| 1 | fio |
| 2 | --- |
| 3 | |
| 4 | fio is a tool that will spawn a number of threads or processes doing a |
| 5 | particular type of io action as specified by the user. fio takes a |
| 6 | number of global parameters, each inherited by the thread unless |
| 7 | otherwise parameters given to them overriding that setting is given. |
| 8 | The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching the io load |
| 9 | one wants to simulate. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Source |
| 13 | ------ |
| 14 | |
| 15 | fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is: |
| 16 | |
| 17 | git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git |
| 18 | |
| 19 | When inside a corporate firewall, git:// URL sometimes does not work. |
| 20 | If git:// does not work, use the http protocol instead: |
| 21 | |
| 22 | http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git |
| 23 | |
| 24 | Snapshots are frequently generated and include the git meta data as well. |
| 25 | Snapshots can download from: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/ |
| 28 | |
| 29 | There are also two official mirrors. Both of these are synced within |
| 30 | an hour of commits landing at git.kernel.dk. So if the main repo is |
| 31 | down for some reason, either one of those is safe to use: |
| 32 | |
| 33 | git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git |
| 34 | https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git |
| 35 | |
| 36 | or |
| 37 | |
| 38 | https://github.com/axboe/fio.git |
| 39 | |
| 40 | |
| 41 | Binary packages |
| 42 | --------------- |
| 43 | |
| 44 | Debian: |
| 45 | Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official |
| 46 | Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio |
| 47 | |
| 48 | Ubuntu: |
| 49 | Starting with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (aka "Lucid Lynx"), fio packages are part |
| 50 | of the Ubuntu "universe" repository. |
| 51 | http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=fio |
| 52 | |
| 53 | Red Hat, CentOS & Co: |
| 54 | Dag Wieƫrs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here: |
| 55 | http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/ |
| 56 | |
| 57 | Mandriva: |
| 58 | Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing |
| 59 | on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | Solaris: |
| 62 | Packages for Solaris are available from OpenCSW. Install their pkgutil |
| 63 | tool (http://www.opencsw.org/get-it/pkgutil/) and then install fio via |
| 64 | 'pkgutil -i fio'. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | Windows: |
| 67 | Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> has fio packages for Windows at |
| 68 | http://www.bluestop.org/fio/ . |
| 69 | |
| 70 | |
| 71 | Mailing list |
| 72 | ------------ |
| 73 | |
| 74 | The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including |
| 75 | general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | An automated mail detailing recent commits is automatically sent to the |
| 78 | list at most daily. The list address is fio@vger.kernel.org, subscribe |
| 79 | by sending an email to majordomo@vger.kernel.org with |
| 80 | |
| 81 | subscribe fio |
| 82 | |
| 83 | in the body of the email. Archives can be found here: |
| 84 | |
| 85 | http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/ |
| 86 | |
| 87 | and archives for the old list can be found here: |
| 88 | |
| 89 | http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/ |
| 90 | |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Building |
| 93 | -------- |
| 94 | |
| 95 | Just type 'configure', 'make' and 'make install'. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | Note that GNU make is required. On BSD it's available from devel/gmake; |
| 98 | on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package. On platforms where GNU make |
| 99 | isn't the default, type 'gmake' instead of 'make'. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | Configure will print the enabled options. Note that on Linux based |
| 102 | platforms, the libaio development packages must be installed to use |
| 103 | the libaio engine. Depending on distro, it is usually called |
| 104 | libaio-devel or libaio-dev. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | For gfio, gtk 2.18 (or newer), associated glib threads, and cairo are required |
| 107 | to be installed. gfio isn't built automatically and can be enabled |
| 108 | with a --enable-gfio option to configure. |
| 109 | |
| 110 | To build FIO with a cross-compiler: |
| 111 | $ make clean |
| 112 | $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix |
| 113 | Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically. |
| 114 | |
| 115 | It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the --esx switch to |
| 116 | configure. |
| 117 | |
| 118 | |
| 119 | Windows |
| 120 | ------- |
| 121 | |
| 122 | On Windows, Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to |
| 123 | build fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.8 from |
| 124 | http://wixtoolset.org and run dobuild.cmd from the |
| 125 | os/windows directory. |
| 126 | |
| 127 | How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows: |
| 128 | |
| 129 | 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/). Install 'make' and all |
| 130 | packages starting with 'mingw64-i686' and 'mingw64-x86_64'. |
| 131 | 2. Open the Cygwin Terminal. |
| 132 | 3. Go to the fio directory (source files). |
| 133 | 4. Run 'make clean && make -j'. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run './configure --build-32bit-win' before 'make'. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt |
| 138 | or other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display |
| 139 | and signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell |
| 140 | (see http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details). |
| 141 | |
| 142 | |
| 143 | Command line |
| 144 | ------------ |
| 145 | |
| 146 | $ fio |
| 147 | --debug Enable some debugging options (see below) |
| 148 | --parse-only Parse options only, don't start any IO |
| 149 | --output Write output to file |
| 150 | --runtime Runtime in seconds |
| 151 | --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs |
| 152 | --minimal Minimal (terse) output |
| 153 | --output-format=type Output format (terse,json,normal) |
| 154 | --terse-version=type Terse version output format (default 3, or 2 or 4). |
| 155 | --version Print version info and exit |
| 156 | --help Print this page |
| 157 | --cpuclock-test Perform test/validation of CPU clock |
| 158 | --crctest[=test] Test speed of checksum functions |
| 159 | --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them |
| 160 | --enghelp=engine Print ioengine help, or list available ioengines |
| 161 | --enghelp=engine,cmd Print help for an ioengine cmd |
| 162 | --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options |
| 163 | --readonly Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing |
| 164 | writes |
| 165 | --eta=when When ETA estimate should be printed |
| 166 | May be "always", "never" or "auto" |
| 167 | --eta-newline=time Force a new line for every 'time' period passed |
| 168 | --status-interval=t Force full status dump every 't' period passed |
| 169 | --section=name Only run specified section in job file. |
| 170 | Multiple sections can be specified. |
| 171 | --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024) |
| 172 | --warnings-fatal Fio parser warnings are fatal |
| 173 | --max-jobs Maximum number of threads/processes to support |
| 174 | --server=args Start backend server. See Client/Server section. |
| 175 | --client=host Connect to specified backend. |
| 176 | --remote-config=file Tell fio server to load this local file |
| 177 | --idle-prof=option Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis |
| 178 | (option=system,percpu) or run unit work |
| 179 | calibration only (option=calibrate). |
| 180 | --inflate-log=log Inflate and output compressed log |
| 181 | |
| 182 | |
| 183 | Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files, |
| 184 | unless they match a job file parameter. Multiple job files can be listed |
| 185 | and each job file will be regarded as a separate group. fio will stonewall |
| 186 | execution between each group. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | The --readonly option is an extra safety guard to prevent users from |
| 189 | accidentally starting a write workload when that is not desired. Fio |
| 190 | will only write if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given. This extra |
| 191 | safety net can be used as an extra precaution as --readonly will also |
| 192 | enable a write check in the io engine core to prevent writes due to |
| 193 | unknown user space bug(s). |
| 194 | |
| 195 | The --debug option triggers additional logging by fio. |
| 196 | Currently, additional logging is available for: |
| 197 | |
| 198 | process Dump info related to processes |
| 199 | file Dump info related to file actions |
| 200 | io Dump info related to IO queuing |
| 201 | mem Dump info related to memory allocations |
| 202 | blktrace Dump info related to blktrace setup |
| 203 | verify Dump info related to IO verification |
| 204 | all Enable all debug options |
| 205 | random Dump info related to random offset generation |
| 206 | parse Dump info related to option matching and parsing |
| 207 | diskutil Dump info related to disk utilization updates |
| 208 | job:x Dump info only related to job number x |
| 209 | mutex Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops |
| 210 | profile Dump info related to profile extensions |
| 211 | time Dump info related to internal time keeping |
| 212 | net Dump info related to networking connections |
| 213 | rate Dump info related to IO rate switching |
| 214 | compress Dump info related to log compress/decompress |
| 215 | ? or help Show available debug options. |
| 216 | |
| 217 | One can specify multiple debug options: e.g. --debug=file,mem will enable |
| 218 | file and memory debugging. |
| 219 | |
| 220 | The --section option allows one to combine related jobs into one file. |
| 221 | E.g. one job file could define light, moderate, and heavy sections. Tell fio to |
| 222 | run only the "heavy" section by giving --section=heavy command line option. |
| 223 | One can also specify the "write" operations in one section and "verify" |
| 224 | operation in another section. The --section option only applies to job |
| 225 | sections. The reserved 'global' section is always parsed and used. |
| 226 | |
| 227 | The --alloc-size switch allows one to use a larger pool size for smalloc. |
| 228 | If running large jobs with randommap enabled, fio can run out of memory. |
| 229 | Smalloc is an internal allocator for shared structures from a fixed size |
| 230 | memory pool. The pool size defaults to 1024k and can grow to 128 pools. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | NOTE: While running .fio_smalloc.* backing store files are visible in /tmp. |
| 233 | |
| 234 | |
| 235 | Job file |
| 236 | -------- |
| 237 | |
| 238 | See the HOWTO file for a complete description of job file syntax and |
| 239 | parameters. The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If used with |
| 240 | an option argument, --cmdhelp will detail the given option. The job file |
| 241 | format is in the ini style format, as that is easy for the user to review |
| 242 | and modify. |
| 243 | |
| 244 | This README contains the terse version. Job files can describe big and |
| 245 | complex setups that are not possible with the command line. Job files |
| 246 | are a good practice even for simple jobs since the file provides an |
| 247 | easily accessed record of the workload and can include comments. |
| 248 | |
| 249 | See the examples/ directory for inspiration on how to write job files. Note |
| 250 | the copyright and license requirements currently apply to examples/ files. |
| 251 | |
| 252 | |
| 253 | Client/server |
| 254 | ------------ |
| 255 | |
| 256 | Normally fio is invoked as a stand-alone application on the machine |
| 257 | where the IO workload should be generated. However, the frontend and |
| 258 | backend of fio can be run separately. Ie the fio server can generate |
| 259 | an IO workload on the "Device Under Test" while being controlled from |
| 260 | another machine. |
| 261 | |
| 262 | Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT: |
| 263 | |
| 264 | fio --server=args |
| 265 | |
| 266 | where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments are of the form |
| 267 | 'type,hostname or IP,port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4) for TCP/IP v4, |
| 268 | 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain socket. |
| 269 | 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to |
| 270 | listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples: |
| 271 | |
| 272 | 1) fio --server |
| 273 | |
| 274 | Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765). |
| 275 | |
| 276 | 2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444 |
| 277 | |
| 278 | Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444. |
| 279 | |
| 280 | 3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444 |
| 281 | |
| 282 | Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444. |
| 283 | |
| 284 | 4) fio --server=,4444 |
| 285 | |
| 286 | Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444. |
| 287 | |
| 288 | 5) fio --server=1.2.3.4 |
| 289 | |
| 290 | Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port. |
| 291 | |
| 292 | 6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock |
| 293 | |
| 294 | Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with: |
| 297 | |
| 298 | fio --local-args --client=<server> --remote-args <job file(s)> |
| 299 | |
| 300 | where --local-args are arguments for the client where it is |
| 301 | running, 'server' is the connect string, and --remote-args and <job file(s)> |
| 302 | are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it |
| 303 | does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings. |
| 304 | |
| 305 | Fio can connect to multiple servers this way: |
| 306 | |
| 307 | fio --client=<server1> <job file(s)> --client=<server2> <job file(s)> |
| 308 | |
| 309 | If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server |
| 310 | to load a local file as well. This is done by using --remote-config: |
| 311 | |
| 312 | fio --client=server --remote-config /path/to/file.fio |
| 313 | |
| 314 | Then the fio serer will open this local (to the server) job file instead |
| 315 | of being passed one from the client. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | |
| 318 | Platforms |
| 319 | --------- |
| 320 | |
| 321 | Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, OpenBSD, |
| 322 | Windows and FreeBSD. Some features and/or options may only be available on |
| 323 | some of the platforms, typically because those features only apply to that |
| 324 | platform (like the solarisaio engine, or the splice engine on Linux). |
| 325 | |
| 326 | Some features are not available on FreeBSD/Solaris even if they could be |
| 327 | implemented, I'd be happy to take patches for that. An example of that is |
| 328 | disk utility statistics and (I think) huge page support, support for that |
| 329 | does exist in FreeBSD/Solaris. |
| 330 | |
| 331 | Fio uses pthread mutexes for signalling and locking and FreeBSD does not |
| 332 | support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, only threads are |
| 333 | supported on FreeBSD. This could be fixed with sysv ipc locking or |
| 334 | other locking alternatives. |
| 335 | |
| 336 | Other *BSD platforms are untested, but fio should work there almost out |
| 337 | of the box. Since I don't do test runs or even compiles on those platforms, |
| 338 | your mileage may vary. Sending me patches for other platforms is greatly |
| 339 | appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool |
| 340 | available on all platforms. |
| 341 | |
| 342 | Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. Messages like these: |
| 343 | |
| 344 | Symbol resolution failed for /usr/lib/libc.a(posix_aio.o) because: |
| 345 | Symbol _posix_kaio_rdwr (number 2) is not exported from dependent module /unix. |
| 346 | |
| 347 | indicate one needs to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root: |
| 348 | |
| 349 | # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0 |
| 350 | posix_aio0 Defined Posix Asynchronous I/O |
| 351 | # cfgmgr -l posix_aio0 |
| 352 | # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0 |
| 353 | posix_aio0 Available Posix Asynchronous I/O |
| 354 | |
| 355 | POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent: |
| 356 | |
| 357 | # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available' |
| 358 | posix_aio0 changed |
| 359 | |
| 360 | |
| 361 | Author |
| 362 | ------ |
| 363 | |
| 364 | Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing |
| 365 | of the Linux IO subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing |
| 366 | specific test applications to simulate a given workload, and found that |
| 367 | the existing io benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough |
| 368 | to do what he wanted. |
| 369 | |
| 370 | Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905 |
| 371 | |