server: properly reset state_number in fio_reset_state()
[fio.git] / HOWTO
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1Table of contents
2-----------------
3
41. Overview
52. How fio works
63. Running fio
74. Job file format
85. Detailed list of parameters
96. Normal output
107. Terse output
25c8b9d7 118. Trace file format
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12
131.0 Overview and history
14------------------------
15fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test
16case programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for
17performance reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing
18such a test app can be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.
19Hence I needed a tool that would be able to simulate a given io workload
20without resorting to writing a tailored test case again and again.
21
22A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number
23of processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own
24way of generating io. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of
25memory in an memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing
26reads using asynchronous io. fio needed to be flexible enough to
27simulate both of these cases, and many more.
28
292.0 How fio works
30-----------------
31The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired io workload, is
32writing a job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain
33any number of threads and/or files - the typical contents of the job file
34is a global section defining shared parameters, and one or more job
35sections describing the jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file
36and sets everything up as described. If we break down a job from top to
37bottom, it contains the following basic parameters:
38
39 IO type Defines the io pattern issued to the file(s).
40 We may only be reading sequentially from this
41 file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
42 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
43
44 Block size In how large chunks are we issuing io? This may be
45 a single value, or it may describe a range of
46 block sizes.
47
48 IO size How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
49
50 IO engine How do we issue io? We could be memory mapping the
51 file, we could be using regular read/write, we
d0ff85df 52 could be using splice, async io, syslet, or even
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53 SG (SCSI generic sg).
54
6c219763 55 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
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56 depth do we want to maintain?
57
58 IO type Should we be doing buffered io, or direct/raw io?
59
60 Num files How many files are we spreading the workload over.
61
62 Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
63 this workload over.
64
65The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
66there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
67job behaves.
68
69
703.0 Running fio
71---------------
72See the README file for command line parameters, there are only a few
73of them.
74
75Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
76(or job files) as parameters:
77
78$ fio job_file
79
80and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
81more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
82of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
83parameter described the the parameter section.
84
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85If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
86parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
87to the job parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters
88(see README). For example, for the job file parameter iodepth=2, the
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89mirror command line option would be --iodepth 2 or --iodepth=2. You can
90also use the command line for giving more than one job entry. For each
91--name option that fio sees, it will start a new job with that name.
92Command line entries following a --name entry will apply to that job,
93until there are no more entries or a new --name entry is seen. This is
94similar to the job file options, where each option applies to the current
95job until a new [] job entry is seen.
b4692828 96
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97fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified
98in the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted,
6c219763 99such as memory locking, io scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.
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100
101
1024.0 Job file format
103-------------------
104As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing
105what it is supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file,
106where the names enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free
107to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
108A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
109may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
110several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
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111section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
112'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
71bfa161 113
3c54bc46 114So let's look at a really simple job file that defines two processes, each
b22989b9 115randomly reading from a 128MB file.
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116
117; -- start job file --
118[global]
119rw=randread
120size=128m
121
122[job1]
123
124[job2]
125
126; -- end job file --
127
128As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the
129described parameters are shared. As no filename= option is given, fio
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130makes up a filename for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command
131line, this job would look as follows:
132
133$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
134
71bfa161 135
3c54bc46 136Let's look at an example that has a number of processes writing randomly
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137to files.
138
139; -- start job file --
140[random-writers]
141ioengine=libaio
142iodepth=4
143rw=randwrite
144bs=32k
145direct=0
146size=64m
147numjobs=4
148
149; -- end job file --
150
151Here we have no global section, as we only have one job defined anyway.
152We want to use async io here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also
b22989b9 153increased the buffer size used to 32KB and define numjobs to 4 to
71bfa161 154fork 4 identical jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing
b22989b9 155to their own 64MB file. Instead of using the above job file, you could
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156have given the parameters on the command line. For this case, you would
157specify:
158
159$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
71bfa161 160
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1614.1 Environment variables
162-------------------------
163
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164fio also supports environment variable expansion in job files. Any
165substring of the form "${VARNAME}" as part of an option value (in other
166words, on the right of the `='), will be expanded to the value of the
167environment variable called VARNAME. If no such environment variable
168is defined, or VARNAME is the empty string, the empty string will be
169substituted.
170
171As an example, let's look at a sample fio invocation and job file:
172
173$ SIZE=64m NUMJOBS=4 fio jobfile.fio
174
175; -- start job file --
176[random-writers]
177rw=randwrite
178size=${SIZE}
179numjobs=${NUMJOBS}
180; -- end job file --
181
182This will expand to the following equivalent job file at runtime:
183
184; -- start job file --
185[random-writers]
186rw=randwrite
187size=64m
188numjobs=4
189; -- end job file --
190
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191fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
192inspiration.
193
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1944.2 Reserved keywords
195---------------------
196
197Additionally, fio has a set of reserved keywords that will be replaced
198internally with the appropriate value. Those keywords are:
199
200$pagesize The architecture page size of the running system
201$mb_memory Megabytes of total memory in the system
202$ncpus Number of online available CPUs
203
204These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
205automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
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206is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
207perform actions like:
208
209size=8*$mb_memory
210
211and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
212machine.
74929ac2 213
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214
2155.0 Detailed list of parameters
216-------------------------------
217
218This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
219Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
220a string. The following types are used:
221
222str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
b09da8fa 223time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
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224 specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
225 minutes, and hours.
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226int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
227 describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
228 meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
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229 sensitive, and you may also include trailing 'b' (eg 'kb' is the same
230 as 'k'). So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
b09da8fa 231 out '4096' or just give 4k. The suffixes signify base 2 values, so
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232 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on, unless the suffix is explicitly
233 set to a base 10 value using 'kib', 'mib', 'gib', etc. If that is the
234 case, then 1000 is used as the multiplier. This can be handy for
235 disks, since manufacturers generally use base 10 values when listing
236 the capacity of a drive. If the option accepts an upper and lower
237 range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values. May also
238 include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used, the number
239 is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
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240bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
241 true and false (1 and 0).
b09da8fa 242irange Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such
bf9a3edb 243 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the separator, eg
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244 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
245 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
f7fa2653 246 int.
83349190 247float_list A list of floating numbers, separated by a ':' character.
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248
249With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
250parameters.
251
252name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
253 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
c2b1e753 254 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
6c219763 255 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
c2b1e753 256 job.
71bfa161 257
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258description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
259 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
260 not parsed.
261
3776041e 262directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
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263 in a different location than "./".
264
265filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
266 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
267 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
ed92ac0c 268 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
414c2a3e 269 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host, port,
0fd666bf 270 and protocol to use in the format of =host,port,protocol.
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271 See ioengine=net for more. If the ioengine is file based, you
272 can specify a number of files by separating the names with a
273 ':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
274 as the two working files, you would use
03e20d68 275 filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. On Windows, disk devices are accessed
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276 as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first device, \\.\PhysicalDrive1
277 for the second etc. If the wanted filename does need to
278 include a colon, then escape that with a '\' character.
279 For instance, if the filename is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c",
280 then you would use filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c".
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281 '-' is a reserved name, meaning stdin or stdout. Which of the
282 two depends on the read/write direction set.
71bfa161 283
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284opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
285 directory and down the file system tree.
286
3776041e 287lockfile=str Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does
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288 IO to them. If a file or file descriptor is shared, fio
289 can serialize IO to that file to make the end result
290 consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that
291 share files. The lock modes are:
292
293 none No locking. The default.
294 exclusive Only one thread/process may do IO,
295 excluding all others.
296 readwrite Read-write locking on the file. Many
297 readers may access the file at the
298 same time, but writes get exclusive
299 access.
300
301 The option may be post-fixed with a lock batch number. If
302 set, then each thread/process may do that amount of IOs to
bf9a3edb 303 the file before giving up the lock. Since lock acquisition is
4d4e80f2 304 expensive, batching the lock/unlocks will speed up IO.
29c1349f 305
d3aad8f2 306readwrite=str
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307rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
308
309 read Sequential reads
310 write Sequential writes
311 randwrite Random writes
312 randread Random reads
10b023db 313 rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
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314 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
315
316 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
317 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
211097b2 318 since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
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319 a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
320 one by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
321 For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
059b0802 322 passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
ddb754db 323 suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
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324 specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO.
325 For instance, using rw=write:4k will skip 4k for every
326 write. It turns sequential IO into sequential IO with holes.
327 See the 'rw_sequencer' option.
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328
329rw_sequencer=str If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to
330 the rw=<str> line, then this option controls how that
331 number modifies the IO offset being generated. Accepted
332 values are:
333
334 sequential Generate sequential offset
335 identical Generate the same offset
336
337 'sequential' is only useful for random IO, where fio would
338 normally generate a new random offset for every IO. If you
339 append eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
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340 every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
341 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
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342 that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting
343 'sequential' for that would not result in any differences.
344 'identical' behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends
345 the same offset 8 number of times before generating a new
346 offset.
71bfa161 347
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348kb_base=int The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024.
349 Storage manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base
350 ten unit instead, for obvious reasons. Allow values are
351 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
352
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353randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
354 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
355
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356use_os_rand=bool Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS
357 to generator random offsets, or it can use it's own internal
358 generator (based on Tausworthe). Default is to use the
359 internal generator, which is often of better quality and
360 faster.
361
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362fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
363 Accepted values are:
364
365 none Do not pre-allocate space
366 posix Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate()
367 keep Pre-allocate via fallocate() with
368 FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set
369 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'
370 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'
371
372 May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
373 available on Linux.If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to
374 'none' because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
7bc8c2cf 375
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376fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
377 on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
378 want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
379 kernel about it, in which case you can disable this option.
380 If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
381 IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
382
f7fa2653 383size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
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384 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
385 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
3776041e 386 Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
7616cafe 387 fio will divide this size between the available files
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388 specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
389 size of the given files or devices. If the the files
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390 do not exist, size must be given. It is also possible to
391 give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20%
392 is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
393 files or devices.
71bfa161 394
f7fa2653 395filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
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396 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
397 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
398 given, each created file is the same size.
399
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400fill_device=bool
401fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
aa31f1f1 402 space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
3ce9dcaf 403 sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
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404 point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
405 option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
406 since the size of that is already known by the file system.
407 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
408 ENOSPC there.
aa31f1f1 409
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410blocksize=int
411bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
412 can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
413 given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
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414 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
415 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
416 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
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417 for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
418 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
419 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
a00735e6 420
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421blockalign=int
422ba=int At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to
423 the same as 'blocksize' the minimum blocksize given.
424 Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO,
425 though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This
426 option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for
427 files, so it will turn off that option.
428
d3aad8f2 429blocksize_range=irange
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430bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
431 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
432 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
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433 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
434 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
435 See bs=.
a00735e6 436
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437bssplit=str Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the
438 block sizes issued, not just an even split between them.
439 This option allows you to weight various block sizes,
440 so that you are able to define a specific amount of
441 block sizes issued. The format for this option is:
442
443 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
444
445 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define
446 a workload that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and
447 40% 32k blocks, you would write:
448
449 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
450
451 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank,
452 fio will fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit
453 option like this one:
454
455 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
456
457 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages
458 always add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds
459 up to more, it will error out.
460
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461 bssplit also supports giving separate splits to reads and
462 writes. The format is identical to what bs= accepts. You
463 have to separate the read and write parts with a comma. So
464 if you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads,
465 while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
466 specify:
467
468 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90,8k/10
469
d3aad8f2 470blocksize_unaligned
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471bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
472 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
473 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
71bfa161 474
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475zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
476 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
477
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478refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
479 on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
480 time and reuse that data. Only makes sense if zero_buffers
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481 isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
482 refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
5973cafb 483
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484scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
485 using data deduplication, then setting this option will
486 slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
487 de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
488 block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
489 blocks. Default: true.
490
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491buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
492 provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
493 the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
494 random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
495 unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
496 this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
497
498buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
499 setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
500 data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
501 provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
502 data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
503 to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
504 alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
505 buffer.
506
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507nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
508
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509openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
510 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
511 simultaneous opens.
512
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513file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
514 service next. The following types are defined:
515
516 random Just choose a file at random.
517
518 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
519 is the default.
520
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521 sequential Finish one file before moving on to
522 the next. Multiple files can still be
523 open depending on 'openfiles'.
524
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525 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
526 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
527 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
528 have been issued.
529
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530ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
531 types are defined:
532
533 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
534 used to position the io location.
535
a31041ea 536 psync Basic pread(2) or pwrite(2) io.
537
e05af9e5 538 vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
1d2af02a 539
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540 libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
541 may only support queued behaviour with
542 non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
de890a1e 543 This engine defines engine specific options.
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544
545 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
546
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547 solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
548
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549 windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
550
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551 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
552 to/from using memcpy(3).
553
554 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
555 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
556 space to the kernel.
557
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558 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
559 regular read/write async.
560
71bfa161 561 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
6c219763 562 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
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563 the target is an sg character device
564 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
565 io.
566
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567 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
568 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
569 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
570
ed92ac0c 571 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
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572 Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
573 port, listen and filename options are used to
574 specify what sort of connection to make, while
575 the protocol option determines which protocol
576 will be used.
577 This engine defines engine specific options.
ed92ac0c 578
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579 netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
580 map data and send/receive.
de890a1e 581 This engine defines engine specific options.
9cce02e8 582
53aec0a4 583 cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
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584 cycles according to the cpuload= and
585 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
586 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
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587 85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
588 use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
589 usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
590 CPU at the desired rate.
ba0fbe10 591
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592 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
593 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
594 to async IO. See
595
596 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
597
598 for more info on GUASI.
599
21b8aee8 600 rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
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601 memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
602 channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
603 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
21b8aee8 604
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605 falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
606 simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
607 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
0981fd71 608 DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
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609 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
610
611 e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
612 ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
613 request to DDIR_WRITE event
0981fd71 614
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615 external Prefix to specify loading an external
616 IO engine object file. Append the engine
617 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
618 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
619
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620iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
621 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
622 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
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623 concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
624 affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
9b836561 625 verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
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626 restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
627 This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
628 direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
629 eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
630 that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
71bfa161 631
4950421a 632iodepth_batch_submit=int
cb5ab512 633iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
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634 It defaults to 1 which means that we submit each IO
635 as soon as it is available, but can be raised to submit
636 bigger batches of IO at the time.
cb5ab512 637
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638iodepth_batch_complete=int This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve
639 at once. It defaults to 1 which means that we'll ask
640 for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from
641 the kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we
642 hit the limit set by iodepth_low. If this variable is
643 set to 0, then fio will always check for completed
644 events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce
645 IO latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
646
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647iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
648 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
649 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
650 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
651 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
652 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
653
71bfa161 654direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
9b836561 655 O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
93bcfd20 656 On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
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657
658buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
659 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
71bfa161 660
f7fa2653 661offset=int Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
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662 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
663 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
664
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665offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
666 the offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the
667 thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented
668 for each job. This option is useful if there are several jobs
669 which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in disjoint
670 segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
671
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672fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
673 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
674 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
675 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
676 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
6c219763 677 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
71bfa161 678
e76b1da4 679fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
5f9099ea 680 metadata blocks.
93bcfd20 681 In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
e72fa4d4 682 using fsync()
5f9099ea 683
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684sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
685 write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
686 have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
687 can currently be one or more of:
688
689 wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
690 write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
691 wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
692
693 So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
694 use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
695 every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
696 This option is Linux specific.
697
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698overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
699 data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
700 created before the write phase begins. If the file exists
701 and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
702 will be done.
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703
704end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when the job exits.
705
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706fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
707 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
708 file close, not just at the end of the job.
709
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710rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
711
712rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
713 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
714 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
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715 the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting,
716 if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
717 If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
71bfa161 718
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719norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
720 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
721 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
722 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
723 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
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724 is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
725 blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
726 complete rewrites of blocks.
bb8895e0 727
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728softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
729 enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
730 set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
731 will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
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732 disabled by default.
733
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734nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
735
736prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
737 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
738 See man ionice(1).
739
740prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
741
742thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
743 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
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744 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
745 thinktime_spin.
746
747thinktime_spin=int
748 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
749 doing something with the data received, before falling back
750 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
751 thinktime.
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752
753thinktime_blocks
754 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
755 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
756 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
757 after every block.
71bfa161 758
581e7141 759rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
b09da8fa 760 the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
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761 reads and writes to 500k each, or you can specify read and
762 writes separately. Using rate=1m,500k would limit reads to
763 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or
764 writes can be done with rate=,500k or rate=500k,. The former
765 will only limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only
766 limit reads.
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767
768ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
4e991c23 769 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
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770 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for
771 read vs write separation.
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772
773rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
774 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
775 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
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776 the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
777 as rate is used for read vs write seperation.
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778
779rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
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780 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
781 write seperation.
71bfa161 782
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783max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
784 latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
785
71bfa161 786ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
6c219763 787 of milliseconds.
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788
789cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
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790 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. So if you want
791 the allowed CPUs to be 1 and 5, you would pass the decimal
792 value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
7dbb6eba 793 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
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794 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't
795 work well for a higher CPU count than what you can store in
796 an integer mask, so it can only control cpus 1-32. For
797 boxes with larger CPU counts, use cpus_allowed.
71bfa161 798
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799cpus_allowed=str Controls the same options as cpumask, but it allows a text
800 setting of the permitted CPUs instead. So to use CPUs 1 and
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801 5, you would specify cpus_allowed=1,5. This options also
802 allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
803 1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
d2e268b0 804
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805numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
806 arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
807 A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
808 export the following environment variables,
809 export EXTFLAGS+=" -DFIO_HAVE_LIBNUMA "
810 export EXTLIBS+=" -lnuma "
811
812numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
813 nodes. Format of the argements:
814 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
815 `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
816 default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
817 For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
818 needed to be specified.
819 For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
820 For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
821 list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
822
e417fd66 823startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
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824 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
825 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
826 time.
827
e417fd66 828runtime=time Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
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829 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
830 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
831 cap the total runtime to a given time.
832
cf4464ca 833time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
bf9a3edb 834 specified even if the file(s) are completely read or
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835 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
836 as many times as the runtime allows.
837
e417fd66 838ramp_time=time If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount
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839 of time before logging any performance numbers. Useful for
840 letting performance settle before logging results, thus
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841 minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
842 that the ramp_time is considered lead in time for a job,
843 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout
844 or runtime is specified.
721938ae 845
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846invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
847 to starting io. Defaults to true.
848
849sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
850 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
851
d3aad8f2 852iomem=str
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853mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
854 The allowed values are:
855
856 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
857
858 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
859 through shmget(2).
860
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861 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
862
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863 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
864 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
865 a filename is given after the option. The
866 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
71bfa161 867
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868 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
869 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
870 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
871
71bfa161 872 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
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873 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
874 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
875 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
876 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
b22989b9 877 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MB in size. So
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878 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
879 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
880 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
881 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
882 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
883 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
56bb17f2 884 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
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885
886 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
887 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
888 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
71bfa161 889
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890iomem_align=int This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers.
891 Note that the given alignment is applied to the first IO unit
892 buffer, if using iodepth the alignment of the following buffers
893 are given by the bs used. In other words, if using a bs that is
894 a multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will
895 be aligned to this value. If using a bs that is not page
896 aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
897 sum of the iomem_align and bs used.
898
f7fa2653 899hugepage-size=int
56bb17f2 900 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
b22989b9 901 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MB.
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902 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
903 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
904 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
56bb17f2 905
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906exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
907 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
908 desired action.
909
910bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
6c219763 911 is specified in milliseconds.
71bfa161 912
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913iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
914 is specified in milliseconds.
915
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916create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
917 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
918 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
919 used and even the number of processors in the system.
920
921create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
922 default.
923
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924create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
925 when it's time to do IO to that file.
926
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927create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
928 If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
929 that will be done. The actual job contents are not
930 executed.
931
afad68f7 932pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
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933 starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
934 the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
9c0d2241
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935 and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO engines
936 that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
937 multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice
938 IO.
afad68f7 939
e545a6ce 940unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
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941 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the file
942 set again and again.
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943
944loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
945 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
946 to 1.
947
68e1f29a 948do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
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SL
949 verify is set. Defaults to 1.
950
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951verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
952 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
953
954 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
955 it in the header of each block.
956
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957 crc64 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data
958 area and store it in the header of each
959 block.
960
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961 crc32c Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store
962 it in the header of each block.
963
3845591f 964 crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
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JA
965 provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
966 back to regular software crc32c, if not
967 supported by the system.
3845591f 968
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969 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
970 it in the header of each block.
971
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972 crc16 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store
973 it in the header of each block.
974
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975 crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
976 it in the header of each block.
977
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978 sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
979
980 sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
981
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982 sha1 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
983
7437ee87
SL
984 meta Write extra information about each io
985 (timestamp, block number etc.). The block
996093bb 986 number is verified. See also verify_pattern.
7437ee87 987
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988 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
989 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
990 else.
991
6c219763 992 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
71bfa161 993 system to make sure that the written data is also
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994 correctly read back. If the data direction given is
995 a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
996 verify a previously written file. If the data direction
997 includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
998 newly written data.
71bfa161 999
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1000verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
1001 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
1002 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
1003 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
1004 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
1005 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
1006 significant.
3f9f4e26 1007
f7fa2653 1008verify_offset=int Swap the verification header with data somewhere else
546a9142
SL
1009 in the block before writing. Its swapped back before
1010 verifying.
1011
f7fa2653 1012verify_interval=int Write the verification header at a finer granularity
3f9f4e26
SL
1013 than the blocksize. It will be written for chunks the
1014 size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
1015 evenly.
90059d65 1016
0e92f873 1017verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
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SL
1018 pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
1019 bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1020 pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
1021 width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
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RR
1022 buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
1023 The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
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JA
1024 be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
1025 with verify=meta.
e28218f3 1026
68e1f29a 1027verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
a12a3b4d
JA
1028 before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
1029 option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
1030 failure.
e8462bd8 1031
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1032verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
1033 block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
1034 allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
ef71e317 1035 corruption occurred. Off by default.
b463e936 1036
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1037verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
1038 thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
1039 async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
1040 causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
c85c324c
JA
1041 to one or more separate threads. If using this offload
1042 option, even sync IO engines can benefit from using an
1043 iodepth setting higher than 1, as it allows them to have
1044 IO in flight while verifies are running.
e8462bd8
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1045
1046verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
1047 async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
1048 format used.
6f87418f
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1049
1050verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
1051 job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
1052 other words, everything is written then everything is read
1053 back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1054 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
1055 associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
1056 verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
1057 holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
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JA
1058 will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1059
6f87418f
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1060 will verify the previously written blocks before continuing
1061 to write new ones.
1062
1063verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
1064 if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
1065 the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
f42195a3
JA
1066 is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
1067 less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
1068 if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
1069 blocks will be verified more than once.
160b966d 1070
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JA
1071stonewall
1072wait_for_previous Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
71bfa161 1073 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
b3d62a75
JA
1074 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
1075 a new reporting group.
1076
abcab6af 1077new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
71bfa161
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1078
1079numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
1080 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
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AV
1081 the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
1082 statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
1083 conjunction with new_group.
1084
1085group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
04b2f799
JA
1086 groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
1087 This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
1088 individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
1089 To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
1090 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
1091 reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
1092 using 'new_group'.
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1093
1094thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
1095 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
1096 instead.
1097
f7fa2653 1098zonesize=int Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
71bfa161 1099
f7fa2653 1100zoneskip=int Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
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1101 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
1102 io on zones of a file.
1103
076efc7c 1104write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
5b42a488
SH
1105 read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
1106 the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
71bfa161 1107
076efc7c 1108read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
71bfa161 1109 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
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JA
1110 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
1111 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
1112 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
1113 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
1114 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
ea3e51c3 1115 file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
64bbb865
DN
1116
1117replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
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1118 is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
1119 replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
1120 setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
1121 attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
1122 respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
1123 given device, but different timings.
71bfa161 1124
d1c46c04
DN
1125replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
1126 default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
1127 device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
1128 undesireable because on a different machine those major/minor
1129 numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
1130 the same system can also result in a different major/minor
1131 mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
1132 the single specified device regardless of the device it was
1133 recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
1134 IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
1135 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
1136 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
1137 replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
1138 blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
1139 independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
1140 the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
1141
e3cedca7 1142write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
71bfa161 1143 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
e0da9bc2
JA
1144 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
1145 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
ddb754db
LAG
1146 graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
1147 filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.log.
71bfa161 1148
e3cedca7 1149write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
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JA
1150 submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
1151 filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1152 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1153 fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
e3cedca7
JA
1154
1155 write_lat_log=foo
1156
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1157 The actual log names will be foo_slat.log, foo_slat.log,
1158 and foo_lat.log. This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs
1159 automatically.
71bfa161 1160
c8eeb9df
JA
1161write_bw_log=str If given, write an IOPS log of the jobs in this job
1162 file. See write_bw_log.
1163
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JA
1164write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
1165 given with this option, the default filename of
1166 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1167 fio will still append the type of log.
1168
1169log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
1170 or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
1171 disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
1172 this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
1173 specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1174 Defaults to 0.
1175
f7fa2653 1176lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
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1177 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
1178 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
1179
1180exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
1181 through system(3).
1182
1183exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
1184 though system(3).
1185
1186ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
1187 io scheduler before running.
1188
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JA
1189disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
1190 supports it. Defaults to on.
1191
02af0988 1192disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
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JA
1193 only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
1194 as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
1195 Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1196 calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
1197 disable_bw as well.
1198
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JA
1199disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
1200 disable_lat.
1201
9520ebb9 1202disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
02af0988 1203 disable_slat.
9520ebb9
JA
1204
1205disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
02af0988 1206 disable_lat.
9520ebb9 1207
83349190
YH
1208clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
1209 completion latencies.
1210
1211percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
1212 for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
1213 number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
1214 the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
1215 list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
1216 --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
1217 the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
1218 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1219
993bf48b
JA
1220gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
1221 (disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
1222 precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink
1223 the gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled,
1224 we only do about 0.4% of the gtod() calls we would have
1225 done if all time keeping was enabled.
1226
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JA
1227gtod_cpu=int Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of
1228 execution to just getting the current time. Fio (and
1229 databases, for instance) are very intensive on gettimeofday()
1230 calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for
1231 doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
1232 location. Then the other threads/processes that run IO
1233 workloads need only copy that segment, instead of entering
1234 the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside
1235 for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
1236 uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
1237 jobs.
a696fa2a 1238
06842027 1239continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
f2bba182
RR
1240 failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
1241 there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
1242 is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
1243 option is used, there are two more stats that are appended,
1244 the total error count and the first error. The error field
1245 given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
1246 run.
be4ecfdf 1247
06842027
SL
1248 The allowed values are:
1249
1250 none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
1251
1252 read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
1253
1254 write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
1255
1256 io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
1257
1258 verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
1259
1260 all Continue on all errors.
1261
1262 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
1263
1264 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
1265
8b28bd41
DM
1266ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
1267 in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
1268 ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1269 errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
1270 may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
1271 Example:
1272 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
1273 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
1274 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
1275
1276error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
1277 by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
1278
6adb38a1
JA
1279cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
1280 be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
1281 mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
1282 mounted, you can do so with:
a696fa2a
JA
1283
1284 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
1285
a696fa2a
JA
1286cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
1287 the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
1288 are in the range of 100..1000.
71bfa161 1289
7de87099
VG
1290cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
1291 the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
1292 cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
1293 This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
1294 files after job completion. Default: false
1295
e0b0d892
JA
1296uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
1297 this value before the thread/process does any work.
1298
1299gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
1300
9e684a49
DE
1301flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
1302 global flow. See flow.
1303
1304flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
1305 there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
1306 proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
1307 to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
1308 stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
1309 counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
1310 one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
1311 will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1312
1313flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
1314 counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
1315 lower value of the counter.
1316
1317flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
1318 watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
1319
de890a1e
SL
1320In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
1321ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
1322caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
1323that defines them is selected.
1324
1325[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1326 the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1327 With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1328 from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1329 enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1330 iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1331
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JA
1332[cpu] cpuload=int Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1333
1334[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
1335 microseconds.
1336
de890a1e
SL
1337[netsplice] hostname=str
1338[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1339 If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1340 used and must be omitted.
1341
1342[netsplice] port=int
1343[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
1344
1345[netsplice] protocol=str
1346[netsplice] proto=str
1347[net] protocol=str
1348[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1349
1350 tcp Transmission control protocol
f5cc3d0e 1351 udp User datagram protocol
de890a1e
SL
1352 unix UNIX domain socket
1353
1354 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1355 as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1356 reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1357 used and the port is invalid.
1358
1359[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1360 connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1361 hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
d54fce84
DM
1362[e4defrag] donorname=str
1363 File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
1364[e4defrag] inplace=int
1365 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
1366 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
1367 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
1368 and free right after event
1369
de890a1e
SL
1370
1371
71bfa161
JA
13726.0 Interpreting the output
1373---------------------------
1374
1375fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
1376status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
1377
73c8b082 1378Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
71bfa161
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1379
1380The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
1381each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
1382
1383Idle Run
1384---- ---
1385P Thread setup, but not started.
1386C Thread created.
9c6f6316 1387I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
b0f65863 1388 p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
71bfa161
JA
1389 R Running, doing sequential reads.
1390 r Running, doing random reads.
1391 W Running, doing sequential writes.
1392 w Running, doing random writes.
1393 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1394 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1395 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
fc6bd43c 1396 V Running, doing verification of written data.
71bfa161 1397E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
4f7e57a4
JA
1398_ Thread reaped, or
1399X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
a5e371a6 1400K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
71bfa161
JA
1401
1402The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
c9f60304
JA
1403currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
1404listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
1405and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
4f7e57a4
JA
1406the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
1407so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
1408first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
71bfa161
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1409
1410When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
1411each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
1412direction, the output looks like:
1413
1414Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
35649e58 1415 write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
6104ddb6
JA
1416 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
1417 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
b22989b9 1418 bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
e7823a94 1419 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969, majf=0, minf=17
71619dc2 1420 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
838bc709
JA
1421 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
1422 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
30061b97 1423 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
8abdce66
JA
1424 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
1425 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
71bfa161
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1426
1427The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
1428thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
1429they denote:
1430
1431io= Number of megabytes io performed
1432bw= Average bandwidth rate
35649e58 1433iops= Average IOs performed per second
71bfa161 1434runt= The runtime of that thread
72fbda2a 1435 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
71bfa161
JA
1436 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
1437 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
8a35c71e 1438 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
bf9a3edb 1439 value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
8a35c71e 1440 the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
0d237712
LAG
1441 above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
1442 latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
71bfa161
JA
1443 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
1444 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
1445 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
1446 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
1447 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
1448 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
1449 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
1450 this thread received in this group. This last value is
1451 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
1452 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
1453cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
e7823a94
JA
1454 of context switches this thread went through, usage of
1455 system and user time, and finally the number of major
1456 and minor page faults.
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JA
1457IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
1458 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
1459 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
1460 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
1461 range from 16 to 31.
838bc709
JA
1462IO submit= How many pieces of IO were submitting in a single submit
1463 call. Each entry denotes that amount and below, until
1464 the previous entry - eg, 8=100% mean that we submitted
1465 anywhere in between 5-8 ios per submit call.
1466IO complete= Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
30061b97
JA
1467IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
1468 of them were short.
ec118304
JA
1469IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
1470 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
1471 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
1472 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
8abdce66
JA
1473 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
1474 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
71bfa161
JA
1475
1476After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
1477will look like this:
1478
1479Run status group 0 (all jobs):
b22989b9
JA
1480 READ: io=64MB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
1481 WRITE: io=64MB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
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JA
1482
1483For each data direction, it prints:
1484
1485io= Number of megabytes io performed.
1486aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
1487minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1488maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1489mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
1490maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
1491
1492And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
1493
1494Disk stats (read/write):
1495 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
1496
1497Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
1498numbers denote:
1499
1500ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
1501merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
1502ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1503io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
1504util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
1505 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
1506
8423bd11
JA
1507It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1508running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
1509
71bfa161
JA
1510
15117.0 Terse output
1512----------------
1513
1514For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
6af019c9 1515of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
71bfa161
JA
1516The format is one long line of values, such as:
1517
562c2d2f
DN
15182;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%
1519A description of this job goes here.
1520
1521The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
71bfa161 1522
525c2bfa
JA
1523To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
1524value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
1525be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
1526signify that change.
6820cb3b 1527
71bfa161
JA
1528Split up, the format is as follows:
1529
5e726d0a 1530 terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
71bfa161 1531 READ status:
312b4af2 1532 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1533 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1534 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1535 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1536 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1537 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161 1538 WRITE status:
312b4af2 1539 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1540 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1541 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1542 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1543 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1544 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
046ee302 1545 CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
2270890c 1546 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
562c2d2f
DN
1547 IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1548 IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
f2f788dd
JA
1549 Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
1550 Read merges, write merges,
1551 Read ticks, write ticks,
3d7cd9b4 1552 Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
562c2d2f
DN
1553 Additional Info (dependant on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
1554
f42195a3 1555 Additional Info (dependant on description being set): Text description
25c8b9d7 1556
1db92cb6
JA
1557Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
1558for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
1559
1560 1.00%=6112
1561
1562which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
1563
f2f788dd
JA
1564For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
1565there will be a disk utilization section.
1566
25c8b9d7
PD
1567
15688.0 Trace file format
1569---------------------
1570There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
1571is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
1572below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
1573
1574In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
1575
1576
15778.1 Trace file format v1
1578------------------------
1579Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
1580
1581rw, offset, length
1582
1583where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
1584
1585This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
1586
1587
15888.2 Trace file format v2
1589------------------------
1590The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
1591It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
1592possible file actions.
1593
1594The first line of the trace file has to be:
1595
1596fio version 2 iolog
1597
1598Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
1599
1600The file management format:
1601
1602filename action
1603
1604The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
1605
1606add Add the given filename to the trace
1607open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
1608 been added with the add action before.
1609close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
1610 opened before.
1611
1612
1613The file io action format:
1614
1615filename action offset length
1616
1617The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
1618before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
1619bytes. The action can be one of these:
1620
1621wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
1622read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1623write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1624sync fsync() the file
1625datasync fdatasync() the file
1626trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes