Commit | Line | Data |
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ebac4655 JA |
1 | fio |
2 | --- | |
3 | ||
79809113 JA |
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. | |
ebac4655 | 10 | |
2b02b546 JA |
11 | |
12 | Source | |
13 | ------ | |
14 | ||
15 | fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is: | |
16 | ||
6b3eccb1 | 17 | git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git |
97f049c9 | 18 | |
a9bac3f9 JA |
19 | If you are inside a corporate firewall, git:// may not always work for |
20 | you. In that case you can use the http protocol, path is the same: | |
21 | ||
22 | http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git | |
2b02b546 | 23 | |
79809113 JA |
24 | Snapshots are frequently generated and they include the git meta data as |
25 | well. You can download them here: | |
2b02b546 JA |
26 | |
27 | http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/ | |
28 | ||
1053a106 | 29 | |
d85b1add SK |
30 | Binary packages |
31 | --------------- | |
32 | ||
33 | Debian: | |
34 | Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official | |
35 | Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio | |
36 | ||
37 | Ubuntu: | |
38 | Starting with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (aka "Lucid Lynx"), fio packages are part | |
39 | of the Ubuntu "universe" repository. | |
40 | http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=fio | |
41 | ||
d85b1add | 42 | Red Hat, CentOS & Co: |
a68594cb | 43 | Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here: |
a68594cb JA |
44 | http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/ |
45 | ||
d85b1add | 46 | Mandriva: |
244e170e JA |
47 | Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing |
48 | on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'. | |
49 | ||
d85b1add SK |
50 | Solaris: |
51 | Packages for Solaris are available from OpenCSW. Install their pkgutil | |
52 | tool (http://www.opencsw.org/get-it/pkgutil/) and then install fio via | |
53 | 'pkgutil -i fio'. | |
54 | ||
ecc314ba BC |
55 | Windows: |
56 | Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> has fio packages for Windows at | |
78080867 | 57 | http://www.bluestop.org/fio/ . |
ecc314ba | 58 | |
2b02b546 | 59 | |
726f6ff0 JA |
60 | Mailing list |
61 | ------------ | |
62 | ||
63 | There's a mailing list associated with fio. It's meant for general | |
2e8552b0 JA |
64 | discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development - basically anything |
65 | that has to do with fio. An automated mail detailing recent commits is | |
66 | automatically sent to the list at most daily. The list address is | |
67 | fio@vger.kernel.org, subscribe by sending an email to | |
68 | majordomo@vger.kernel.org with | |
69 | ||
70 | subscribe fio | |
71 | ||
4f5d1526 EIB |
72 | in the body of the email. Archives can be found here: |
73 | ||
74 | http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/ | |
75 | ||
76 | and archives for the old list can be found here: | |
2e8552b0 JA |
77 | |
78 | http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/ | |
726f6ff0 JA |
79 | |
80 | ||
bbfd6b00 JA |
81 | Building |
82 | -------- | |
83 | ||
d015e398 | 84 | Just type 'make' and 'make install'. |
bbfd6b00 | 85 | |
d015e398 BC |
86 | Note that GNU make is required. On BSD it's available from devel/gmake; |
87 | on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package. On platforms where GNU make | |
88 | isn't the default, type 'gmake' instead of 'make'. | |
bbfd6b00 | 89 | |
6de43c1b JA |
90 | If your compile fails with an error like this: |
91 | ||
92 | CC gettime.o | |
93 | In file included from fio.h:23, | |
94 | from gettime.c:8: | |
95 | os/os.h:15:20: error: libaio.h: No such file or directory | |
96 | In file included from gettime.c:8: | |
97 | fio.h:119: error: field 'iocb' has incomplete type | |
98 | make: *** [gettime.o] Error 1 | |
99 | ||
100 | Check that you have the libaio development package installed. On RPM | |
101 | based distros, it's typically called libaio-devel. | |
102 | ||
bbfd6b00 | 103 | |
53adf64f BC |
104 | Windows |
105 | ------- | |
106 | ||
f41862f7 BC |
107 | On Windows Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to |
108 | build fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.7 from | |
109 | http://wixtoolset.org and run dobuild.cmd from the | |
93bcfd20 | 110 | os/windows directory. |
53adf64f | 111 | |
f41862f7 BC |
112 | How to compile FIO on 64-bit Windows: |
113 | ||
114 | 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe). Install 'make' and all | |
115 | packages starting with 'mingw64-i686' and 'mingw64-x86_64'. | |
116 | 2. Download ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/prebuilt-dll-2-9-1-release/dll/x64/pthreadGC2.dll | |
117 | and copy to the fio source directory. | |
118 | 3. Open the Cygwin Terminal. | |
119 | 4. Go to the fio directory (source files). | |
120 | 5. Run 'make clean'. | |
121 | 6. Run 'make'. | |
444310ff | 122 | |
7409711b HL |
123 | To build fio on 32-bit Windows, download x86/pthreadGC2.dll instead and do |
124 | './configure --build-32bit-win=yes' before 'make'. | |
125 | ||
78080867 BC |
126 | It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt |
127 | or other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display | |
128 | and signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell | |
129 | (see http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details). | |
130 | ||
53adf64f | 131 | |
972cfd25 JA |
132 | Command line |
133 | ------------ | |
ebac4655 JA |
134 | |
135 | $ fio | |
1cfd036f | 136 | --debug Enable some debugging options (see below) |
111e032d | 137 | --parse-only Parse options only, don't start any IO |
1cfd036f | 138 | --output Write output to file |
b2cecdc2 | 139 | --runtime Runtime in seconds |
bebe6398 JA |
140 | --latency-log Generate per-job latency logs |
141 | --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs | |
1cfd036f | 142 | --minimal Minimal (terse) output |
f3afa57e | 143 | --output-format=type Output format (terse,json,normal) |
3449ab8c | 144 | --terse-version=type Terse version output format (default 3, or 2 or 4). |
f3afa57e | 145 | --version Print version info and exit |
1cfd036f | 146 | --help Print this page |
23893646 | 147 | --cpuclock-test Perform test/validation of CPU clock |
bebe6398 | 148 | --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them |
de890a1e SL |
149 | --enghelp=engine Print ioengine help, or list available ioengines |
150 | --enghelp=engine,cmd Print help for an ioengine cmd | |
1cfd036f | 151 | --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options |
ad0a2735 | 152 | --readonly Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing |
bebe6398 | 153 | writes |
1cfd036f | 154 | --eta=when When ETA estimate should be printed |
bebe6398 | 155 | May be "always", "never" or "auto" |
e382e661 | 156 | --eta-newline=time Force a new line for every 'time' period passed |
bebe6398 JA |
157 | --section=name Only run specified section in job file. |
158 | Multiple sections can be specified. | |
e7cb819b | 159 | --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024) |
160 | --warnings-fatal Fio parser warnings are fatal | |
fca70358 | 161 | --max-jobs Maximum number of threads/processes to support |
bebe6398 JA |
162 | --server=args Start backend server. See Client/Server section. |
163 | --client=host Connect to specified backend. | |
f2a2ce0e HL |
164 | --idle-prof=option Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis |
165 | (option=system,percpu) or run unit work | |
166 | calibration only (option=calibrate). | |
e592a06b | 167 | |
b4692828 JA |
168 | |
169 | Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files, | |
170 | unless they match a job file parameter. You can add as many as you want, | |
171 | each job file will be regarded as a separate group and fio will stonewall | |
172 | its execution. | |
972cfd25 | 173 | |
ecc314ba | 174 | The --readonly switch is an extra safety guard to prevent accidentally |
724e4435 JA |
175 | turning on a write setting when that is not desired. Fio will only write |
176 | if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given, but this extra safety net can | |
177 | be used as an extra precaution. It will also enable a write check in the | |
178 | io engine core to prevent an accidental write due to a fio bug. | |
179 | ||
ee56ad50 JA |
180 | The debug switch allows adding options that trigger certain logging |
181 | options in fio. Currently the options are: | |
182 | ||
183 | process Dump info related to processes | |
184 | file Dump info related to file actions | |
e7cb819b | 185 | io Dump info related to IO queuing |
186 | mem Dump info related to memory allocations | |
bd6f78b2 JA |
187 | blktrace Dump info related to blktrace setup |
188 | verify Dump info related to IO verification | |
e7cb819b | 189 | all Enable all debug options |
811a0d06 | 190 | random Dump info related to random offset generation |
a3d741fa | 191 | parse Dump info related to option matching and parsing |
cd991b9e | 192 | diskutil Dump info related to disk utilization updates |
5e1d306e | 193 | job:x Dump info only related to job number x |
29adda3c | 194 | mutex Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops |
c223da83 JA |
195 | profile Dump info related to profile extensions |
196 | time Dump info related to internal time keeping | |
bd6f78b2 | 197 | ? or help Show available debug options. |
ee56ad50 JA |
198 | |
199 | You can specify as many as you want, eg --debug=file,mem will enable | |
bd6f78b2 | 200 | file and memory debugging. |
ee56ad50 | 201 | |
01f06b63 JA |
202 | The section switch is meant to make it easier to ship a bigger job file |
203 | instead of several smaller ones. Say you define a job file with light, | |
204 | moderate, and heavy parts. Then you can ask fio to run the given part | |
205 | only by giving it a --section=heavy command line option. The section | |
206 | option only applies to job sections, the reserved 'global' section is | |
207 | always parsed and taken into account. | |
208 | ||
2b386d25 JA |
209 | Fio has an internal allocator for shared memory called smalloc. It |
210 | allocates shared structures from this pool. The pool defaults to 1024k | |
931823ca | 211 | in size, and can grow to 128 pools. If running large jobs with randommap |
2b386d25 | 212 | enabled it can run out of memory, in which case the --alloc-size switch |
931823ca JA |
213 | is handy for starting with a larger pool size. The backing store is |
214 | files in /tmp. Fio cleans up after itself, while it is running you | |
215 | may see .fio_smalloc.* files in /tmp. | |
2b386d25 | 216 | |
79809113 JA |
217 | |
218 | Job file | |
219 | -------- | |
220 | ||
71bfa161 | 221 | See the HOWTO file for a more detailed description of parameters and what |
4661f3d0 JA |
222 | they mean. This file contains the terse version. You can describe big and |
223 | complex setups with the command line, but generally it's a lot easier to | |
71bfa161 | 224 | just write a simple job file to describe the workload. The job file format |
4661f3d0 | 225 | is in the ini style format, as that is easy to read and write for the user. |
79809113 | 226 | |
8079cb46 JA |
227 | The HOWTO or man page has a full list of all options, along with |
228 | descriptions, etc. The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If | |
229 | used with an option argument, it will detail that particular option. | |
79809113 | 230 | |
217bc04b | 231 | |
bebe6398 JA |
232 | Client/server |
233 | ------------ | |
234 | ||
235 | Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine | |
236 | where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to | |
237 | run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to | |
238 | have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should | |
239 | be running, while controlling it from another machine. | |
240 | ||
241 | To start the server, you would do: | |
242 | ||
243 | fio --server=args | |
244 | ||
245 | on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments | |
811826be JA |
246 | are of the form 'type,hostname or IP,port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4) |
247 | for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain socket. | |
248 | 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to | |
249 | listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples: | |
bebe6398 JA |
250 | |
251 | 1) fio --server | |
252 | ||
253 | Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765). | |
254 | ||
811826be | 255 | 2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444 |
bebe6398 JA |
256 | |
257 | Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444. | |
258 | ||
811826be JA |
259 | 3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444 |
260 | ||
261 | Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444. | |
262 | ||
263 | 4) fio --server=,4444 | |
bebe6398 JA |
264 | |
265 | Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444. | |
266 | ||
811826be | 267 | 5) fio --server=1.2.3.4 |
bebe6398 JA |
268 | |
269 | Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port. | |
270 | ||
811826be | 271 | 6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock |
bebe6398 JA |
272 | |
273 | Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock. | |
274 | ||
275 | When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client | |
276 | is run with: | |
277 | ||
278 | fio --local-args --client=server --remote-args <job file(s)> | |
279 | ||
280 | where --local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is | |
281 | running, 'server' is the connect string, and --remote-args and <job file(s)> | |
282 | are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it | |
283 | does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings. | |
284 | You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run: | |
285 | ||
a7321eed | 286 | fio --client=server2 <job file(s)> --client=server2 <job file(s)> |
bebe6398 JA |
287 | |
288 | ||
217bc04b JA |
289 | Platforms |
290 | --------- | |
291 | ||
ce600ac9 JA |
292 | Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, Windows |
293 | and FreeBSD. Some features and/or options may only be available on some of | |
294 | the platforms, typically because those features only apply to that platform | |
295 | (like the solarisaio engine, or the splice engine on Linux). | |
217bc04b JA |
296 | |
297 | Some features are not available on FreeBSD/Solaris even if they could be | |
298 | implemented, I'd be happy to take patches for that. An example of that is | |
299 | disk utility statistics and (I think) huge page support, support for that | |
300 | does exist in FreeBSD/Solaris. | |
301 | ||
302 | Fio uses pthread mutexes for signalling and locking and FreeBSD does not | |
303 | support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, only threads are | |
304 | supported on FreeBSD. This could be fixed with sysv ipc locking or | |
305 | other locking alternatives. | |
306 | ||
307 | Other *BSD platforms are untested, but fio should work there almost out | |
308 | of the box. Since I don't do test runs or even compiles on those platforms, | |
309 | your mileage may vary. Sending me patches for other platforms is greatly | |
310 | appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool | |
311 | available on all platforms. | |
312 | ||
bf2e821a CC |
313 | Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. If you get messages like: |
314 | ||
315 | Symbol resolution failed for /usr/lib/libc.a(posix_aio.o) because: | |
316 | Symbol _posix_kaio_rdwr (number 2) is not exported from dependent module /unix. | |
317 | ||
318 | you need to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root: | |
319 | ||
320 | # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0 | |
321 | posix_aio0 Defined Posix Asynchronous I/O | |
322 | # cfgmgr -l posix_aio0 | |
323 | # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0 | |
324 | posix_aio0 Available Posix Asynchronous I/O | |
325 | ||
326 | POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent: | |
327 | ||
328 | # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available' | |
329 | posix_aio0 changed | |
217bc04b JA |
330 | |
331 | ||
79809113 JA |
332 | Author |
333 | ------ | |
334 | ||
aae22ca7 | 335 | Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing |
79809113 JA |
336 | of the Linux IO subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing |
337 | specific test applications to simulate a given workload, and found that | |
338 | the existing io benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough | |
339 | to do what he wanted. | |
340 | ||
aae22ca7 | 341 | Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905 |
79809113 | 342 |