples. Same names as the xlat stats,
4364 but also includes the number of samples taken (**samples**) and an
4365 approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth this thread
4366 received in its group (**per**). This last value is only really
4367 useful if the threads in this group are on the same disk, since they
4368 are then competing for disk access.
4369
4370**iops**
4371 IOPS statistics based on samples. Same names as bw.
4372
4373**lat (nsec/usec/msec)**
4374 The distribution of I/O completion latencies. This is the time from when
4375 I/O leaves fio and when it gets completed. Unlike the separate
4376 read/write/trim sections above, the data here and in the remaining
4377 sections apply to all I/Os for the reporting group. 250=0.04% means that
4378 0.04% of the I/Os completed in under 250us. 500=64.11% means that 64.11%
4379 of the I/Os required 250 to 499us for completion.
4380
4381**cpu**
4382 CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number of context
4383 switches this thread went through, usage of system and user time, and
4384 finally the number of major and minor page faults. The CPU utilization
4385 numbers are averages for the jobs in that reporting group, while the
4386 context and fault counters are summed.
4387
4388**IO depths**
4389 The distribution of I/O depths over the job lifetime. The numbers are
4390 divided into powers of 2 and each entry covers depths from that value
4391 up to those that are lower than the next entry -- e.g., 16= covers
4392 depths from 16 to 31. Note that the range covered by a depth
4393 distribution entry can be different to the range covered by the
4394 equivalent submit/complete distribution entry.
4395
4396**IO submit**
4397 How many pieces of I/O were submitting in a single submit call. Each
4398 entry denotes that amount and below, until the previous entry -- e.g.,
4399 16=100% means that we submitted anywhere between 9 to 16 I/Os per submit
4400 call. Note that the range covered by a submit distribution entry can
4401 be different to the range covered by the equivalent depth distribution
4402 entry.
4403
4404**IO complete**
4405 Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
4406
4407**IO issued rwt**
4408 The number of read/write/trim requests issued, and how many of them were
4409 short or dropped.
4410
4411**IO latency**
4412 These values are for :option:`latency_target` and related options. When
4413 these options are engaged, this section describes the I/O depth required
4414 to meet the specified latency target.
4415
4416..
4417 Example output was based on the following:
4418 TZ=UTC fio --ioengine=null --iodepth=2 --size=100M --numjobs=2 \
4419 --rate_process=poisson --io_limit=32M --name=read --bs=128k \
4420 --rate=11M --name=write --rw=write --bs=2k --rate=700k
4421
4422After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
4423will look like this::
4424
4425 Run status group 0 (all jobs):
4426 READ: bw=20.9MiB/s (21.9MB/s), 10.4MiB/s-10.8MiB/s (10.9MB/s-11.3MB/s), io=64.0MiB (67.1MB), run=2973-3069msec
4427 WRITE: bw=1231KiB/s (1261kB/s), 616KiB/s-621KiB/s (630kB/s-636kB/s), io=64.0MiB (67.1MB), run=52747-53223msec
4428
4429For each data direction it prints:
4430
4431**bw**
4432 Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group followed by the
4433 minimum and maximum bandwidth of all the threads in this group.
4434 Values outside of brackets are power-of-2 format and those
4435 within are the equivalent value in a power-of-10 format.
4436**io**
4437 Aggregate I/O performed of all threads in this group. The
4438 format is the same as bw.
4439**run**
4440 The smallest and longest runtimes of the threads in this group.
4441
4442And finally, the disk statistics are printed. This is Linux specific. They will look like this::
4443
4444 Disk stats (read/write):
4445 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
4446
4447Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
4448numbers denote:
4449
4450**ios**
4451 Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
4452**merge**
4453 Number of merges performed by the I/O scheduler.
4454**ticks**
4455 Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
4456**in_queue**
4457 Total time spent in the disk queue.
4458**util**
4459 The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
4460 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
4461
4462It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is running,
4463without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the **USR1** signal. You can
4464also get regularly timed dumps by using the :option:`--status-interval`
4465parameter, or by creating a file in :file:`/tmp` named
4466:file:`fio-dump-status`. If fio sees this file, it will unlink it and dump the
4467current output status.
4468
4469
4470Terse output
4471------------
4472
4473For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs of the
4474results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format. The format
4475is one long line of values, such as::
4476
4477 2;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%
4478 A description of this job goes here.
4479
4480The job description (if provided) follows on a second line for terse v2.
4481It appears on the same line for other terse versions.
4482
4483To enable terse output, use the :option:`--minimal` or
4484:option:`--output-format`\=terse command line options. The
4485first value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to be
4486changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
4487change.
4488
4489Split up, the format is as follows (comments in brackets denote when a
4490field was introduced or whether it's specific to some terse version):
4491
4492 ::
4493
4494 terse version, fio version [v3], jobname, groupid, error
4495
4496 READ status::
4497
4498 Total IO (KiB), bandwidth (KiB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
4499 Submission latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4500 Completion latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4501 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
4502 Total latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4503 Bw (KiB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, stdev, number of samples [v5]
4504 IOPS [v5]: min, max, mean, stdev, number of samples
4505
4506 WRITE status:
4507
4508 ::
4509
4510 Total IO (KiB), bandwidth (KiB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
4511 Submission latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4512 Completion latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4513 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
4514 Total latency: min, max, mean, stdev (usec)
4515 Bw (KiB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, stdev, number of samples [v5]
4516 IOPS [v5]: min, max, mean, stdev, number of samples
4517
4518 TRIM status [all but version 3]:
4519
4520 Fields are similar to READ/WRITE status.
4521
4522 CPU usage::
4523
4524 user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
4525
4526 I/O depths::
4527
4528 <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
4529
4530 I/O latencies microseconds::
4531
4532 <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
4533
4534 I/O latencies milliseconds::
4535
4536 <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
4537
4538 Disk utilization [v3]::
4539
4540 disk name, read ios, write ios, read merges, write merges, read ticks, write ticks,
4541 time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
4542
4543 Additional Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off)::
4544
4545 total # errors, first error code
4546
4547 Additional Info (dependent on description being set)::
4548
4549 Text description
4550
4551Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so for the
4552terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this::
4553
4554 1.00%=6112
4555
4556which is the Xth percentile, and the `usec` latency associated with it.
4557
4558For `Disk utilization`, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk there
4559will be a disk utilization section.
4560
4561Below is a single line containing short names for each of the fields in the
4562minimal output v3, separated by semicolons::
4563
4564 terse_version_3;fio_version;jobname;groupid;error;read_kb;read_bandwidth_kb;read_iops;read_runtime_ms;read_slat_min_us;read_slat_max_us;read_slat_mean_us;read_slat_dev_us;read_clat_min_us;read_clat_max_us;read_clat_mean_us;read_clat_dev_us;read_clat_pct01;read_clat_pct02;read_clat_pct03;read_clat_pct04;read_clat_pct05;read_clat_pct06;read_clat_pct07;read_clat_pct08;read_clat_pct09;read_clat_pct10;read_clat_pct11;read_clat_pct12;read_clat_pct13;read_clat_pct14;read_clat_pct15;read_clat_pct16;read_clat_pct17;read_clat_pct18;read_clat_pct19;read_clat_pct20;read_tlat_min_us;read_lat_max_us;read_lat_mean_us;read_lat_dev_us;read_bw_min_kb;read_bw_max_kb;read_bw_agg_pct;read_bw_mean_kb;read_bw_dev_kb;write_kb;write_bandwidth_kb;write_iops;write_runtime_ms;write_slat_min_us;write_slat_max_us;write_slat_mean_us;write_slat_dev_us;write_clat_min_us;write_clat_max_us;write_clat_mean_us;write_clat_dev_us;write_clat_pct01;write_clat_pct02;write_clat_pct03;write_clat_pct04;write_clat_pct05;write_clat_pct06;write_clat_pct07;write_clat_pct08;write_clat_pct09;write_clat_pct10;write_clat_pct11;write_clat_pct12;write_clat_pct13;write_clat_pct14;write_clat_pct15;write_clat_pct16;write_clat_pct17;write_clat_pct18;write_clat_pct19;write_clat_pct20;write_tlat_min_us;write_lat_max_us;write_lat_mean_us;write_lat_dev_us;write_bw_min_kb;write_bw_max_kb;write_bw_agg_pct;write_bw_mean_kb;write_bw_dev_kb;cpu_user;cpu_sys;cpu_csw;cpu_mjf;cpu_minf;iodepth_1;iodepth_2;iodepth_4;iodepth_8;iodepth_16;iodepth_32;iodepth_64;lat_2us;lat_4us;lat_10us;lat_20us;lat_50us;lat_100us;lat_250us;lat_500us;lat_750us;lat_1000us;lat_2ms;lat_4ms;lat_10ms;lat_20ms;lat_50ms;lat_100ms;lat_250ms;lat_500ms;lat_750ms;lat_1000ms;lat_2000ms;lat_over_2000ms;disk_name;disk_read_iops;disk_write_iops;disk_read_merges;disk_write_merges;disk_read_ticks;write_ticks;disk_queue_time;disk_util
4565
4566In client/server mode terse output differs from what appears when jobs are run
4567locally. Disk utilization data is omitted from the standard terse output and
4568for v3 and later appears on its own separate line at the end of each terse
4569reporting cycle.
4570
4571
4572JSON output
4573------------
4574
4575The `json` output format is intended to be both human readable and convenient
4576for automated parsing. For the most part its sections mirror those of the
4577`normal` output. The `runtime` value is reported in msec and the `bw` value is
4578reported in 1024 bytes per second units.
4579
4580
4581JSON+ output
4582------------
4583
4584The `json+` output format is identical to the `json` output format except that it
4585adds a full dump of the completion latency bins. Each `bins` object contains a
4586set of (key, value) pairs where keys are latency durations and values count how
4587many I/Os had completion latencies of the corresponding duration. For example,
4588consider:
4589
4590 "bins" : { "87552" : 1, "89600" : 1, "94720" : 1, "96768" : 1, "97792" : 1, "99840" : 1, "100864" : 2, "103936" : 6, "104960" : 534, "105984" : 5995, "107008" : 7529, ... }
4591
4592This data indicates that one I/O required 87,552ns to complete, two I/Os required
4593100,864ns to complete, and 7529 I/Os required 107,008ns to complete.
4594
4595Also included with fio is a Python script `fio_jsonplus_clat2csv` that takes
4596json+ output and generates CSV-formatted latency data suitable for plotting.
4597
4598The latency durations actually represent the midpoints of latency intervals.
4599For details refer to :file:`stat.h`.
4600
4601
4602Trace file format
4603-----------------
4604
4605There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format is
4606unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
4607below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
4608
4609In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
4610
4611
4612Trace file format v1
4613~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4614
4615Each line represents a single I/O action in the following format::
4616
4617 rw, offset, length
4618
4619where `rw=0/1` for read/write, and the `offset` and `length` entries being in bytes.
4620
4621This format is not supported in fio versions >= 1.20-rc3.
4622
4623
4624Trace file format v2
4625~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4626
4627The second version of the trace file format was added in fio version 1.17. It
4628allows one to access more than one file per trace and has a bigger set of possible
4629file actions.
4630
4631The first line of the trace file has to be::
4632
4633 fio version 2 iolog
4634
4635Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
4636
4637The file management format::
4638
4639 filename action
4640
4641The `filename` is given as an absolute path. The `action` can be one of these:
4642
4643**add**
4644 Add the given `filename` to the trace.
4645**open**
4646 Open the file with the given `filename`. The `filename` has to have
4647 been added with the **add** action before.
4648**close**
4649 Close the file with the given `filename`. The file has to have been
4650 opened before.
4651
4652
4653The file I/O action format::
4654
4655 filename action offset length
4656
4657The `filename` is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and
4658opened before it can be used with this format. The `offset` and `length` are
4659given in bytes. The `action` can be one of these:
4660
4661**wait**
4662 Wait for `offset` microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
4663 The time is relative to the previous `wait` statement. Note that
4664 action `wait` is not allowed as of version 3, as the same behavior
4665 can be achieved using timestamps.
4666**read**
4667 Read `length` bytes beginning from `offset`.
4668**write**
4669 Write `length` bytes beginning from `offset`.
4670**sync**
4671 :manpage:`fsync(2)` the file.
4672**datasync**
4673 :manpage:`fdatasync(2)` the file.
4674**trim**
4675 Trim the given file from the given `offset` for `length` bytes.
4676
4677
4678Trace file format v3
4679~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4680
4681The third version of the trace file format was added in fio version 3.31. It
4682forces each action to have a timestamp associated with it.
4683
4684The first line of the trace file has to be::
4685
4686 fio version 3 iolog
4687
4688Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
4689
4690The file management format::
4691
4692 timestamp filename action
4693
4694The file I/O action format::
4695
4696 timestamp filename action offset length
4697
4698The `timestamp` is relative to the beginning of the run (ie starts at 0). The
4699`filename`, `action`, `offset` and `length` are identical to version 2, except
4700that version 3 does not allow the `wait` action.
4701
4702
4703I/O Replay - Merging Traces
4704---------------------------
4705
4706Colocation is a common practice used to get the most out of a machine.
4707Knowing which workloads play nicely with each other and which ones don't is
4708a much harder task. While fio can replay workloads concurrently via multiple
4709jobs, it leaves some variability up to the scheduler making results harder to
4710reproduce. Merging is a way to make the order of events consistent.
4711
4712Merging is integrated into I/O replay and done when a
4713:option:`merge_blktrace_file` is specified. The list of files passed to
4714:option:`read_iolog` go through the merge process and output a single file
4715stored to the specified file. The output file is passed on as if it were the
4716only file passed to :option:`read_iolog`. An example would look like::
4717
4718 $ fio --read_iolog="<file1>:<file2>" --merge_blktrace_file="<output_file>"
4719
4720Creating only the merged file can be done by passing the command line argument
4721:option:`--merge-blktrace-only`.
4722
4723Scaling traces can be done to see the relative impact of any particular trace
4724being slowed down or sped up. :option:`merge_blktrace_scalars` takes in a colon
4725separated list of percentage scalars. It is index paired with the files passed
4726to :option:`read_iolog`.
4727
4728With scaling, it may be desirable to match the running time of all traces.
4729This can be done with :option:`merge_blktrace_iters`. It is index paired with
4730:option:`read_iolog` just like :option:`merge_blktrace_scalars`.
4731
4732In an example, given two traces, A and B, each 60s long. If we want to see
4733the impact of trace A issuing IOs twice as fast and repeat trace A over the
4734runtime of trace B, the following can be done::
4735
4736 $ fio --read_iolog="<trace_a>:"<trace_b>" --merge_blktrace_file"<output_file>" --merge_blktrace_scalars="50:100" --merge_blktrace_iters="2:1"
4737
4738This runs trace A at 2x the speed twice for approximately the same runtime as
4739a single run of trace B.
4740
4741
4742CPU idleness profiling
4743----------------------
4744
4745In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example, we
4746test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
4747Fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at idle
4748priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
4749By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each CPU
4750can be derived accordingly.
4751
4752An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean and
4753standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit work"
4754section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or overall
4755system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
4756
4757
4758Verification and triggers
4759-------------------------
4760
4761Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The first
4762is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the write phase has
4763completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything it wrote. The second
4764model is running just the write phase, and then later on running the same job
4765(but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the same I/O patterns and verify
4766the contents. Both of these methods depend on the write phase being completed,
4767as fio otherwise has no idea how much data was written.
4768
4769With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state to
4770local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state and know
4771exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where power is cut to a
4772server in a managed fashion, for instance.
4773
4774A verification trigger consists of two things:
4775
47761) Storing the write state of each job.
47772) Executing a trigger command.
4778
4779The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes to single
4780kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions done, the last X
4781completions, etc.
4782
4783A trigger is invoked either through creation ('touch') of a specified file in
4784the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
4785:option:`--trigger-file`\= :file:`/tmp/trigger-file`, then it will continually
4786check for the existence of :file:`/tmp/trigger-file`. When it sees this file, it
4787will fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
4788command).
4789
4790For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If fio is
4791running as a server backend, it will send the job states back to the client for
4792safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if specified. If a local trigger
4793is specified, the server will still send back the write state, but the client
4794will then execute the trigger.
4795
4796Verification trigger example
4797~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4798
4799Let's say we want to run a powercut test on the remote Linux machine 'server'.
4800Our write workload is in :file:`write-test.fio`. We want to cut power to 'server' at
4801some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety or our local
4802machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio backend normally::
4803
4804 server# fio --server
4805
4806and on the client, we'll fire off the workload::
4807
4808 localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger-remote="bash -c \"echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger\""
4809
4810We set :file:`/tmp/my-trigger` as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute::
4811
4812 echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger
4813
4814on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write state. This
4815will work, but it's not **really** cutting power to the server, it's merely
4816abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting power to the server
4817through IPMI or similar, we could do that through a local trigger command
4818instead. Let's assume we have a script that does IPMI reboot of a given hostname,
4819ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could then have run fio with a local trigger
4820instead::
4821
4822 localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger="ipmi-reboot server"
4823
4824For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state, then
4825execute ``ipmi-reboot server`` when that happened.
4826
4827Loading verify state
4828~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4829
4830To load stored write state, a read verification job file must contain the
4831:option:`verify_state_load` option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
4832stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
4833and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send the
4834files over and load them from there.
4835
4836
4837Log File Formats
4838----------------
4839
4840Fio supports a variety of log file formats, for logging latencies, bandwidth,
4841and IOPS. The logs share a common format, which looks like this:
4842
4843 *time* (`msec`), *value*, *data direction*, *block size* (`bytes`),
4844 *offset* (`bytes`), *command priority*
4845
4846*Time* for the log entry is always in milliseconds. The *value* logged depends
4847on the type of log, it will be one of the following:
4848
4849 **Latency log**
4850 Value is latency in nsecs
4851 **Bandwidth log**
4852 Value is in KiB/sec
4853 **IOPS log**
4854 Value is IOPS
4855
4856*Data direction* is one of the following:
4857
4858 **0**
4859 I/O is a READ
4860 **1**
4861 I/O is a WRITE
4862 **2**
4863 I/O is a TRIM
4864
4865The entry's *block size* is always in bytes. The *offset* is the position in bytes
4866from the start of the file for that particular I/O. The logging of the offset can be
4867toggled with :option:`log_offset`.
4868
4869*Command priority* is 0 for normal priority and 1 for high priority. This is controlled
4870by the ioengine specific :option:`cmdprio_percentage`.
4871
4872Fio defaults to logging every individual I/O but when windowed logging is set
4873through :option:`log_avg_msec`, either the average (by default) or the maximum
4874(:option:`log_max_value` is set) *value* seen over the specified period of time
4875is recorded. Each *data direction* seen within the window period will aggregate
4876its values in a separate row. Further, when using windowed logging the *block
4877size* and *offset* entries will always contain 0.
4878
4879
4880Client/Server
4881-------------
4882
4883Normally fio is invoked as a stand-alone application on the machine where the
4884I/O workload should be generated. However, the backend and frontend of fio can
4885be run separately i.e., the fio server can generate an I/O workload on the "Device
4886Under Test" while being controlled by a client on another machine.
4887
4888Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT::
4889
4890 $ fio --server=args
4891
4892where `args` defines what fio listens to. The arguments are of the form
4893``type,hostname`` or ``IP,port``. *type* is either ``ip`` (or ip4) for TCP/IP
4894v4, ``ip6`` for TCP/IP v6, or ``sock`` for a local unix domain socket.
4895*hostname* is either a hostname or IP address, and *port* is the port to listen
4896to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
4897
48981) ``fio --server``
4899
4900 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
4901
49022) ``fio --server=ip:hostname,4444``
4903
4904 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
4905
49063) ``fio --server=ip6:::1,4444``
4907
4908 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
4909
49104) ``fio --server=,4444``
4911
4912 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
4913
49145) ``fio --server=1.2.3.4``
4915
4916 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
4917
49186) ``fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock``
4919
4920 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket :file:`/tmp/fio.sock`.
4921
4922Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with::
4923
4924 fio <local-args> --client=<server> <remote-args> <job file(s)>
4925
4926where `local-args` are arguments for the client where it is running, `server`
4927is the connect string, and `remote-args` and `job file(s)` are sent to the
4928server. The `server` string follows the same format as it does on the server
4929side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
4930
4931Fio can connect to multiple servers this way::
4932
4933 fio --client=<server1> <job file(s)> --client=<server2> <job file(s)>
4934
4935If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server to
4936load a local file as well. This is done by using :option:`--remote-config` ::
4937
4938 fio --client=server --remote-config /path/to/file.fio
4939
4940Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead of being passed
4941one from the client.
4942
4943If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
4944of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter value for the
4945:option:`--client` option. For example, here is an example :file:`host.list`
4946file containing 2 hostnames::
4947
4948 host1.your.dns.domain
4949 host2.your.dns.domain
4950
4951The fio command would then be::
4952
4953 fio --client=host.list <job file(s)>
4954
4955In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files -- all
4956servers receive the same job file.
4957
4958In order to let ``fio --client`` runs use a shared filesystem from multiple
4959hosts, ``fio --client`` now prepends the IP address of the server to the
4960filename. For example, if fio is using the directory :file:`/mnt/nfs/fio` and is
4961writing filename :file:`fileio.tmp`, with a :option:`--client` `hostfile`
4962containing two hostnames ``h1`` and ``h2`` with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and
4963192.168.10.121, then fio will create two files::
4964
4965 /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
4966 /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
4967
4968Terse output in client/server mode will differ slightly from what is produced
4969when fio is run in stand-alone mode. See the terse output section for details.