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
15 fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is:
17 git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
19 When inside a corporate firewall, git:// URL sometimes does not work.
20 If git:// does not work, use the http protocol instead:
22 http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
24 Snapshots are frequently generated and include the git meta data as well.
25 Snapshots can download from:
27 http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/
29 There are also two official mirrors. Both of these are automatically synced
30 with the main repository, when changes are pushed. If the main repo is down
31 for some reason, either one of these is safe to use as a backup:
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
38 git://github.com/axboe/fio.git
39 https://github.com/axboe/fio.git
46 Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official
47 Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio
50 Starting with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (aka "Lucid Lynx"), fio packages are part
51 of the Ubuntu "universe" repository.
52 http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=fio
55 Dag Wieƫrs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
56 http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
59 Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing
60 on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'.
63 Packages for Solaris are available from OpenCSW. Install their pkgutil
64 tool (http://www.opencsw.org/get-it/pkgutil/) and then install fio via
68 Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> has fio packages for Windows at
69 http://www.bluestop.org/fio/ .
75 The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including
76 general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development.
78 An automated mail detailing recent commits is automatically sent to the
79 list at most daily. The list address is fio@vger.kernel.org, subscribe
80 by sending an email to majordomo@vger.kernel.org with
84 in the body of the email. Archives can be found here:
86 http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/
88 and archives for the old list can be found here:
90 http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
96 Just type 'configure', 'make' and 'make install'.
98 Note that GNU make is required. On BSD it's available from devel/gmake;
99 on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package. On platforms where GNU make
100 isn't the default, type 'gmake' instead of 'make'.
102 Configure will print the enabled options. Note that on Linux based
103 platforms, the libaio development packages must be installed to use
104 the libaio engine. Depending on distro, it is usually called
105 libaio-devel or libaio-dev.
107 For gfio, gtk 2.18 (or newer), associated glib threads, and cairo are required
108 to be installed. gfio isn't built automatically and can be enabled
109 with a --enable-gfio option to configure.
111 To build FIO with a cross-compiler:
113 $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix
114 Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.
116 It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the --esx switch to
123 On Windows, Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to
124 build fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.8 from
125 http://wixtoolset.org and run dobuild.cmd from the
126 os/windows directory.
128 How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows:
130 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/). Install 'make' and all
131 packages starting with 'mingw64-i686' and 'mingw64-x86_64'.
132 2. Open the Cygwin Terminal.
133 3. Go to the fio directory (source files).
134 4. Run 'make clean && make -j'.
136 To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run './configure --build-32bit-win' before 'make'.
138 It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt
139 or other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display
140 and signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell
141 (see http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details).
148 --debug Enable some debugging options (see below)
149 --parse-only Parse options only, don't start any IO
150 --output Write output to file
151 --runtime Runtime in seconds
152 --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs
153 --minimal Minimal (terse) output
154 --output-format=type Output format (terse,json,normal)
155 --terse-version=type Terse version output format (default 3, or 2 or 4).
156 --version Print version info and exit
157 --help Print this page
158 --cpuclock-test Perform test/validation of CPU clock
159 --crctest[=test] Test speed of checksum functions
160 --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them
161 --enghelp=engine Print ioengine help, or list available ioengines
162 --enghelp=engine,cmd Print help for an ioengine cmd
163 --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options
164 --readonly Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing
166 --eta=when When ETA estimate should be printed
167 May be "always", "never" or "auto"
168 --eta-newline=time Force a new line for every 'time' period passed
169 --status-interval=t Force full status dump every 't' period passed
170 --section=name Only run specified section in job file.
171 Multiple sections can be specified.
172 --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024)
173 --warnings-fatal Fio parser warnings are fatal
174 --max-jobs Maximum number of threads/processes to support
175 --server=args Start backend server. See Client/Server section.
176 --client=host Connect to specified backend(s).
177 --remote-config=file Tell fio server to load this local file
178 --idle-prof=option Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis
179 (option=system,percpu) or run unit work
180 calibration only (option=calibrate).
181 --inflate-log=log Inflate and output compressed log
182 --trigger-file=file Execute trigger cmd when file exists
183 --trigger-timeout=t Execute trigger af this time
184 --trigger=cmd Set this command as local trigger
185 --trigger-remote=cmd Set this command as remote trigger
186 --aux-path=path Use this path for fio state generated files
189 Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files,
190 unless they match a job file parameter. Multiple job files can be listed
191 and each job file will be regarded as a separate group. fio will stonewall
192 execution between each group.
194 The --readonly option is an extra safety guard to prevent users from
195 accidentally starting a write workload when that is not desired. Fio
196 will only write if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given. This extra
197 safety net can be used as an extra precaution as --readonly will also
198 enable a write check in the io engine core to prevent writes due to
199 unknown user space bug(s).
201 The --debug option triggers additional logging by fio.
202 Currently, additional logging is available for:
204 process Dump info related to processes
205 file Dump info related to file actions
206 io Dump info related to IO queuing
207 mem Dump info related to memory allocations
208 blktrace Dump info related to blktrace setup
209 verify Dump info related to IO verification
210 all Enable all debug options
211 random Dump info related to random offset generation
212 parse Dump info related to option matching and parsing
213 diskutil Dump info related to disk utilization updates
214 job:x Dump info only related to job number x
215 mutex Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops
216 profile Dump info related to profile extensions
217 time Dump info related to internal time keeping
218 net Dump info related to networking connections
219 rate Dump info related to IO rate switching
220 compress Dump info related to log compress/decompress
221 ? or help Show available debug options.
223 One can specify multiple debug options: e.g. --debug=file,mem will enable
224 file and memory debugging.
226 The --section option allows one to combine related jobs into one file.
227 E.g. one job file could define light, moderate, and heavy sections. Tell fio to
228 run only the "heavy" section by giving --section=heavy command line option.
229 One can also specify the "write" operations in one section and "verify"
230 operation in another section. The --section option only applies to job
231 sections. The reserved 'global' section is always parsed and used.
233 The --alloc-size switch allows one to use a larger pool size for smalloc.
234 If running large jobs with randommap enabled, fio can run out of memory.
235 Smalloc is an internal allocator for shared structures from a fixed size
236 memory pool. The pool size defaults to 1024k and can grow to 128 pools.
238 NOTE: While running .fio_smalloc.* backing store files are visible in /tmp.
244 See the HOWTO file for a complete description of job file syntax and
245 parameters. The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If used with
246 an option argument, --cmdhelp will detail the given option. The job file
247 format is in the ini style format, as that is easy for the user to review
250 This README contains the terse version. Job files can describe big and
251 complex setups that are not possible with the command line. Job files
252 are a good practice even for simple jobs since the file provides an
253 easily accessed record of the workload and can include comments.
255 See the examples/ directory for inspiration on how to write job files. Note
256 the copyright and license requirements currently apply to examples/ files.
262 Normally fio is invoked as a stand-alone application on the machine
263 where the IO workload should be generated. However, the frontend and
264 backend of fio can be run separately. Ie the fio server can generate
265 an IO workload on the "Device Under Test" while being controlled from
268 Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT:
272 where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments are of the form
273 'type,hostname or IP,port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4) for TCP/IP v4,
274 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain socket.
275 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
276 listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
280 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
282 2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444
284 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
286 3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444
288 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
290 4) fio --server=,4444
292 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
294 5) fio --server=1.2.3.4
296 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
298 6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
300 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
302 Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with:
304 fio --local-args --client=<server> --remote-args <job file(s)>
306 where --local-args are arguments for the client where it is
307 running, 'server' is the connect string, and --remote-args and <job file(s)>
308 are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
309 does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
311 Fio can connect to multiple servers this way:
313 fio --client=<server1> <job file(s)> --client=<server2> <job file(s)>
315 If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
316 to load a local file as well. This is done by using --remote-config:
318 fio --client=server --remote-config /path/to/file.fio
320 Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
321 of being passed one from the client.
323 If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers),
324 you can input a pathname of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter
325 value for the --client option. For example, here is an example "host.list"
326 file containing 2 hostnames:
328 host1.your.dns.domain
329 host2.your.dns.domain
331 The fio command would then be:
333 fio --client=host.list <job file(s)>
335 In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files -- all
336 servers receive the same job file.
338 In order to let fio --client runs use a shared filesystem
339 from multiple hosts, fio --client now prepends the IP address of the
340 server to the filename. For example, if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio
341 and is writing filename fileio.tmp, with a --client hostfile containing
342 two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and 192.168.10.121,
343 then fio will create two files:
345 /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
346 /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
352 Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
353 Windows, FreeBSD, and DragonFly. Some features and/or options may only be
354 available on some of the platforms, typically because those features only
355 apply to that platform (like the solarisaio engine, or the splice engine on
358 Some features are not available on FreeBSD/Solaris even if they could be
359 implemented, I'd be happy to take patches for that. An example of that is
360 disk utility statistics and (I think) huge page support, support for that
361 does exist in FreeBSD/Solaris.
363 Fio uses pthread mutexes for signalling and locking and FreeBSD does not
364 support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, only threads are
365 supported on FreeBSD. This could be fixed with sysv ipc locking or
366 other locking alternatives.
368 Other *BSD platforms are untested, but fio should work there almost out
369 of the box. Since I don't do test runs or even compiles on those platforms,
370 your mileage may vary. Sending me patches for other platforms is greatly
371 appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool
372 available on all platforms.
374 Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. Messages like these:
376 Symbol resolution failed for /usr/lib/libc.a(posix_aio.o) because:
377 Symbol _posix_kaio_rdwr (number 2) is not exported from dependent module /unix.
379 indicate one needs to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root:
381 # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
382 posix_aio0 Defined Posix Asynchronous I/O
383 # cfgmgr -l posix_aio0
384 # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
385 posix_aio0 Available Posix Asynchronous I/O
387 POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent:
389 # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available'
396 Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing
397 of the Linux IO subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing
398 specific test applications to simulate a given workload, and found that
399 the existing io benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough
400 to do what he wanted.
402 Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905