mtd: Import libmtd with modifications to make it compile
[fio.git] / HOWTO
CommitLineData
71bfa161
JA
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
43f09da1 129. CPU idleness profiling
71bfa161
JA
13
141.0 Overview and history
15------------------------
16fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test
17case programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for
18performance reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing
19such a test app can be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.
20Hence I needed a tool that would be able to simulate a given io workload
21without resorting to writing a tailored test case again and again.
22
23A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number
24of processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own
25way of generating io. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of
26memory in an memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing
27reads using asynchronous io. fio needed to be flexible enough to
28simulate both of these cases, and many more.
29
302.0 How fio works
31-----------------
32The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired io workload, is
33writing a job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain
34any number of threads and/or files - the typical contents of the job file
35is a global section defining shared parameters, and one or more job
36sections describing the jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file
37and sets everything up as described. If we break down a job from top to
38bottom, it contains the following basic parameters:
39
40 IO type Defines the io pattern issued to the file(s).
41 We may only be reading sequentially from this
42 file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
43 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
44
45 Block size In how large chunks are we issuing io? This may be
46 a single value, or it may describe a range of
47 block sizes.
48
49 IO size How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
50
51 IO engine How do we issue io? We could be memory mapping the
52 file, we could be using regular read/write, we
d0ff85df 53 could be using splice, async io, syslet, or even
71bfa161
JA
54 SG (SCSI generic sg).
55
6c219763 56 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
71bfa161
JA
57 depth do we want to maintain?
58
59 IO type Should we be doing buffered io, or direct/raw io?
60
61 Num files How many files are we spreading the workload over.
62
63 Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
64 this workload over.
66c098b8 65
71bfa161
JA
66The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
67there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
68job behaves.
69
70
713.0 Running fio
72---------------
73See the README file for command line parameters, there are only a few
74of them.
75
76Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
77(or job files) as parameters:
78
79$ fio job_file
80
81and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
82more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
83of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
550b1db6 84parameter described in the parameter section.
71bfa161 85
b4692828
JA
86If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
87parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
88to the job parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters
89(see README). For example, for the job file parameter iodepth=2, the
c2b1e753
JA
90mirror command line option would be --iodepth 2 or --iodepth=2. You can
91also use the command line for giving more than one job entry. For each
92--name option that fio sees, it will start a new job with that name.
93Command line entries following a --name entry will apply to that job,
94until there are no more entries or a new --name entry is seen. This is
95similar to the job file options, where each option applies to the current
96job until a new [] job entry is seen.
b4692828 97
71bfa161
JA
98fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified
99in the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted,
6c219763 100such as memory locking, io scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.
71bfa161
JA
101
102
1034.0 Job file format
104-------------------
105As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing
106what it is supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file,
107where the names enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free
108to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
109A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
110may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
111several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
65db0851
JA
112section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
113'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
71bfa161 114
3c54bc46 115So let's look at a really simple job file that defines two processes, each
b22989b9 116randomly reading from a 128MB file.
71bfa161
JA
117
118; -- start job file --
119[global]
120rw=randread
121size=128m
122
123[job1]
124
125[job2]
126
127; -- end job file --
128
129As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the
130described parameters are shared. As no filename= option is given, fio
c2b1e753
JA
131makes up a filename for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command
132line, this job would look as follows:
133
134$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
135
71bfa161 136
3c54bc46 137Let's look at an example that has a number of processes writing randomly
71bfa161
JA
138to files.
139
140; -- start job file --
141[random-writers]
142ioengine=libaio
143iodepth=4
144rw=randwrite
145bs=32k
146direct=0
147size=64m
148numjobs=4
149
150; -- end job file --
151
152Here we have no global section, as we only have one job defined anyway.
153We want to use async io here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also
b22989b9 154increased the buffer size used to 32KB and define numjobs to 4 to
71bfa161 155fork 4 identical jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing
b22989b9 156to their own 64MB file. Instead of using the above job file, you could
b4692828
JA
157have given the parameters on the command line. For this case, you would
158specify:
159
160$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
71bfa161 161
df5ad464
AK
162When fio is utilized as a basis of any reasonably large test suite, it might be
163desirable to share a set of standardized settings across multiple job files.
164Instead of copy/pasting such settings, any section may pull in an external
165.fio file with 'include filename' directive, as in the following example:
166
167; -- start job file including.fio --
168[global]
169filename=/tmp/test
170filesize=1m
171include glob-include.fio
172
173[test]
174rw=randread
175bs=4k
176time_based=1
177runtime=10
178include test-include.fio
179; -- end job file including.fio --
180
181; -- start job file glob-include.fio --
182thread=1
183group_reporting=1
184; -- end job file glob-include.fio --
185
186; -- start job file test-include.fio --
187ioengine=libaio
188iodepth=4
189; -- end job file test-include.fio --
190
191Settings pulled into a section apply to that section only (except global
192section). Include directives may be nested in that any included file may
73568e1b
JA
193contain further include directive(s). Include files may not contain []
194sections.
df5ad464
AK
195
196
74929ac2
JA
1974.1 Environment variables
198-------------------------
199
3c54bc46
AC
200fio also supports environment variable expansion in job files. Any
201substring of the form "${VARNAME}" as part of an option value (in other
202words, on the right of the `='), will be expanded to the value of the
203environment variable called VARNAME. If no such environment variable
204is defined, or VARNAME is the empty string, the empty string will be
205substituted.
206
207As an example, let's look at a sample fio invocation and job file:
208
209$ SIZE=64m NUMJOBS=4 fio jobfile.fio
210
211; -- start job file --
212[random-writers]
213rw=randwrite
214size=${SIZE}
215numjobs=${NUMJOBS}
216; -- end job file --
217
218This will expand to the following equivalent job file at runtime:
219
220; -- start job file --
221[random-writers]
222rw=randwrite
223size=64m
224numjobs=4
225; -- end job file --
226
71bfa161
JA
227fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
228inspiration.
229
74929ac2
JA
2304.2 Reserved keywords
231---------------------
232
233Additionally, fio has a set of reserved keywords that will be replaced
234internally with the appropriate value. Those keywords are:
235
236$pagesize The architecture page size of the running system
237$mb_memory Megabytes of total memory in the system
238$ncpus Number of online available CPUs
239
240These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
241automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
892a6ffc
JA
242is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
243perform actions like:
244
245size=8*$mb_memory
246
247and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
248machine.
74929ac2 249
71bfa161
JA
250
2515.0 Detailed list of parameters
252-------------------------------
253
254This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
255Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
d59aa780
JA
256a string. Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression
257may be used, provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators
258are:
259
260 addition (+)
261 subtraction (-)
262 multiplication (*)
263 division (/)
264 modulus (%)
265 exponentiation (^)
266
267For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
268different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
269parentheses). The following types are used:
71bfa161
JA
270
271str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
b09da8fa 272time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
e417fd66 273 specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
0de5b26f
JA
274 minutes, and hours, and accepts 'ms' (or 'msec') for milliseconds,
275 and 'us' (or 'usec') for microseconds.
b09da8fa
JA
276int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
277 describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
278 meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
57fc29fa
JA
279 sensitive, and you may also include trailing 'b' (eg 'kb' is the same
280 as 'k'). So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
b09da8fa 281 out '4096' or just give 4k. The suffixes signify base 2 values, so
57fc29fa
JA
282 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on, unless the suffix is explicitly
283 set to a base 10 value using 'kib', 'mib', 'gib', etc. If that is the
284 case, then 1000 is used as the multiplier. This can be handy for
285 disks, since manufacturers generally use base 10 values when listing
286 the capacity of a drive. If the option accepts an upper and lower
287 range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values. May also
288 include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used, the number
289 is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
71bfa161
JA
290bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
291 true and false (1 and 0).
b09da8fa 292irange Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such
bf9a3edb 293 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the separator, eg
0c9baf91
JA
294 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
295 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
f7fa2653 296 int.
83349190 297float_list A list of floating numbers, separated by a ':' character.
71bfa161
JA
298
299With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
300parameters.
301
302name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
303 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
c2b1e753 304 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
6c219763 305 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
c2b1e753 306 job.
71bfa161 307
61697c37
JA
308description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
309 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
310 not parsed.
311
3776041e 312directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
67445b63
JA
313 in a different location than "./". See the 'filename' option
314 for escaping certain characters.
71bfa161
JA
315
316filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
317 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
318 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
ed92ac0c 319 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
414c2a3e 320 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host, port,
0fd666bf 321 and protocol to use in the format of =host,port,protocol.
414c2a3e
JA
322 See ioengine=net for more. If the ioengine is file based, you
323 can specify a number of files by separating the names with a
324 ':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
325 as the two working files, you would use
30a4588a
JA
326 filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. On Windows, disk devices are
327 accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first device,
328 \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and
329 FreeBSD prevent write access to areas of the disk containing
330 in-use data (e.g. filesystems).
331 If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
332 escape that with a '\' character. For instance, if the filename
333 is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use
334 filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c". '-' is a reserved name, meaning
335 stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends on the read/write
336 direction set.
71bfa161 337
de98bd30
JA
338filename_format=str
339 If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary
340 to have fio generate the exact names that you want. By default,
341 fio will name a file based on the default file format
342 specification of jobname.jobnumber.filenumber. With this
343 option, that can be customized. Fio will recognize and replace
344 the following keywords in this string:
345
346 $jobname
347 The name of the worker thread or process.
348
349 $jobnum
350 The incremental number of the worker thread or
351 process.
352
353 $filenum
354 The incremental number of the file for that worker
355 thread or process.
356
357 To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can
358 be set to have fio generate filenames that are shared between
359 the two. For instance, if testfiles.$filenum is specified,
360 file number 4 for any job will be named testfiles.4. The
361 default of $jobname.$jobnum.$filenum will be used if
362 no other format specifier is given.
363
bbf6b540
JA
364opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
365 directory and down the file system tree.
366
3776041e 367lockfile=str Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does
4d4e80f2
JA
368 IO to them. If a file or file descriptor is shared, fio
369 can serialize IO to that file to make the end result
370 consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that
371 share files. The lock modes are:
372
373 none No locking. The default.
374 exclusive Only one thread/process may do IO,
375 excluding all others.
376 readwrite Read-write locking on the file. Many
377 readers may access the file at the
378 same time, but writes get exclusive
379 access.
380
d3aad8f2 381readwrite=str
71bfa161
JA
382rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
383
384 read Sequential reads
385 write Sequential writes
386 randwrite Random writes
387 randread Random reads
10b023db 388 rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
71bfa161
JA
389 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
390
391 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
392 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
211097b2 393 since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
38dad62d 394 a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
892ea9bd 395 done by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
38dad62d 396 For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
059b0802 397 passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
ddb754db 398 suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
059b0802
JA
399 specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO.
400 For instance, using rw=write:4k will skip 4k for every
401 write. It turns sequential IO into sequential IO with holes.
402 See the 'rw_sequencer' option.
38dad62d
JA
403
404rw_sequencer=str If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to
405 the rw=<str> line, then this option controls how that
406 number modifies the IO offset being generated. Accepted
407 values are:
408
409 sequential Generate sequential offset
410 identical Generate the same offset
411
412 'sequential' is only useful for random IO, where fio would
413 normally generate a new random offset for every IO. If you
414 append eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
211097b2
JA
415 every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
416 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
38dad62d
JA
417 that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting
418 'sequential' for that would not result in any differences.
419 'identical' behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends
420 the same offset 8 number of times before generating a new
421 offset.
71bfa161 422
90fef2d1
JA
423kb_base=int The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024.
424 Storage manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base
425 ten unit instead, for obvious reasons. Allow values are
426 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
427
771e58be
JA
428unified_rw_reporting=bool Fio normally reports statistics on a per
429 data direction basis, meaning that read, write, and trim are
430 accounted and reported separately. If this option is set,
431 the fio will sum the results and report them as "mixed"
432 instead.
433
ee738499
JA
434randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
435 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
436
04778baf
JA
437randseed=int Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to
438 be able to control what sequence of output is being generated.
439 If not set, the random sequence depends on the randrepeat
440 setting.
441
a596f047
EG
442fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
443 Accepted values are:
444
445 none Do not pre-allocate space
446 posix Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate()
447 keep Pre-allocate via fallocate() with
448 FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set
449 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'
450 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'
451
452 May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
453 available on Linux.If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to
454 'none' because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
7bc8c2cf 455
d2f3ac35
JA
456fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
457 on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
458 want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
459 kernel about it, in which case you can disable this option.
460 If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
461 IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
462
37659335
JA
463fadvise_stream=int Notify the kernel what write stream ID to place these
464 writes under. Only supported on Linux. Note, this option
465 may change going forward.
466
f7fa2653 467size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
7616cafe 468 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
a4d3b4db
JA
469 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance,
470 or increased/decreased by 'io_size'). Unless specific nrfiles
471 and filesize options are given, fio will divide this size
472 between the available files specified by the job. If not set,
473 fio will use the full size of the given files or devices.
474 If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is also
475 possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If
476 size=20% is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the
477 given files or devices.
478
479io_size=int
77731b29
JA
480io_limit=int Normally fio operates within the region set by 'size', which
481 means that the 'size' option sets both the region and size of
482 IO to be performed. Sometimes that is not what you want. With
483 this option, it is possible to define just the amount of IO
484 that fio should do. For instance, if 'size' is set to 20G and
a4d3b4db
JA
485 'io_size' is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within the first
486 20G but exit when 5G have been done. The opposite is also
487 possible - if 'size' is set to 20G, and 'io_size' is set to
488 40G, then fio will do 40G of IO within the 0..20G region.
77731b29 489
f7fa2653 490filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
9c60ce64
JA
491 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
492 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
493 given, each created file is the same size.
494
bedc9dc2
JA
495file_append=bool Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will
496 operate within the size of a file. If this option is set, then
497 fio will append to the file instead. This has identical
0aae4ce7
JA
498 behavior to setting offset to the size of a file. This option
499 is ignored on non-regular files.
bedc9dc2 500
74586c1e
JA
501fill_device=bool
502fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
aa31f1f1 503 space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
de98bd30 504 sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
4f12432e
JA
505 point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
506 option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
507 since the size of that is already known by the file system.
508 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
509 ENOSPC there.
aa31f1f1 510
f7fa2653
JA
511blocksize=int
512bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
513 can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
514 given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
f90eff5a 515 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
d9472271
JA
516 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write,trim.
517 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, 8k blocks for
518 writes, and 8k for trims. You can terminate the list with
519 a trailing comma. bs=4k,8k, would use the default value for
520 trims.. If you only wish to set the write size, you
787f7e95
JA
521 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
522 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
a00735e6 523
2b7a01d0
JA
524blockalign=int
525ba=int At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to
526 the same as 'blocksize' the minimum blocksize given.
527 Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO,
528 though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This
529 option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for
530 files, so it will turn off that option.
531
d3aad8f2 532blocksize_range=irange
71bfa161
JA
533bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
534 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
535 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
f90eff5a
JA
536 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
537 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
538 See bs=.
a00735e6 539
564ca972
JA
540bssplit=str Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the
541 block sizes issued, not just an even split between them.
542 This option allows you to weight various block sizes,
543 so that you are able to define a specific amount of
544 block sizes issued. The format for this option is:
545
546 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
547
548 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define
549 a workload that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and
550 40% 32k blocks, you would write:
551
552 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
553
554 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank,
555 fio will fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit
556 option like this one:
557
558 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
559
560 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages
561 always add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds
562 up to more, it will error out.
563
720e84ad
JA
564 bssplit also supports giving separate splits to reads and
565 writes. The format is identical to what bs= accepts. You
566 have to separate the read and write parts with a comma. So
567 if you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads,
568 while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
569 specify:
570
892ea9bd 571 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90:8k/10
720e84ad 572
d3aad8f2 573blocksize_unaligned
690adba3
JA
574bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
575 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
576 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
71bfa161 577
6aca9b3d
JA
578bs_is_seq_rand If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write
579 blocksize settings as sequential,random instead. Any random
580 read or write will use the WRITE blocksize settings, and any
581 sequential read or write will use the READ blocksize setting.
582
e9459e5a
JA
583zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
584 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
585
5973cafb
JA
586refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
587 on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
588 time and reuse that data. Only makes sense if zero_buffers
41ccd845
JA
589 isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
590 refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
5973cafb 591
fd68418e
JA
592scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
593 using data deduplication, then setting this option will
594 slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
595 de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
596 block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
597 blocks. Default: true.
598
c5751c62
JA
599buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
600 provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
601 the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
d1af2894
JA
602 random data and a fixed pattern. The fixed pattern is either
603 zeroes, or the pattern specified by buffer_pattern. If the
604 pattern option is used, it might skew the compression ratio
605 slightly. Note that this is per block size unit, for file/disk
606 wide compression level that matches this setting, you'll also
607 want to set refill_buffers.
c5751c62
JA
608
609buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
610 setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
611 data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
612 provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
613 data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
614 to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
615 alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
616 buffer.
617
5c94b008
JA
618buffer_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
619 pattern. If not set, the contents of io buffers is defined by
620 the other options related to buffer contents. The setting can
621 be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
622 values. It may also be a string, where the string must then
623 be wrapped with "".
624
625dedupe_percentage=int If set, fio will generate this percentage of
626 identical buffers when writing. These buffers will be
627 naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend on
628 what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's
629 possible to have the individual buffers either fully
630 compressible, or not at all. This option only controls the
631 distribution of unique buffers.
ce35b1ec 632
71bfa161
JA
633nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
634
390b1537
JA
635openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
636 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
637 simultaneous opens.
638
5af1c6f3
JA
639file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
640 service next. The following types are defined:
641
642 random Just choose a file at random.
643
644 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
645 is the default.
646
a086c257
JA
647 sequential Finish one file before moving on to
648 the next. Multiple files can still be
649 open depending on 'openfiles'.
650
1907dbc6
JA
651 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
652 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
653 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
654 have been issued.
655
71bfa161
JA
656ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
657 types are defined:
658
659 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
660 used to position the io location.
661
a31041ea 662 psync Basic pread(2) or pwrite(2) io.
663
e05af9e5 664 vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
1d2af02a 665
a46c5e01
JA
666 psyncv Basic preadv(2) or pwritev(2) IO.
667
15d182aa
JA
668 libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
669 may only support queued behaviour with
670 non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
de890a1e 671 This engine defines engine specific options.
71bfa161
JA
672
673 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
674
417f0068
JA
675 solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
676
03e20d68
BC
677 windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
678
71bfa161
JA
679 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
680 to/from using memcpy(3).
681
682 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
683 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
684 space to the kernel.
685
d0ff85df
JA
686 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
687 regular read/write async.
688
71bfa161 689 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
6c219763 690 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
71bfa161
JA
691 the target is an sg character device
692 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
693 io.
694
a94ea28b
JA
695 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
696 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
697 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
698
ed92ac0c 699 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
de890a1e
SL
700 Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
701 port, listen and filename options are used to
702 specify what sort of connection to make, while
703 the protocol option determines which protocol
704 will be used.
705 This engine defines engine specific options.
ed92ac0c 706
9cce02e8
JA
707 netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
708 map data and send/receive.
de890a1e 709 This engine defines engine specific options.
9cce02e8 710
53aec0a4 711 cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
ba0fbe10
JA
712 cycles according to the cpuload= and
713 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
714 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
36ecec83
GP
715 85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
716 use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
717 usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
718 CPU at the desired rate.
ba0fbe10 719
e9a1806f
JA
720 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
721 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
722 to async IO. See
723
724 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
725
726 for more info on GUASI.
727
21b8aee8 728 rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
eb52fa3f
BVA
729 memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
730 channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
731 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
21b8aee8 732
b861be9f
JA
733 falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
734 simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
735 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
736 DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
737 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
d54fce84
DM
738
739 e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
b861be9f
JA
740 ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
741 request to DDIR_WRITE event
742
743 rbd IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph
744 Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd without
745 the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This
746 ioengine defines engine specific options.
747
748 gfapi Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to
749 direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
750 options.
751
752 gfapi_async Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface
753 to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
754 having to go through FUSE. This ioengine
755 defines engine specific options.
0981fd71 756
b74e419e
MM
757 libhdfs Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS).
758 The 'filename' option is used to specify host,
759 port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This
760 engine interprets offsets a little
761 differently. In HDFS, files once created
762 cannot be modified. So random writes are not
763 possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine
764 expects bunch of small files to be created
765 over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
766 file out of those files based on the offset
767 generated by fio backend. (see the example
768 job file to create such files, use rw=write
769 option). Please note, you might want to set
770 necessary environment variables to work with
771 hdfs/libhdfs properly.
1b10477b 772
8a7bd877
JA
773 external Prefix to specify loading an external
774 IO engine object file. Append the engine
775 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
776 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
777
71bfa161
JA
778iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
779 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
780 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
ee72ca09
JA
781 concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
782 affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
9b836561 783 verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
ee72ca09
JA
784 restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
785 This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
786 direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
787 eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
788 that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
71bfa161 789
4950421a 790iodepth_batch_submit=int
cb5ab512 791iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
89e820f6
JA
792 It defaults to 1 which means that we submit each IO
793 as soon as it is available, but can be raised to submit
794 bigger batches of IO at the time.
cb5ab512 795
4950421a
JA
796iodepth_batch_complete=int This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve
797 at once. It defaults to 1 which means that we'll ask
798 for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from
799 the kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we
800 hit the limit set by iodepth_low. If this variable is
801 set to 0, then fio will always check for completed
802 events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce
803 IO latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
804
e916b390
JA
805iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
806 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
807 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
808 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
809 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
810 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
811
71bfa161 812direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
9b836561 813 O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
93bcfd20 814 On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
76a43db4 815
d01612f3
CM
816atomic=bool If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic
817 writes are guaranteed to be stable once acknowledged by
818 the operating system. Only Linux supports O_ATOMIC right
819 now.
820
76a43db4
JA
821buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
822 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
71bfa161 823
f7fa2653 824offset=int Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
71bfa161
JA
825 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
826 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
827
214ac7e0 828offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
69bdd6ba
JH
829 offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread
830 number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for
831 each sub-job (i.e. when numjobs option is specified). This
832 option is useful if there are several jobs which are intended
833 to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
834 even spacing between the starting points.
214ac7e0 835
ddf24e42
JA
836number_ios=int Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size
837 of the region set by size=, or if it exhaust the allocated
838 time (or hits an error condition). With this setting, the
839 range/size can be set independently of the number of IOs to
840 perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit normally
be3fec7d
JA
841 and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
842 of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this
843 condition is met before other end-of-job criteria.
ddf24e42 844
71bfa161
JA
845fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
846 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
847 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
848 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
849 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
6c219763 850 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
71bfa161 851
e76b1da4 852fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
5f9099ea 853 metadata blocks.
93bcfd20 854 In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
e72fa4d4 855 using fsync()
5f9099ea 856
e76b1da4
JA
857sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
858 write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
859 have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
860 can currently be one or more of:
861
862 wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
863 write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
864 wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
865
866 So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
867 use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
868 every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
869 This option is Linux specific.
870
5036fc1e
JA
871overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
872 data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
873 created before the write phase begins. If the file exists
874 and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
875 will be done.
71bfa161 876
dbd11ead 877end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when a write stage has completed.
71bfa161 878
ebb1415f
JA
879fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
880 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
881 file close, not just at the end of the job.
882
71bfa161
JA
883rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
884
885rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
886 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
887 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
c35dd7a6
JA
888 the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting,
889 if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
890 If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
71bfa161 891
92d42d69
JA
892random_distribution=str:float By default, fio will use a completely uniform
893 random distribution when asked to perform random IO. Sometimes
894 it is useful to skew the distribution in specific ways,
895 ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
896 fio includes the following distribution models:
897
898 random Uniform random distribution
899 zipf Zipf distribution
900 pareto Pareto distribution
901
902 When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value
903 is also needed to define the access pattern. For zipf, this
904 is the zipf theta. For pareto, it's the pareto power. Fio
905 includes a test program, genzipf, that can be used visualize
906 what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
907 If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
908 random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform
909 model is used, fio will disable use of the random map.
910
211c9b89
JA
911percentage_random=int For a random workload, set how big a percentage should
912 be random. This defaults to 100%, in which case the workload
913 is fully random. It can be set from anywhere from 0 to 100.
914 Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully sequential. Any
915 setting in between will result in a random mix of sequential
d9472271
JA
916 and random IO, at the given percentages. It is possible to
917 set different values for reads, writes, and trim. To do so,
918 simply use a comma separated list. See blocksize.
211c9b89 919
bb8895e0
JA
920norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
921 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
922 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
923 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
83da8fbf
JE
924 some blocks may be read/written more than once. If this option
925 is used with verify= and multiple blocksizes (via bsrange=),
926 only intact blocks are verified, i.e., partially-overwritten
927 blocks are ignored.
bb8895e0 928
0408c206
JA
929softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
930 enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
931 set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
932 will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
2b386d25
JA
933 disabled by default.
934
e8b1961d
JA
935random_generator=str Fio supports the following engines for generating
936 IO offsets for random IO:
937
938 tausworthe Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
939 lfsr Linear feedback shift register generator
940
941 Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it
942 requires tracking on the side if we want to ensure that
943 blocks are only read or written once. LFSR guarantees
944 that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's
945 also less computationally expensive. It's not a true
946 random generator, however, though for IO purposes it's
947 typically good enough. LFSR only works with single
948 block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
949 sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write
950 some blocks multiple times.
43f09da1 951
71bfa161
JA
952nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
953
954prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
955 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
956 See man ionice(1).
957
958prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
959
960thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
961 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
48097d5c
JA
962 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
963 thinktime_spin.
964
965thinktime_spin=int
966 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
967 doing something with the data received, before falling back
968 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
969 thinktime.
9c1f7434 970
4d01ece6 971thinktime_blocks=int
9c1f7434
JA
972 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
973 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
974 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
4d01ece6
JA
975 after every block. This effectively makes any queue depth
976 setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO will be queued
977 before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In
978 other words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth
979 if the latter is larger.
71bfa161 980
581e7141 981rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
b09da8fa 982 the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
581e7141
JA
983 reads and writes to 500k each, or you can specify read and
984 writes separately. Using rate=1m,500k would limit reads to
985 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or
986 writes can be done with rate=,500k or rate=500k,. The former
987 will only limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only
988 limit reads.
71bfa161
JA
989
990ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
4e991c23 991 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
581e7141
JA
992 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for
993 read vs write separation.
4e991c23
JA
994
995rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
996 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
997 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
581e7141 998 the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
de8f6de9 999 as rate is used for read vs write separation.
4e991c23
JA
1000
1001rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
581e7141 1002 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
de8f6de9 1003 write separation.
71bfa161 1004
3e260a46
JA
1005latency_target=int If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance
1006 point that the given workload will run at while maintaining a
1007 latency below this target. The values is given in microseconds.
1008 See latency_window and latency_percentile
1009
1010latency_window=int Used with latency_target to specify the sample window
1011 that the job is run at varying queue depths to test the
1012 performance. The value is given in microseconds.
1013
1014latency_percentile=float The percentage of IOs that must fall within the
1015 criteria specified by latency_target and latency_window. If not
1016 set, this defaults to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal
1017 or below to the value set by latency_target.
1018
15501535
JA
1019max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
1020 latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
1021
71bfa161 1022ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
6c219763 1023 of milliseconds.
71bfa161
JA
1024
1025cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
a08bc17f
JA
1026 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. So if you want
1027 the allowed CPUs to be 1 and 5, you would pass the decimal
1028 value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
7dbb6eba 1029 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
b0ea08ce
JA
1030 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't
1031 work well for a higher CPU count than what you can store in
1032 an integer mask, so it can only control cpus 1-32. For
1033 boxes with larger CPU counts, use cpus_allowed.
71bfa161 1034
d2e268b0
JA
1035cpus_allowed=str Controls the same options as cpumask, but it allows a text
1036 setting of the permitted CPUs instead. So to use CPUs 1 and
62a7273d
JA
1037 5, you would specify cpus_allowed=1,5. This options also
1038 allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
1039 1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
d2e268b0 1040
c2acfbac
JA
1041cpus_allowed_policy=str Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs
1042 specified by cpus_allowed or cpumask. Two policies are
1043 supported:
1044
1045 shared All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1046 split Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1047
1048 'shared' is the default behaviour, if the option isn't
ada083cd
JA
1049 specified. If split is specified, then fio will will assign
1050 one cpu per job. If not enough CPUs are given for the jobs
1051 listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in the set.
c2acfbac 1052
d0b937ed
YR
1053numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
1054 arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
1055 A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
67bf9823 1056 fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el) installed.
d0b937ed
YR
1057
1058numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
1059 nodes. Format of the argements:
1060 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1061 `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
1062 default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1063 For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
1064 needed to be specified.
1065 For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
1066 For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
1067 list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1068
e417fd66 1069startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
71bfa161
JA
1070 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
1071 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
1072 time.
1073
e417fd66 1074runtime=time Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
71bfa161
JA
1075 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
1076 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
1077 cap the total runtime to a given time.
1078
cf4464ca 1079time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
bf9a3edb 1080 specified even if the file(s) are completely read or
cf4464ca
JA
1081 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
1082 as many times as the runtime allows.
1083
e417fd66 1084ramp_time=time If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount
721938ae
JA
1085 of time before logging any performance numbers. Useful for
1086 letting performance settle before logging results, thus
b29ee5b3
JA
1087 minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
1088 that the ramp_time is considered lead in time for a job,
1089 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout
1090 or runtime is specified.
721938ae 1091
71bfa161
JA
1092invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
1093 to starting io. Defaults to true.
1094
1095sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
1096 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
1097
d3aad8f2 1098iomem=str
71bfa161
JA
1099mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
1100 The allowed values are:
1101
1102 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
1103
1104 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
1105 through shmget(2).
1106
74b025b0
JA
1107 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
1108
313cb206
JA
1109 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
1110 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
1111 a filename is given after the option. The
1112 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
71bfa161 1113
d0bdaf49
JA
1114 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
1115 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
1116 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
1117
71bfa161 1118 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
5394ae5f
JA
1119 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
1120 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
1121 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
1122 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
b22989b9 1123 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MB in size. So
5394ae5f
JA
1124 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
1125 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
1126 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
1127 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
1128 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
1129 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
56bb17f2 1130 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
5394ae5f
JA
1131
1132 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
1133 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
1134 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
71bfa161 1135
d529ee19
JA
1136iomem_align=int This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers.
1137 Note that the given alignment is applied to the first IO unit
1138 buffer, if using iodepth the alignment of the following buffers
1139 are given by the bs used. In other words, if using a bs that is
1140 a multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will
1141 be aligned to this value. If using a bs that is not page
1142 aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1143 sum of the iomem_align and bs used.
1144
f7fa2653 1145hugepage-size=int
56bb17f2 1146 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
b22989b9 1147 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MB.
c51074e7
JA
1148 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
1149 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
1150 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
56bb17f2 1151
71bfa161
JA
1152exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
1153 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
1154 desired action.
1155
1156bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
6c219763 1157 is specified in milliseconds.
71bfa161 1158
c8eeb9df
JA
1159iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
1160 is specified in milliseconds.
1161
71bfa161
JA
1162create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
1163 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
1164 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
1165 used and even the number of processors in the system.
1166
1167create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
1168 default.
1169
814452bd
JA
1170create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
1171 when it's time to do IO to that file.
1172
25460cf6
JA
1173create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
1174 If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
1175 that will be done. The actual job contents are not
1176 executed.
1177
afad68f7 1178pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
34f1c044
JA
1179 starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
1180 the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
9c0d2241
JA
1181 and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO engines
1182 that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1183 multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice
1184 IO.
afad68f7 1185
e545a6ce 1186unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
bf9a3edb
JA
1187 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the file
1188 set again and again.
71bfa161
JA
1189
1190loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
1191 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
1192 to 1.
1193
62167762
JC
1194verify_only Do not perform specified workload---only verify data still
1195 matches previous invocation of this workload. This option
1196 allows one to check data multiple times at a later date
1197 without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1198 workloads that write data, and does not support workloads
1199 with the time_based option set.
1200
68e1f29a 1201do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
e84c73a8
SL
1202 verify is set. Defaults to 1.
1203
71bfa161
JA
1204verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
1205 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
1206
1207 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
1208 it in the header of each block.
1209
17dc34df
JA
1210 crc64 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data
1211 area and store it in the header of each
1212 block.
1213
bac39e0e
JA
1214 crc32c Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store
1215 it in the header of each block.
1216
3845591f 1217 crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
0539d758
JA
1218 provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
1219 back to regular software crc32c, if not
1220 supported by the system.
3845591f 1221
71bfa161
JA
1222 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
1223 it in the header of each block.
1224
969f7ed3
JA
1225 crc16 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store
1226 it in the header of each block.
1227
17dc34df
JA
1228 crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
1229 it in the header of each block.
1230
844ea602
JA
1231 xxhash Use xxhash as the checksum function. Generally
1232 the fastest software checksum that fio
1233 supports.
1234
cd14cc10
JA
1235 sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
1236
1237 sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
1238
7c353ceb
JA
1239 sha1 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
1240
7437ee87
SL
1241 meta Write extra information about each io
1242 (timestamp, block number etc.). The block
62167762
JC
1243 number is verified. The io sequence number is
1244 verified for workloads that write data.
1245 See also verify_pattern.
7437ee87 1246
36690c9b
JA
1247 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
1248 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
1249 else.
1250
6c219763 1251 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
71bfa161 1252 system to make sure that the written data is also
b892dc08
JA
1253 correctly read back. If the data direction given is
1254 a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
1255 verify a previously written file. If the data direction
1256 includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
1257 newly written data.
71bfa161 1258
160b966d
JA
1259verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
1260 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
1261 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
1262 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
1263 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
1264 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
1265 significant.
3f9f4e26 1266
f7fa2653 1267verify_offset=int Swap the verification header with data somewhere else
546a9142
SL
1268 in the block before writing. Its swapped back before
1269 verifying.
1270
f7fa2653 1271verify_interval=int Write the verification header at a finer granularity
3f9f4e26
SL
1272 than the blocksize. It will be written for chunks the
1273 size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
1274 evenly.
90059d65 1275
0e92f873 1276verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
e28218f3
SL
1277 pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
1278 bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1279 pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
1280 width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
0e92f873
RR
1281 buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
1282 The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
996093bb
JA
1283 be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
1284 with verify=meta.
e28218f3 1285
68e1f29a 1286verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
a12a3b4d
JA
1287 before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
1288 option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
1289 failure.
e8462bd8 1290
b463e936
JA
1291verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
1292 block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
1293 allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
ef71e317 1294 corruption occurred. Off by default.
b463e936 1295
e8462bd8
JA
1296verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
1297 thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
1298 async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
1299 causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
c85c324c
JA
1300 to one or more separate threads. If using this offload
1301 option, even sync IO engines can benefit from using an
1302 iodepth setting higher than 1, as it allows them to have
1303 IO in flight while verifies are running.
e8462bd8
JA
1304
1305verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
1306 async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
1307 format used.
6f87418f
JA
1308
1309verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
1310 job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
1311 other words, everything is written then everything is read
1312 back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1313 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
1314 associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
1315 verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
1316 holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
f42195a3
JA
1317 will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1318
6f87418f
JA
1319verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
1320 if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
1321 the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
f42195a3
JA
1322 is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
1323 less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
1324 if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
1325 blocks will be verified more than once.
66c098b8 1326
ca09be4b
JA
1327verify_state_save=bool When a job exits during the write phase of a verify
1328 workload, save its current state. This allows fio to replay
1329 up until that point, if the verify state is loaded for the
1330 verify read phase. The format of the filename is, roughly,
1331 <type>-<jobname>-<jobindex>-verify.state. <type> is "local"
1332 for a local run, "sock" for a client/server socket connection,
1333 and "ip" (192.168.0.1, for instance) for a networked
1334 client/server connection.
1335
1336verify_state_load=bool If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores
1337 the current write state of each thread. This can be used at
1338 verification time so that fio knows how far it should verify.
1339 Without this information, fio will run a full verification
1340 pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
1341
d392365e 1342stonewall
de8f6de9 1343wait_for_previous Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit, before
71bfa161 1344 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
b3d62a75
JA
1345 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
1346 a new reporting group.
1347
abcab6af 1348new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
71bfa161
JA
1349
1350numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
1351 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
abcab6af
AV
1352 the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
1353 statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
1354 conjunction with new_group.
1355
1356group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
04b2f799
JA
1357 groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
1358 This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
1359 individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
1360 To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
1361 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
1362 reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
1363 using 'new_group'.
71bfa161
JA
1364
1365thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
1366 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
1367 instead.
1368
f7fa2653 1369zonesize=int Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
71bfa161 1370
f7fa2653 1371zoneskip=int Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
71bfa161
JA
1372 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
1373 io on zones of a file.
1374
076efc7c 1375write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
5b42a488
SH
1376 read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
1377 the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
71bfa161 1378
076efc7c 1379read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
71bfa161 1380 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
6df8adaa
JA
1381 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
1382 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
1383 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
1384 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
1385 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
ea3e51c3 1386 file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
66c098b8 1387
64bbb865 1388replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
62776229
JA
1389 is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
1390 replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
1391 setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
1392 attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
1393 respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
1394 given device, but different timings.
71bfa161 1395
d1c46c04
DN
1396replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
1397 default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
1398 device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
de8f6de9 1399 undesirable because on a different machine those major/minor
d1c46c04
DN
1400 numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
1401 the same system can also result in a different major/minor
1402 mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
1403 the single specified device regardless of the device it was
1404 recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
1405 IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
1406 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
1407 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
1408 replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
1409 blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
1410 independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
1411 the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
1412
e3cedca7 1413write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
71bfa161 1414 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
e0da9bc2
JA
1415 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
1416 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
ddb754db 1417 graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
8ad3b3dd
JA
1418 filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.x.log, where
1419 x is the index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of
1420 jobs).
71bfa161 1421
e3cedca7 1422write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
02af0988
JA
1423 submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
1424 filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1425 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1426 fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
e3cedca7
JA
1427
1428 write_lat_log=foo
1429
8ad3b3dd
JA
1430 The actual log names will be foo_slat.x.log, foo_clat.x.log,
1431 and foo_lat.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
1432 where N is the number of jobs). This helps fio_generate_plot
1433 fine the logs automatically.
71bfa161 1434
b8bc8cba
JA
1435write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
1436 given with this option, the default filename of
8ad3b3dd
JA
1437 "jobname_type.x.log" is used,where x is the index of the job
1438 (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
1439 is given, fio will still append the type of log.
b8bc8cba
JA
1440
1441log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
1442 or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
1443 disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
1444 this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
1445 specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1446 Defaults to 0.
1447
ae588852
JA
1448log_offset=int If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte
1449 offset for the IO entry as well as the other data values.
1450
aee2ab67
JA
1451log_compression=int If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as
1452 it goes, to keep the memory footprint lower. When a log
1453 reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed and
1454 compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are
1455 fairly highly compressible, this yields a nice memory
1456 savings for longer runs. The downside is that the
1457 compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so
1458 it may impact the run. This, however, is also true if
1459 the logging ends up consuming most of the system memory.
1460 So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved normally at the
1461 end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1462 in the specified log file. This feature depends on the
1463 availability of zlib.
1464
b26317c9
JA
1465log_store_compressed=bool If set, and log_compression is also set,
1466 fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They
1467 can be decompressed with fio, using the --inflate-log
1468 command line parameter. The files will be stored with a
1469 .fz suffix.
1470
66347cfa
DE
1471block_error_percentiles=bool If set, record errors in trim block-sized
1472 units from writes and trims and output a histogram of
1473 how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind
1474 of error was encountered.
1475
f7fa2653 1476lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
71bfa161
JA
1477 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
1478 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
81c6b6cd 1479 The amount specified is per worker.
71bfa161
JA
1480
1481exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1482 through system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1483 jobname.prerun.txt.
71bfa161
JA
1484
1485exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1486 though system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1487 jobname.postrun.txt.
71bfa161
JA
1488
1489ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
1490 io scheduler before running.
1491
0a839f30
JA
1492disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
1493 supports it. Defaults to on.
1494
02af0988 1495disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
9520ebb9
JA
1496 only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
1497 as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
1498 Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1499 calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
1500 disable_bw as well.
1501
02af0988
JA
1502disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
1503 disable_lat.
1504
9520ebb9 1505disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
02af0988 1506 disable_slat.
9520ebb9
JA
1507
1508disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
02af0988 1509 disable_lat.
9520ebb9 1510
83349190
YH
1511clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
1512 completion latencies.
1513
1514percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
66347cfa
DE
1515 for completion latencies and the block error histogram.
1516 Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
1517 and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':'
1518 to separate the numbers, and list the numbers in ascending
1519 order. For example, --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause
1520 fio to report the values of completion latency below which
1521 99.5% and 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
83349190 1522
23893646
JA
1523clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
1524 supported options are:
1525
1526 gettimeofday gettimeofday(2)
1527
1528 clock_gettime clock_gettime(2)
1529
1530 cpu Internal CPU clock source
1531
1532 cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it
1533 is very fast (and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will
1534 automatically use this clocksource if it's supported and
1535 considered reliable on the system it is running on, unless
1536 another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs,
1537 this means supporting TSC Invariant.
1538
993bf48b
JA
1539gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
1540 (disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
1541 precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink
1542 the gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled,
1543 we only do about 0.4% of the gtod() calls we would have
1544 done if all time keeping was enabled.
1545
be4ecfdf
JA
1546gtod_cpu=int Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of
1547 execution to just getting the current time. Fio (and
1548 databases, for instance) are very intensive on gettimeofday()
1549 calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for
1550 doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
1551 location. Then the other threads/processes that run IO
1552 workloads need only copy that segment, instead of entering
1553 the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside
1554 for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
1555 uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
1556 jobs.
a696fa2a 1557
06842027 1558continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
f2bba182
RR
1559 failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
1560 there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
1561 is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
1562 option is used, there are two more stats that are appended,
1563 the total error count and the first error. The error field
1564 given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
1565 run.
be4ecfdf 1566
06842027
SL
1567 The allowed values are:
1568
1569 none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
1570
1571 read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
1572
1573 write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
1574
1575 io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
1576
1577 verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
1578
1579 all Continue on all errors.
1580
1581 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
1582
1583 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
1584
8b28bd41
DM
1585ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
1586 in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
1587 ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1588 errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
1589 may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
1590 Example:
1591 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
66c098b8
BC
1592 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
1593 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
8b28bd41
DM
1594
1595error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
1596 by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
66c098b8 1597
6adb38a1
JA
1598cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
1599 be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
1600 mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
1601 mounted, you can do so with:
a696fa2a
JA
1602
1603 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
1604
a696fa2a
JA
1605cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
1606 the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
1607 are in the range of 100..1000.
71bfa161 1608
7de87099
VG
1609cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
1610 the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
1611 cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
1612 This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
1613 files after job completion. Default: false
1614
e0b0d892
JA
1615uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
1616 this value before the thread/process does any work.
1617
1618gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
1619
9e684a49
DE
1620flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
1621 global flow. See flow.
1622
1623flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
1624 there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
1625 proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
1626 to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
1627 stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
1628 counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
1629 one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
1630 will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1631
1632flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
1633 counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
1634 lower value of the counter.
1635
1636flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
1637 watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
1638
de890a1e
SL
1639In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
1640ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
1641caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
1642that defines them is selected.
1643
1644[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1645 the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1646 With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1647 from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1648 enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1649 iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1650
0353050f
JA
1651[cpu] cpuload=int Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1652
1653[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
1654 microseconds.
1655
046395d7
JA
1656[cpu] exit_on_io_done=bool Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1657
de890a1e
SL
1658[netsplice] hostname=str
1659[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1660 If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
b511c9aa
SB
1661 used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast
1662 address.
de890a1e
SL
1663
1664[netsplice] port=int
6315af9d
JA
1665[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used
1666with numjobs to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then this will
1667be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
de890a1e 1668
b93b6a2e
SB
1669[netsplice] interface=str
1670[net] interface=str The IP address of the network interface used to send or
1671 receive UDP multicast
1672
d3a623de
SB
1673[netsplice] ttl=int
1674[net] ttl=int Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets.
1675 Default: 1
1676
1d360ffb
JA
1677[netsplice] nodelay=bool
1678[net] nodelay=bool Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1679
de890a1e
SL
1680[netsplice] protocol=str
1681[netsplice] proto=str
1682[net] protocol=str
1683[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1684
1685 tcp Transmission control protocol
49ccb8c1 1686 tcpv6 Transmission control protocol V6
f5cc3d0e 1687 udp User datagram protocol
49ccb8c1 1688 udpv6 User datagram protocol V6
de890a1e
SL
1689 unix UNIX domain socket
1690
1691 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1692 as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1693 reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1694 used and the port is invalid.
1695
1696[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1697 connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1698 hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1008602c 1699
b511c9aa 1700[net] pingpong Normaly a network writer will just continue writing data, and
7aeb1e94
JA
1701 a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
1702 is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
1703 then wait for the reader to send the same payload back. This
1704 allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission
1705 and completion latencies then measure local time spent
1706 sending or receiving, and the completion latency measures
1707 how long it took for the other end to receive and send back.
b511c9aa
SB
1708 For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a
1709 single reader when multiple readers are listening to the same
1710 address.
7aeb1e94 1711
1008602c
JA
1712[net] window_size Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1713
e5f34d95
JA
1714[net] mss Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1715
d54fce84
DM
1716[e4defrag] donorname=str
1717 File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
1718[e4defrag] inplace=int
66c098b8 1719 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
d54fce84
DM
1720 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
1721 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
1722 and free right after event
1723
de890a1e
SL
1724
1725
71bfa161
JA
17266.0 Interpreting the output
1727---------------------------
1728
1729fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
1730status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
1731
73c8b082 1732Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
71bfa161
JA
1733
1734The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
1735each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
1736
1737Idle Run
1738---- ---
1739P Thread setup, but not started.
1740C Thread created.
9c6f6316 1741I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
b0f65863 1742 p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
71bfa161
JA
1743 R Running, doing sequential reads.
1744 r Running, doing random reads.
1745 W Running, doing sequential writes.
1746 w Running, doing random writes.
1747 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1748 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1749 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
3d434057 1750 f Running, finishing up (writing IO logs, etc)
fc6bd43c 1751 V Running, doing verification of written data.
71bfa161 1752E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
4f7e57a4
JA
1753_ Thread reaped, or
1754X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
a5e371a6 1755K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
71bfa161 1756
3e2e48a7
JA
1757Fio will condense the thread string as not to take up more space on the
1758command line as is needed. For instance, if you have 10 readers and 10
1759writers running, the output would look like this:
1760
1761Jobs: 20 (f=20): [R(10),W(10)] [4.0% done] [2103MB/0KB/0KB /s] [538K/0/0 iops] [eta 57m:36s]
1762
1763Fio will still maintain the ordering, though. So the above means that jobs
17641..10 are readers, and 11..20 are writers.
1765
71bfa161 1766The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
c9f60304
JA
1767currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
1768listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
1769and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
4f7e57a4
JA
1770the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
1771so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
1772first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
71bfa161
JA
1773
1774When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
1775each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
1776direction, the output looks like:
1777
1778Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
35649e58 1779 write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
6104ddb6
JA
1780 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
1781 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
b22989b9 1782 bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
e7823a94 1783 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969, majf=0, minf=17
71619dc2 1784 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
1785 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
1786 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
30061b97 1787 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
8abdce66
JA
1788 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
1789 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
71bfa161
JA
1790
1791The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
1792thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
1793they denote:
1794
1795io= Number of megabytes io performed
1796bw= Average bandwidth rate
35649e58 1797iops= Average IOs performed per second
71bfa161 1798runt= The runtime of that thread
72fbda2a 1799 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
71bfa161
JA
1800 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
1801 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
8a35c71e 1802 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
bf9a3edb 1803 value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
8a35c71e 1804 the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
0d237712
LAG
1805 above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
1806 latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
71bfa161
JA
1807 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
1808 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
1809 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
1810 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
1811 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
1812 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
1813 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
1814 this thread received in this group. This last value is
1815 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
1816 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
1817cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
e7823a94
JA
1818 of context switches this thread went through, usage of
1819 system and user time, and finally the number of major
1820 and minor page faults.
71619dc2
JA
1821IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
1822 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
1823 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
1824 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
1825 range from 16 to 31.
838bc709
JA
1826IO submit= How many pieces of IO were submitting in a single submit
1827 call. Each entry denotes that amount and below, until
1828 the previous entry - eg, 8=100% mean that we submitted
1829 anywhere in between 5-8 ios per submit call.
1830IO complete= Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
30061b97
JA
1831IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
1832 of them were short.
ec118304
JA
1833IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
1834 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
1835 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
1836 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
8abdce66
JA
1837 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
1838 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
71bfa161
JA
1839
1840After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
1841will look like this:
1842
1843Run status group 0 (all jobs):
b22989b9
JA
1844 READ: io=64MB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
1845 WRITE: io=64MB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
71bfa161
JA
1846
1847For each data direction, it prints:
1848
1849io= Number of megabytes io performed.
1850aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
1851minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1852maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1853mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
1854maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
1855
1856And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
1857
1858Disk stats (read/write):
1859 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
1860
1861Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
1862numbers denote:
1863
1864ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
1865merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
1866ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1867io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
1868util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
1869 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
1870
8423bd11
JA
1871It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1872running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
06464907
JA
1873You can also get regularly timed dumps by using the --status-interval
1874parameter, or by creating a file in /tmp named fio-dump-status. If fio
1875sees this file, it will unlink it and dump the current output status.
8423bd11 1876
71bfa161
JA
1877
18787.0 Terse output
1879----------------
1880
1881For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
6af019c9 1882of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
71bfa161
JA
1883The format is one long line of values, such as:
1884
562c2d2f
DN
18852;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%
1886A description of this job goes here.
1887
1888The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
71bfa161 1889
525c2bfa
JA
1890To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
1891value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
1892be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
1893signify that change.
6820cb3b 1894
71bfa161
JA
1895Split up, the format is as follows:
1896
5e726d0a 1897 terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
71bfa161 1898 READ status:
312b4af2 1899 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1900 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1901 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1902 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1903 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1904 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161 1905 WRITE status:
312b4af2 1906 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1907 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1908 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1909 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1910 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1911 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
046ee302 1912 CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
2270890c 1913 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
562c2d2f
DN
1914 IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1915 IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
f2f788dd
JA
1916 Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
1917 Read merges, write merges,
1918 Read ticks, write ticks,
3d7cd9b4 1919 Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
de8f6de9 1920 Additional Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
66c098b8 1921
de8f6de9 1922 Additional Info (dependent on description being set): Text description
25c8b9d7 1923
1db92cb6
JA
1924Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
1925for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
1926
1927 1.00%=6112
1928
1929which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
1930
f2f788dd
JA
1931For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
1932there will be a disk utilization section.
1933
25c8b9d7
PD
1934
19358.0 Trace file format
1936---------------------
66c098b8 1937There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
25c8b9d7
PD
1938is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
1939below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
1940
1941In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
1942
1943
19448.1 Trace file format v1
1945------------------------
1946Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
1947
1948rw, offset, length
1949
1950where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
1951
1952This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
1953
1954
19558.2 Trace file format v2
1956------------------------
1957The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
1958It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
1959possible file actions.
1960
1961The first line of the trace file has to be:
1962
1963fio version 2 iolog
1964
1965Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
1966
1967The file management format:
1968
1969filename action
1970
1971The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
1972
1973add Add the given filename to the trace
66c098b8 1974open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
25c8b9d7
PD
1975 been added with the add action before.
1976close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
1977 opened before.
1978
1979
1980The file io action format:
1981
1982filename action offset length
1983
1984The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
66c098b8 1985before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
25c8b9d7
PD
1986bytes. The action can be one of these:
1987
1988wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
1989read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1990write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1991sync fsync() the file
1992datasync fdatasync() the file
1993trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes
f2a2ce0e
HL
1994
1995
19969.0 CPU idleness profiling
06464907 1997--------------------------
f2a2ce0e
HL
1998In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
1999we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
2000fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
2001idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
2002By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
2003CPU can be derived accordingly.
2004
2005An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
2006and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
2007work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
2008overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
99b9a85a
JA
2009
2010
201110.0 Verification and triggers
2012------------------------------
2013Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
2014first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
2015write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
2016it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
2017on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
2018same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
2019on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
2020data was written.
2021
2022With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
2023to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
2024and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
2025power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
2026
2027A verification trigger consists of two things:
2028
20291) Storing the write state of each job
20302) Executing a trigger command
2031
2032The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
2033to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
2034done, the last X completions, etc.
2035
2036A trigger is invoked either through creation ('touch') of a specified
2037file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
2038--trigger-file=/tmp/trigger-file, then it will continually check for
2039the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
2040fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
2041command).
2042
2043For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
2044fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
2045to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
2046specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
2047back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
2048
204910.1 Verification trigger example
2050---------------------------------
2051Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
2052Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
2053at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
2054or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
2055backend normally:
2056
2057server# fio --server
2058
2059and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
2060
2061localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger-remote="bash -c \"echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger\""
2062
2063We set /tmp/my-trigger as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
2064
2065echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger
2066
2067on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
2068state. This will work, but it's not _really_ cutting power to the server,
2069it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
2070power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
2071a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
2072IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
2073then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
2074
2075localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger="ipmi-reboot server"
2076
2077For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
2078then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
2079
208010.1 Loading verify state
2081-------------------------
2082To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
2083the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
2084stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
2085and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
2086the files over and load them from there.