client/server: percentile_precision wasn't net converted
[fio.git] / HOWTO
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1Table of contents
2-----------------
3
41. Overview
52. How fio works
63. Running fio
74. Job file format
85. Detailed list of parameters
96. Normal output
107. Terse output
25c8b9d7 118. Trace file format
43f09da1 129. CPU idleness profiling
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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
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54 SG (SCSI generic sg).
55
6c219763 56 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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193contain further include directive(s). Include files may not contain []
194sections.
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195
196
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1974.1 Environment variables
198-------------------------
199
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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
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227fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
228inspiration.
229
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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$ncpus Number of online available CPUs
239
240These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
241automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
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242is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
243perform actions like:
244
245size=8*$mb_memory
246
247and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
248machine.
74929ac2 249
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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
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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:
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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,
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274 minutes, and hours, and accepts 'ms' (or 'msec') for milliseconds,
275 and 'us' (or 'usec') for microseconds.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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313 in a different location than "./". See the 'filename' option
314 for escaping certain characters.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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434randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
435 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
436
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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
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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
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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
f7fa2653 463size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
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464 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
465 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
3776041e 466 Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
7616cafe 467 fio will divide this size between the available files
d6667268 468 specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
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469 size of the given files or devices. If the files do not
470 exist, size must be given. It is also possible to give
471 size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20% is
472 given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
7bb59102 473 files or devices.
71bfa161 474
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475io_limit=int Normally fio operates within the region set by 'size', which
476 means that the 'size' option sets both the region and size of
477 IO to be performed. Sometimes that is not what you want. With
478 this option, it is possible to define just the amount of IO
479 that fio should do. For instance, if 'size' is set to 20G and
480 'io_limit' is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within the first
481 20G but exit when 5G have been done.
482
f7fa2653 483filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
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484 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
485 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
486 given, each created file is the same size.
487
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488file_append=bool Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will
489 operate within the size of a file. If this option is set, then
490 fio will append to the file instead. This has identical
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491 behavior to setting offset to the size of a file. This option
492 is ignored on non-regular files.
bedc9dc2 493
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494fill_device=bool
495fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
aa31f1f1 496 space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
de98bd30 497 sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
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498 point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
499 option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
500 since the size of that is already known by the file system.
501 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
502 ENOSPC there.
aa31f1f1 503
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504blocksize=int
505bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
506 can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
507 given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
f90eff5a 508 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
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509 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write,trim.
510 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, 8k blocks for
511 writes, and 8k for trims. You can terminate the list with
512 a trailing comma. bs=4k,8k, would use the default value for
513 trims.. If you only wish to set the write size, you
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514 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
515 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
a00735e6 516
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517blockalign=int
518ba=int At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to
519 the same as 'blocksize' the minimum blocksize given.
520 Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO,
521 though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This
522 option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for
523 files, so it will turn off that option.
524
d3aad8f2 525blocksize_range=irange
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526bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
527 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
528 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
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529 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
530 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
531 See bs=.
a00735e6 532
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533bssplit=str Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the
534 block sizes issued, not just an even split between them.
535 This option allows you to weight various block sizes,
536 so that you are able to define a specific amount of
537 block sizes issued. The format for this option is:
538
539 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
540
541 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define
542 a workload that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and
543 40% 32k blocks, you would write:
544
545 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
546
547 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank,
548 fio will fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit
549 option like this one:
550
551 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
552
553 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages
554 always add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds
555 up to more, it will error out.
556
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557 bssplit also supports giving separate splits to reads and
558 writes. The format is identical to what bs= accepts. You
559 have to separate the read and write parts with a comma. So
560 if you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads,
561 while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
562 specify:
563
892ea9bd 564 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90:8k/10
720e84ad 565
d3aad8f2 566blocksize_unaligned
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567bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
568 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
569 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
71bfa161 570
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571bs_is_seq_rand If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write
572 blocksize settings as sequential,random instead. Any random
573 read or write will use the WRITE blocksize settings, and any
574 sequential read or write will use the READ blocksize setting.
575
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576zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
577 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
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578 The resulting IO buffers will not be completely zeroed,
579 unless scramble_buffers is also turned off.
e9459e5a 580
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581refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
582 on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
583 time and reuse that data. Only makes sense if zero_buffers
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584 isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
585 refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
5973cafb 586
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587scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
588 using data deduplication, then setting this option will
589 slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
590 de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
591 block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
592 blocks. Default: true.
593
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594buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
595 provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
596 the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
597 random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
598 unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
599 this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
600
601buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
602 setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
603 data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
604 provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
605 data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
606 to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
607 alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
608 buffer.
609
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610buffer_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
611 pattern. If not set, the contents of io buffers is defined by
612 the other options related to buffer contents. The setting can
613 be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
614 values. It may also be a string, where the string must then
615 be wrapped with "".
616
617dedupe_percentage=int If set, fio will generate this percentage of
618 identical buffers when writing. These buffers will be
619 naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend on
620 what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's
621 possible to have the individual buffers either fully
622 compressible, or not at all. This option only controls the
623 distribution of unique buffers.
ce35b1ec 624
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625nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
626
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627openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
628 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
629 simultaneous opens.
630
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631file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
632 service next. The following types are defined:
633
634 random Just choose a file at random.
635
636 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
637 is the default.
638
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639 sequential Finish one file before moving on to
640 the next. Multiple files can still be
641 open depending on 'openfiles'.
642
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643 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
644 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
645 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
646 have been issued.
647
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648ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
649 types are defined:
650
651 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
652 used to position the io location.
653
a31041ea 654 psync Basic pread(2) or pwrite(2) io.
655
e05af9e5 656 vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
1d2af02a 657
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658 psyncv Basic preadv(2) or pwritev(2) IO.
659
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660 libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
661 may only support queued behaviour with
662 non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
de890a1e 663 This engine defines engine specific options.
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664
665 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
666
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667 solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
668
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669 windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
670
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671 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
672 to/from using memcpy(3).
673
674 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
675 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
676 space to the kernel.
677
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678 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
679 regular read/write async.
680
71bfa161 681 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
6c219763 682 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
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683 the target is an sg character device
684 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
685 io.
686
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687 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
688 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
689 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
690
ed92ac0c 691 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
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692 Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
693 port, listen and filename options are used to
694 specify what sort of connection to make, while
695 the protocol option determines which protocol
696 will be used.
697 This engine defines engine specific options.
ed92ac0c 698
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699 netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
700 map data and send/receive.
de890a1e 701 This engine defines engine specific options.
9cce02e8 702
53aec0a4 703 cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
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704 cycles according to the cpuload= and
705 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
706 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
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707 85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
708 use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
709 usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
710 CPU at the desired rate.
ba0fbe10 711
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712 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
713 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
714 to async IO. See
715
716 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
717
718 for more info on GUASI.
719
21b8aee8 720 rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
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721 memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
722 channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
723 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
21b8aee8 724
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725 falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
726 simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
727 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
728 DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
729 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
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730
731 e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
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732 ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
733 request to DDIR_WRITE event
734
735 rbd IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph
736 Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd without
737 the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This
738 ioengine defines engine specific options.
739
740 gfapi Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to
741 direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
742 options.
743
744 gfapi_async Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface
745 to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
746 having to go through FUSE. This ioengine
747 defines engine specific options.
0981fd71 748
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749 libhdfs Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS).
750 The 'filename' option is used to specify host,
751 port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This
752 engine interprets offsets a little
753 differently. In HDFS, files once created
754 cannot be modified. So random writes are not
755 possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine
756 expects bunch of small files to be created
757 over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
758 file out of those files based on the offset
759 generated by fio backend. (see the example
760 job file to create such files, use rw=write
761 option). Please note, you might want to set
762 necessary environment variables to work with
763 hdfs/libhdfs properly.
1b10477b 764
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765 external Prefix to specify loading an external
766 IO engine object file. Append the engine
767 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
768 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
769
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770iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
771 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
772 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
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773 concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
774 affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
9b836561 775 verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
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776 restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
777 This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
778 direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
779 eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
780 that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
71bfa161 781
4950421a 782iodepth_batch_submit=int
cb5ab512 783iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
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784 It defaults to 1 which means that we submit each IO
785 as soon as it is available, but can be raised to submit
786 bigger batches of IO at the time.
cb5ab512 787
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788iodepth_batch_complete=int This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve
789 at once. It defaults to 1 which means that we'll ask
790 for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from
791 the kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we
792 hit the limit set by iodepth_low. If this variable is
793 set to 0, then fio will always check for completed
794 events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce
795 IO latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
796
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797iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
798 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
799 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
800 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
801 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
802 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
803
71bfa161 804direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
9b836561 805 O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
93bcfd20 806 On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
76a43db4 807
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808atomic=bool If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic
809 writes are guaranteed to be stable once acknowledged by
810 the operating system. Only Linux supports O_ATOMIC right
811 now.
812
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813buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
814 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
71bfa161 815
f7fa2653 816offset=int Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
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817 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
818 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
819
214ac7e0 820offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
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821 offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread
822 number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for
823 each sub-job (i.e. when numjobs option is specified). This
824 option is useful if there are several jobs which are intended
825 to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
826 even spacing between the starting points.
214ac7e0 827
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828number_ios=int Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size
829 of the region set by size=, or if it exhaust the allocated
830 time (or hits an error condition). With this setting, the
831 range/size can be set independently of the number of IOs to
832 perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit normally
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833 and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
834 of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this
835 condition is met before other end-of-job criteria.
ddf24e42 836
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837fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
838 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
839 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
840 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
841 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
6c219763 842 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
71bfa161 843
e76b1da4 844fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
5f9099ea 845 metadata blocks.
93bcfd20 846 In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
e72fa4d4 847 using fsync()
5f9099ea 848
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849sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
850 write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
851 have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
852 can currently be one or more of:
853
854 wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
855 write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
856 wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
857
858 So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
859 use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
860 every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
861 This option is Linux specific.
862
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863overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
864 data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
865 created before the write phase begins. If the file exists
866 and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
867 will be done.
71bfa161 868
dbd11ead 869end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when a write stage has completed.
71bfa161 870
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871fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
872 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
873 file close, not just at the end of the job.
874
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875rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
876
877rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
878 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
879 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
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880 the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting,
881 if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
882 If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
71bfa161 883
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884random_distribution=str:float By default, fio will use a completely uniform
885 random distribution when asked to perform random IO. Sometimes
886 it is useful to skew the distribution in specific ways,
887 ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
888 fio includes the following distribution models:
889
890 random Uniform random distribution
891 zipf Zipf distribution
892 pareto Pareto distribution
893
894 When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value
895 is also needed to define the access pattern. For zipf, this
896 is the zipf theta. For pareto, it's the pareto power. Fio
897 includes a test program, genzipf, that can be used visualize
898 what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
899 If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
900 random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform
901 model is used, fio will disable use of the random map.
902
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903percentage_random=int For a random workload, set how big a percentage should
904 be random. This defaults to 100%, in which case the workload
905 is fully random. It can be set from anywhere from 0 to 100.
906 Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully sequential. Any
907 setting in between will result in a random mix of sequential
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908 and random IO, at the given percentages. It is possible to
909 set different values for reads, writes, and trim. To do so,
910 simply use a comma separated list. See blocksize.
211c9b89 911
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912norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
913 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
914 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
915 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
916 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
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917 is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
918 blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
919 complete rewrites of blocks.
bb8895e0 920
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921softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
922 enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
923 set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
924 will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
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925 disabled by default.
926
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927random_generator=str Fio supports the following engines for generating
928 IO offsets for random IO:
929
930 tausworthe Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
931 lfsr Linear feedback shift register generator
932
933 Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it
934 requires tracking on the side if we want to ensure that
935 blocks are only read or written once. LFSR guarantees
936 that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's
937 also less computationally expensive. It's not a true
938 random generator, however, though for IO purposes it's
939 typically good enough. LFSR only works with single
940 block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
941 sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write
942 some blocks multiple times.
43f09da1 943
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944nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
945
946prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
947 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
948 See man ionice(1).
949
950prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
951
952thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
953 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
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JA
954 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
955 thinktime_spin.
956
957thinktime_spin=int
958 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
959 doing something with the data received, before falling back
960 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
961 thinktime.
9c1f7434 962
4d01ece6 963thinktime_blocks=int
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JA
964 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
965 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
966 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
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967 after every block. This effectively makes any queue depth
968 setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO will be queued
969 before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In
970 other words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth
971 if the latter is larger.
71bfa161 972
581e7141 973rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
b09da8fa 974 the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
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975 reads and writes to 500k each, or you can specify read and
976 writes separately. Using rate=1m,500k would limit reads to
977 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or
978 writes can be done with rate=,500k or rate=500k,. The former
979 will only limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only
980 limit reads.
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981
982ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
4e991c23 983 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
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984 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for
985 read vs write separation.
4e991c23
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986
987rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
988 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
989 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
581e7141 990 the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
de8f6de9 991 as rate is used for read vs write separation.
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992
993rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
581e7141 994 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
de8f6de9 995 write separation.
71bfa161 996
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997latency_target=int If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance
998 point that the given workload will run at while maintaining a
999 latency below this target. The values is given in microseconds.
1000 See latency_window and latency_percentile
1001
1002latency_window=int Used with latency_target to specify the sample window
1003 that the job is run at varying queue depths to test the
1004 performance. The value is given in microseconds.
1005
1006latency_percentile=float The percentage of IOs that must fall within the
1007 criteria specified by latency_target and latency_window. If not
1008 set, this defaults to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal
1009 or below to the value set by latency_target.
1010
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1011max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
1012 latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
1013
71bfa161 1014ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
6c219763 1015 of milliseconds.
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1016
1017cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
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1018 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. So if you want
1019 the allowed CPUs to be 1 and 5, you would pass the decimal
1020 value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
7dbb6eba 1021 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
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1022 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't
1023 work well for a higher CPU count than what you can store in
1024 an integer mask, so it can only control cpus 1-32. For
1025 boxes with larger CPU counts, use cpus_allowed.
71bfa161 1026
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1027cpus_allowed=str Controls the same options as cpumask, but it allows a text
1028 setting of the permitted CPUs instead. So to use CPUs 1 and
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JA
1029 5, you would specify cpus_allowed=1,5. This options also
1030 allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
1031 1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
d2e268b0 1032
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1033cpus_allowed_policy=str Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs
1034 specified by cpus_allowed or cpumask. Two policies are
1035 supported:
1036
1037 shared All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1038 split Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1039
1040 'shared' is the default behaviour, if the option isn't
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1041 specified. If split is specified, then fio will will assign
1042 one cpu per job. If not enough CPUs are given for the jobs
1043 listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in the set.
c2acfbac 1044
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1045numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
1046 arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
1047 A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
67bf9823 1048 fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el) installed.
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YR
1049
1050numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
1051 nodes. Format of the argements:
1052 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1053 `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
1054 default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1055 For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
1056 needed to be specified.
1057 For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
1058 For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
1059 list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1060
e417fd66 1061startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
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1062 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
1063 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
1064 time.
1065
e417fd66 1066runtime=time Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
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1067 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
1068 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
1069 cap the total runtime to a given time.
1070
cf4464ca 1071time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
bf9a3edb 1072 specified even if the file(s) are completely read or
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JA
1073 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
1074 as many times as the runtime allows.
1075
e417fd66 1076ramp_time=time If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount
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1077 of time before logging any performance numbers. Useful for
1078 letting performance settle before logging results, thus
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1079 minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
1080 that the ramp_time is considered lead in time for a job,
1081 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout
1082 or runtime is specified.
721938ae 1083
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1084invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
1085 to starting io. Defaults to true.
1086
1087sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
1088 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
1089
d3aad8f2 1090iomem=str
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1091mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
1092 The allowed values are:
1093
1094 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
1095
1096 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
1097 through shmget(2).
1098
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1099 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
1100
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1101 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
1102 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
1103 a filename is given after the option. The
1104 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
71bfa161 1105
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1106 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
1107 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
1108 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
1109
71bfa161 1110 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
5394ae5f
JA
1111 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
1112 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
1113 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
1114 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
b22989b9 1115 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MB in size. So
5394ae5f
JA
1116 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
1117 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
1118 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
1119 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
1120 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
1121 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
56bb17f2 1122 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
5394ae5f
JA
1123
1124 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
1125 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
1126 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
71bfa161 1127
d529ee19
JA
1128iomem_align=int This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers.
1129 Note that the given alignment is applied to the first IO unit
1130 buffer, if using iodepth the alignment of the following buffers
1131 are given by the bs used. In other words, if using a bs that is
1132 a multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will
1133 be aligned to this value. If using a bs that is not page
1134 aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1135 sum of the iomem_align and bs used.
1136
f7fa2653 1137hugepage-size=int
56bb17f2 1138 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
b22989b9 1139 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MB.
c51074e7
JA
1140 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
1141 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
1142 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
56bb17f2 1143
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JA
1144exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
1145 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
1146 desired action.
1147
1148bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
6c219763 1149 is specified in milliseconds.
71bfa161 1150
c8eeb9df
JA
1151iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
1152 is specified in milliseconds.
1153
71bfa161
JA
1154create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
1155 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
1156 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
1157 used and even the number of processors in the system.
1158
1159create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
1160 default.
1161
814452bd
JA
1162create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
1163 when it's time to do IO to that file.
1164
25460cf6
JA
1165create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
1166 If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
1167 that will be done. The actual job contents are not
1168 executed.
1169
afad68f7 1170pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
34f1c044
JA
1171 starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
1172 the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
9c0d2241
JA
1173 and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO engines
1174 that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1175 multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice
1176 IO.
afad68f7 1177
e545a6ce 1178unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
bf9a3edb
JA
1179 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the file
1180 set again and again.
71bfa161
JA
1181
1182loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
1183 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
1184 to 1.
1185
62167762
JC
1186verify_only Do not perform specified workload---only verify data still
1187 matches previous invocation of this workload. This option
1188 allows one to check data multiple times at a later date
1189 without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1190 workloads that write data, and does not support workloads
1191 with the time_based option set.
1192
68e1f29a 1193do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
e84c73a8
SL
1194 verify is set. Defaults to 1.
1195
71bfa161
JA
1196verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
1197 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
1198
1199 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
1200 it in the header of each block.
1201
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JA
1202 crc64 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data
1203 area and store it in the header of each
1204 block.
1205
bac39e0e
JA
1206 crc32c Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store
1207 it in the header of each block.
1208
3845591f 1209 crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
0539d758
JA
1210 provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
1211 back to regular software crc32c, if not
1212 supported by the system.
3845591f 1213
71bfa161
JA
1214 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
1215 it in the header of each block.
1216
969f7ed3
JA
1217 crc16 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store
1218 it in the header of each block.
1219
17dc34df
JA
1220 crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
1221 it in the header of each block.
1222
844ea602
JA
1223 xxhash Use xxhash as the checksum function. Generally
1224 the fastest software checksum that fio
1225 supports.
1226
cd14cc10
JA
1227 sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
1228
1229 sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
1230
7c353ceb
JA
1231 sha1 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
1232
7437ee87
SL
1233 meta Write extra information about each io
1234 (timestamp, block number etc.). The block
62167762
JC
1235 number is verified. The io sequence number is
1236 verified for workloads that write data.
1237 See also verify_pattern.
7437ee87 1238
36690c9b
JA
1239 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
1240 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
1241 else.
1242
6c219763 1243 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
71bfa161 1244 system to make sure that the written data is also
b892dc08
JA
1245 correctly read back. If the data direction given is
1246 a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
1247 verify a previously written file. If the data direction
1248 includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
1249 newly written data.
71bfa161 1250
160b966d
JA
1251verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
1252 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
1253 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
1254 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
1255 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
1256 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
1257 significant.
3f9f4e26 1258
f7fa2653 1259verify_offset=int Swap the verification header with data somewhere else
546a9142
SL
1260 in the block before writing. Its swapped back before
1261 verifying.
1262
f7fa2653 1263verify_interval=int Write the verification header at a finer granularity
3f9f4e26
SL
1264 than the blocksize. It will be written for chunks the
1265 size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
1266 evenly.
90059d65 1267
0e92f873 1268verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
e28218f3
SL
1269 pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
1270 bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1271 pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
1272 width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
0e92f873
RR
1273 buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
1274 The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
996093bb
JA
1275 be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
1276 with verify=meta.
e28218f3 1277
68e1f29a 1278verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
a12a3b4d
JA
1279 before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
1280 option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
1281 failure.
e8462bd8 1282
b463e936
JA
1283verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
1284 block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
1285 allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
ef71e317 1286 corruption occurred. Off by default.
b463e936 1287
e8462bd8
JA
1288verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
1289 thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
1290 async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
1291 causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
c85c324c
JA
1292 to one or more separate threads. If using this offload
1293 option, even sync IO engines can benefit from using an
1294 iodepth setting higher than 1, as it allows them to have
1295 IO in flight while verifies are running.
e8462bd8
JA
1296
1297verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
1298 async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
1299 format used.
6f87418f
JA
1300
1301verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
1302 job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
1303 other words, everything is written then everything is read
1304 back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1305 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
1306 associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
1307 verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
1308 holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
f42195a3
JA
1309 will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1310
6f87418f
JA
1311verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
1312 if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
1313 the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
f42195a3
JA
1314 is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
1315 less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
1316 if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
1317 blocks will be verified more than once.
66c098b8 1318
d392365e 1319stonewall
de8f6de9 1320wait_for_previous Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit, before
71bfa161 1321 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
b3d62a75
JA
1322 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
1323 a new reporting group.
1324
abcab6af 1325new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
71bfa161
JA
1326
1327numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
1328 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
abcab6af
AV
1329 the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
1330 statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
1331 conjunction with new_group.
1332
1333group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
04b2f799
JA
1334 groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
1335 This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
1336 individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
1337 To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
1338 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
1339 reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
1340 using 'new_group'.
71bfa161
JA
1341
1342thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
1343 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
1344 instead.
1345
f7fa2653 1346zonesize=int Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
71bfa161 1347
f7fa2653 1348zoneskip=int Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
71bfa161
JA
1349 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
1350 io on zones of a file.
1351
076efc7c 1352write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
5b42a488
SH
1353 read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
1354 the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
71bfa161 1355
076efc7c 1356read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
71bfa161 1357 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
6df8adaa
JA
1358 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
1359 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
1360 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
1361 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
1362 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
ea3e51c3 1363 file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
66c098b8 1364
64bbb865 1365replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
62776229
JA
1366 is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
1367 replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
1368 setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
1369 attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
1370 respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
1371 given device, but different timings.
71bfa161 1372
d1c46c04
DN
1373replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
1374 default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
1375 device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
de8f6de9 1376 undesirable because on a different machine those major/minor
d1c46c04
DN
1377 numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
1378 the same system can also result in a different major/minor
1379 mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
1380 the single specified device regardless of the device it was
1381 recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
1382 IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
1383 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
1384 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
1385 replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
1386 blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
1387 independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
1388 the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
1389
e3cedca7 1390write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
71bfa161 1391 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
e0da9bc2
JA
1392 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
1393 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
ddb754db 1394 graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
8ad3b3dd
JA
1395 filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.x.log, where
1396 x is the index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of
1397 jobs).
71bfa161 1398
e3cedca7 1399write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
02af0988
JA
1400 submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
1401 filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1402 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1403 fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
e3cedca7
JA
1404
1405 write_lat_log=foo
1406
8ad3b3dd
JA
1407 The actual log names will be foo_slat.x.log, foo_clat.x.log,
1408 and foo_lat.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
1409 where N is the number of jobs). This helps fio_generate_plot
1410 fine the logs automatically.
71bfa161 1411
b8bc8cba
JA
1412write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
1413 given with this option, the default filename of
8ad3b3dd
JA
1414 "jobname_type.x.log" is used,where x is the index of the job
1415 (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
1416 is given, fio will still append the type of log.
b8bc8cba
JA
1417
1418log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
1419 or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
1420 disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
1421 this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
1422 specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1423 Defaults to 0.
1424
ae588852
JA
1425log_offset=int If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte
1426 offset for the IO entry as well as the other data values.
1427
aee2ab67
JA
1428log_compression=int If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as
1429 it goes, to keep the memory footprint lower. When a log
1430 reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed and
1431 compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are
1432 fairly highly compressible, this yields a nice memory
1433 savings for longer runs. The downside is that the
1434 compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so
1435 it may impact the run. This, however, is also true if
1436 the logging ends up consuming most of the system memory.
1437 So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved normally at the
1438 end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1439 in the specified log file. This feature depends on the
1440 availability of zlib.
1441
b26317c9
JA
1442log_store_compressed=bool If set, and log_compression is also set,
1443 fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They
1444 can be decompressed with fio, using the --inflate-log
1445 command line parameter. The files will be stored with a
1446 .fz suffix.
1447
f7fa2653 1448lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
71bfa161
JA
1449 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
1450 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
81c6b6cd 1451 The amount specified is per worker.
71bfa161
JA
1452
1453exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1454 through system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1455 jobname.prerun.txt.
71bfa161
JA
1456
1457exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1458 though system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1459 jobname.postrun.txt.
71bfa161
JA
1460
1461ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
1462 io scheduler before running.
1463
0a839f30
JA
1464disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
1465 supports it. Defaults to on.
1466
02af0988 1467disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
9520ebb9
JA
1468 only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
1469 as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
1470 Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1471 calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
1472 disable_bw as well.
1473
02af0988
JA
1474disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
1475 disable_lat.
1476
9520ebb9 1477disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
02af0988 1478 disable_slat.
9520ebb9
JA
1479
1480disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
02af0988 1481 disable_lat.
9520ebb9 1482
83349190
YH
1483clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
1484 completion latencies.
1485
1486percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
1487 for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
1488 number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
1489 the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
1490 list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
1491 --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
1492 the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
1493 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1494
23893646
JA
1495clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
1496 supported options are:
1497
1498 gettimeofday gettimeofday(2)
1499
1500 clock_gettime clock_gettime(2)
1501
1502 cpu Internal CPU clock source
1503
1504 cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it
1505 is very fast (and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will
1506 automatically use this clocksource if it's supported and
1507 considered reliable on the system it is running on, unless
1508 another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs,
1509 this means supporting TSC Invariant.
1510
993bf48b
JA
1511gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
1512 (disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
1513 precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink
1514 the gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled,
1515 we only do about 0.4% of the gtod() calls we would have
1516 done if all time keeping was enabled.
1517
be4ecfdf
JA
1518gtod_cpu=int Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of
1519 execution to just getting the current time. Fio (and
1520 databases, for instance) are very intensive on gettimeofday()
1521 calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for
1522 doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
1523 location. Then the other threads/processes that run IO
1524 workloads need only copy that segment, instead of entering
1525 the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside
1526 for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
1527 uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
1528 jobs.
a696fa2a 1529
06842027 1530continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
f2bba182
RR
1531 failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
1532 there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
1533 is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
1534 option is used, there are two more stats that are appended,
1535 the total error count and the first error. The error field
1536 given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
1537 run.
be4ecfdf 1538
06842027
SL
1539 The allowed values are:
1540
1541 none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
1542
1543 read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
1544
1545 write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
1546
1547 io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
1548
1549 verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
1550
1551 all Continue on all errors.
1552
1553 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
1554
1555 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
1556
8b28bd41
DM
1557ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
1558 in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
1559 ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1560 errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
1561 may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
1562 Example:
1563 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
66c098b8
BC
1564 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
1565 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
8b28bd41
DM
1566
1567error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
1568 by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
66c098b8 1569
6adb38a1
JA
1570cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
1571 be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
1572 mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
1573 mounted, you can do so with:
a696fa2a
JA
1574
1575 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
1576
a696fa2a
JA
1577cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
1578 the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
1579 are in the range of 100..1000.
71bfa161 1580
7de87099
VG
1581cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
1582 the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
1583 cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
1584 This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
1585 files after job completion. Default: false
1586
e0b0d892
JA
1587uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
1588 this value before the thread/process does any work.
1589
1590gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
1591
9e684a49
DE
1592flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
1593 global flow. See flow.
1594
1595flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
1596 there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
1597 proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
1598 to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
1599 stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
1600 counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
1601 one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
1602 will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1603
1604flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
1605 counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
1606 lower value of the counter.
1607
1608flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
1609 watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
1610
de890a1e
SL
1611In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
1612ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
1613caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
1614that defines them is selected.
1615
1616[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1617 the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1618 With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1619 from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1620 enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1621 iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1622
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JA
1623[cpu] cpuload=int Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1624
1625[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
1626 microseconds.
1627
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JA
1628[cpu] exit_on_io_done=bool Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1629
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SL
1630[netsplice] hostname=str
1631[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1632 If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
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SB
1633 used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast
1634 address.
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SL
1635
1636[netsplice] port=int
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JA
1637[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used
1638with numjobs to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then this will
1639be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
de890a1e 1640
b93b6a2e
SB
1641[netsplice] interface=str
1642[net] interface=str The IP address of the network interface used to send or
1643 receive UDP multicast
1644
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SB
1645[netsplice] ttl=int
1646[net] ttl=int Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets.
1647 Default: 1
1648
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JA
1649[netsplice] nodelay=bool
1650[net] nodelay=bool Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1651
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SL
1652[netsplice] protocol=str
1653[netsplice] proto=str
1654[net] protocol=str
1655[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1656
1657 tcp Transmission control protocol
49ccb8c1 1658 tcpv6 Transmission control protocol V6
f5cc3d0e 1659 udp User datagram protocol
49ccb8c1 1660 udpv6 User datagram protocol V6
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SL
1661 unix UNIX domain socket
1662
1663 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1664 as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1665 reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1666 used and the port is invalid.
1667
1668[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1669 connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1670 hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1008602c 1671
b511c9aa 1672[net] pingpong Normaly a network writer will just continue writing data, and
7aeb1e94
JA
1673 a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
1674 is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
1675 then wait for the reader to send the same payload back. This
1676 allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission
1677 and completion latencies then measure local time spent
1678 sending or receiving, and the completion latency measures
1679 how long it took for the other end to receive and send back.
b511c9aa
SB
1680 For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a
1681 single reader when multiple readers are listening to the same
1682 address.
7aeb1e94 1683
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JA
1684[net] window_size Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1685
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JA
1686[net] mss Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1687
d54fce84
DM
1688[e4defrag] donorname=str
1689 File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
1690[e4defrag] inplace=int
66c098b8 1691 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
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DM
1692 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
1693 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
1694 and free right after event
1695
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SL
1696
1697
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16986.0 Interpreting the output
1699---------------------------
1700
1701fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
1702status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
1703
73c8b082 1704Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
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JA
1705
1706The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
1707each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
1708
1709Idle Run
1710---- ---
1711P Thread setup, but not started.
1712C Thread created.
9c6f6316 1713I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
b0f65863 1714 p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
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JA
1715 R Running, doing sequential reads.
1716 r Running, doing random reads.
1717 W Running, doing sequential writes.
1718 w Running, doing random writes.
1719 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1720 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1721 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
3d434057 1722 f Running, finishing up (writing IO logs, etc)
fc6bd43c 1723 V Running, doing verification of written data.
71bfa161 1724E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
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JA
1725_ Thread reaped, or
1726X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
a5e371a6 1727K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
71bfa161 1728
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JA
1729Fio will condense the thread string as not to take up more space on the
1730command line as is needed. For instance, if you have 10 readers and 10
1731writers running, the output would look like this:
1732
1733Jobs: 20 (f=20): [R(10),W(10)] [4.0% done] [2103MB/0KB/0KB /s] [538K/0/0 iops] [eta 57m:36s]
1734
1735Fio will still maintain the ordering, though. So the above means that jobs
17361..10 are readers, and 11..20 are writers.
1737
71bfa161 1738The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
c9f60304
JA
1739currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
1740listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
1741and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
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JA
1742the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
1743so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
1744first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
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1745
1746When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
1747each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
1748direction, the output looks like:
1749
1750Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
35649e58 1751 write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
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JA
1752 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
1753 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
b22989b9 1754 bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
e7823a94 1755 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969, majf=0, minf=17
71619dc2 1756 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
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JA
1757 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
1758 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
30061b97 1759 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
8abdce66
JA
1760 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
1761 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
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JA
1762
1763The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
1764thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
1765they denote:
1766
1767io= Number of megabytes io performed
1768bw= Average bandwidth rate
35649e58 1769iops= Average IOs performed per second
71bfa161 1770runt= The runtime of that thread
72fbda2a 1771 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
71bfa161
JA
1772 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
1773 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
8a35c71e 1774 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
bf9a3edb 1775 value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
8a35c71e 1776 the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
0d237712
LAG
1777 above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
1778 latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
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JA
1779 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
1780 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
1781 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
1782 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
1783 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
1784 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
1785 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
1786 this thread received in this group. This last value is
1787 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
1788 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
1789cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
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JA
1790 of context switches this thread went through, usage of
1791 system and user time, and finally the number of major
1792 and minor page faults.
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JA
1793IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
1794 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
1795 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
1796 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
1797 range from 16 to 31.
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JA
1798IO submit= How many pieces of IO were submitting in a single submit
1799 call. Each entry denotes that amount and below, until
1800 the previous entry - eg, 8=100% mean that we submitted
1801 anywhere in between 5-8 ios per submit call.
1802IO complete= Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
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JA
1803IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
1804 of them were short.
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JA
1805IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
1806 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
1807 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
1808 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
8abdce66
JA
1809 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
1810 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
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1811
1812After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
1813will look like this:
1814
1815Run status group 0 (all jobs):
b22989b9
JA
1816 READ: io=64MB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
1817 WRITE: io=64MB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
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1818
1819For each data direction, it prints:
1820
1821io= Number of megabytes io performed.
1822aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
1823minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1824maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1825mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
1826maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
1827
1828And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
1829
1830Disk stats (read/write):
1831 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
1832
1833Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
1834numbers denote:
1835
1836ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
1837merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
1838ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1839io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
1840util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
1841 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
1842
8423bd11
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1843It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1844running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
06464907
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1845You can also get regularly timed dumps by using the --status-interval
1846parameter, or by creating a file in /tmp named fio-dump-status. If fio
1847sees this file, it will unlink it and dump the current output status.
8423bd11 1848
71bfa161
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1849
18507.0 Terse output
1851----------------
1852
1853For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
6af019c9 1854of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
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JA
1855The format is one long line of values, such as:
1856
562c2d2f
DN
18572;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%
1858A description of this job goes here.
1859
1860The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
71bfa161 1861
525c2bfa
JA
1862To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
1863value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
1864be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
1865signify that change.
6820cb3b 1866
71bfa161
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1867Split up, the format is as follows:
1868
5e726d0a 1869 terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
71bfa161 1870 READ status:
312b4af2 1871 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1872 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1873 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1874 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1875 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1876 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161 1877 WRITE status:
312b4af2 1878 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1879 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1880 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1881 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1882 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1883 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
046ee302 1884 CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
2270890c 1885 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
562c2d2f
DN
1886 IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1887 IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
f2f788dd
JA
1888 Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
1889 Read merges, write merges,
1890 Read ticks, write ticks,
3d7cd9b4 1891 Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
de8f6de9 1892 Additional Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
66c098b8 1893
de8f6de9 1894 Additional Info (dependent on description being set): Text description
25c8b9d7 1895
1db92cb6
JA
1896Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
1897for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
1898
1899 1.00%=6112
1900
1901which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
1902
f2f788dd
JA
1903For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
1904there will be a disk utilization section.
1905
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PD
1906
19078.0 Trace file format
1908---------------------
66c098b8 1909There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
25c8b9d7
PD
1910is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
1911below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
1912
1913In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
1914
1915
19168.1 Trace file format v1
1917------------------------
1918Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
1919
1920rw, offset, length
1921
1922where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
1923
1924This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
1925
1926
19278.2 Trace file format v2
1928------------------------
1929The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
1930It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
1931possible file actions.
1932
1933The first line of the trace file has to be:
1934
1935fio version 2 iolog
1936
1937Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
1938
1939The file management format:
1940
1941filename action
1942
1943The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
1944
1945add Add the given filename to the trace
66c098b8 1946open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
25c8b9d7
PD
1947 been added with the add action before.
1948close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
1949 opened before.
1950
1951
1952The file io action format:
1953
1954filename action offset length
1955
1956The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
66c098b8 1957before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
25c8b9d7
PD
1958bytes. The action can be one of these:
1959
1960wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
1961read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1962write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1963sync fsync() the file
1964datasync fdatasync() the file
1965trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes
f2a2ce0e
HL
1966
1967
19689.0 CPU idleness profiling
06464907 1969--------------------------
f2a2ce0e
HL
1970In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
1971we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
1972fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
1973idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
1974By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
1975CPU can be derived accordingly.
1976
1977An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
1978and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
1979work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
1980overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.