HOWTO: update exec_{pre,post}run information
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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'
84parameter described the the parameter section.
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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1624.1 Environment variables
163-------------------------
164
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165fio also supports environment variable expansion in job files. Any
166substring of the form "${VARNAME}" as part of an option value (in other
167words, on the right of the `='), will be expanded to the value of the
168environment variable called VARNAME. If no such environment variable
169is defined, or VARNAME is the empty string, the empty string will be
170substituted.
171
172As an example, let's look at a sample fio invocation and job file:
173
174$ SIZE=64m NUMJOBS=4 fio jobfile.fio
175
176; -- start job file --
177[random-writers]
178rw=randwrite
179size=${SIZE}
180numjobs=${NUMJOBS}
181; -- end job file --
182
183This will expand to the following equivalent job file at runtime:
184
185; -- start job file --
186[random-writers]
187rw=randwrite
188size=64m
189numjobs=4
190; -- end job file --
191
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192fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
193inspiration.
194
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1954.2 Reserved keywords
196---------------------
197
198Additionally, fio has a set of reserved keywords that will be replaced
199internally with the appropriate value. Those keywords are:
200
201$pagesize The architecture page size of the running system
202$mb_memory Megabytes of total memory in the system
203$ncpus Number of online available CPUs
204
205These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
206automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
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207is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
208perform actions like:
209
210size=8*$mb_memory
211
212and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
213machine.
74929ac2 214
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215
2165.0 Detailed list of parameters
217-------------------------------
218
219This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
220Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
221a string. The following types are used:
222
223str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
b09da8fa 224time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
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225 specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
226 minutes, and hours.
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227int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
228 describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
229 meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
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230 sensitive, and you may also include trailing 'b' (eg 'kb' is the same
231 as 'k'). So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
b09da8fa 232 out '4096' or just give 4k. The suffixes signify base 2 values, so
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233 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on, unless the suffix is explicitly
234 set to a base 10 value using 'kib', 'mib', 'gib', etc. If that is the
235 case, then 1000 is used as the multiplier. This can be handy for
236 disks, since manufacturers generally use base 10 values when listing
237 the capacity of a drive. If the option accepts an upper and lower
238 range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values. May also
239 include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used, the number
240 is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
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241bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
242 true and false (1 and 0).
b09da8fa 243irange Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such
bf9a3edb 244 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the separator, eg
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245 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
246 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
f7fa2653 247 int.
83349190 248float_list A list of floating numbers, separated by a ':' character.
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249
250With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
251parameters.
252
253name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
254 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
c2b1e753 255 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
6c219763 256 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
c2b1e753 257 job.
71bfa161 258
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259description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
260 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
261 not parsed.
262
3776041e 263directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
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264 in a different location than "./".
265
266filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
267 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
268 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
ed92ac0c 269 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
414c2a3e 270 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host, port,
0fd666bf 271 and protocol to use in the format of =host,port,protocol.
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272 See ioengine=net for more. If the ioengine is file based, you
273 can specify a number of files by separating the names with a
274 ':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
275 as the two working files, you would use
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276 filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. On Windows, disk devices are
277 accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first device,
278 \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and
279 FreeBSD prevent write access to areas of the disk containing
280 in-use data (e.g. filesystems).
281 If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
282 escape that with a '\' character. For instance, if the filename
283 is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use
284 filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c". '-' is a reserved name, meaning
285 stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends on the read/write
286 direction set.
71bfa161 287
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288filename_format=str
289 If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary
290 to have fio generate the exact names that you want. By default,
291 fio will name a file based on the default file format
292 specification of jobname.jobnumber.filenumber. With this
293 option, that can be customized. Fio will recognize and replace
294 the following keywords in this string:
295
296 $jobname
297 The name of the worker thread or process.
298
299 $jobnum
300 The incremental number of the worker thread or
301 process.
302
303 $filenum
304 The incremental number of the file for that worker
305 thread or process.
306
307 To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can
308 be set to have fio generate filenames that are shared between
309 the two. For instance, if testfiles.$filenum is specified,
310 file number 4 for any job will be named testfiles.4. The
311 default of $jobname.$jobnum.$filenum will be used if
312 no other format specifier is given.
313
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314opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
315 directory and down the file system tree.
316
3776041e 317lockfile=str Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does
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318 IO to them. If a file or file descriptor is shared, fio
319 can serialize IO to that file to make the end result
320 consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that
321 share files. The lock modes are:
322
323 none No locking. The default.
324 exclusive Only one thread/process may do IO,
325 excluding all others.
326 readwrite Read-write locking on the file. Many
327 readers may access the file at the
328 same time, but writes get exclusive
329 access.
330
d3aad8f2 331readwrite=str
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332rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
333
334 read Sequential reads
335 write Sequential writes
336 randwrite Random writes
337 randread Random reads
10b023db 338 rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
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339 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
340
341 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
342 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
211097b2 343 since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
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344 a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
345 one by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
346 For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
059b0802 347 passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
ddb754db 348 suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
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349 specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO.
350 For instance, using rw=write:4k will skip 4k for every
351 write. It turns sequential IO into sequential IO with holes.
352 See the 'rw_sequencer' option.
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353
354rw_sequencer=str If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to
355 the rw=<str> line, then this option controls how that
356 number modifies the IO offset being generated. Accepted
357 values are:
358
359 sequential Generate sequential offset
360 identical Generate the same offset
361
362 'sequential' is only useful for random IO, where fio would
363 normally generate a new random offset for every IO. If you
364 append eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
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365 every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
366 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
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367 that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting
368 'sequential' for that would not result in any differences.
369 'identical' behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends
370 the same offset 8 number of times before generating a new
371 offset.
71bfa161 372
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373kb_base=int The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024.
374 Storage manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base
375 ten unit instead, for obvious reasons. Allow values are
376 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
377
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378unified_rw_reporting=bool Fio normally reports statistics on a per
379 data direction basis, meaning that read, write, and trim are
380 accounted and reported separately. If this option is set,
381 the fio will sum the results and report them as "mixed"
382 instead.
383
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384randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
385 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
386
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387use_os_rand=bool Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS
388 to generator random offsets, or it can use it's own internal
389 generator (based on Tausworthe). Default is to use the
390 internal generator, which is often of better quality and
391 faster.
392
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393fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
394 Accepted values are:
395
396 none Do not pre-allocate space
397 posix Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate()
398 keep Pre-allocate via fallocate() with
399 FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set
400 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'
401 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'
402
403 May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
404 available on Linux.If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to
405 'none' because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
7bc8c2cf 406
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407fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
408 on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
409 want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
410 kernel about it, in which case you can disable this option.
411 If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
412 IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
413
f7fa2653 414size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
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415 this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
416 limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
3776041e 417 Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
7616cafe 418 fio will divide this size between the available files
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419 specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
420 size of the given files or devices. If the the files
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421 do not exist, size must be given. It is also possible to
422 give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20%
423 is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
424 files or devices.
71bfa161 425
f7fa2653 426filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
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427 will select sizes for files at random within the given range
428 and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
429 given, each created file is the same size.
430
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431fill_device=bool
432fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
aa31f1f1 433 space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
de98bd30 434 sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
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435 point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
436 option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
437 since the size of that is already known by the file system.
438 Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
439 ENOSPC there.
aa31f1f1 440
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441blocksize=int
442bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
443 can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
444 given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
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445 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
446 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
447 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
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448 for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
449 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
450 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
a00735e6 451
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452blockalign=int
453ba=int At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to
454 the same as 'blocksize' the minimum blocksize given.
455 Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO,
456 though it usually depends on the hardware block size. This
457 option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for
458 files, so it will turn off that option.
459
d3aad8f2 460blocksize_range=irange
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461bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
462 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
463 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
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464 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
465 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
466 See bs=.
a00735e6 467
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468bssplit=str Sometimes you want even finer grained control of the
469 block sizes issued, not just an even split between them.
470 This option allows you to weight various block sizes,
471 so that you are able to define a specific amount of
472 block sizes issued. The format for this option is:
473
474 bssplit=blocksize/percentage:blocksize/percentage
475
476 for as many block sizes as needed. So if you want to define
477 a workload that has 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k blocks, and
478 40% 32k blocks, you would write:
479
480 bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40
481
482 Ordering does not matter. If the percentage is left blank,
483 fio will fill in the remaining values evenly. So a bssplit
484 option like this one:
485
486 bssplit=4k/50:1k/:32k/
487
488 would have 50% 4k ios, and 25% 1k and 32k ios. The percentages
489 always add up to 100, if bssplit is given a range that adds
490 up to more, it will error out.
491
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492 bssplit also supports giving separate splits to reads and
493 writes. The format is identical to what bs= accepts. You
494 have to separate the read and write parts with a comma. So
495 if you want a workload that has 50% 2k reads and 50% 4k reads,
496 while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
497 specify:
498
499 bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90,8k/10
500
d3aad8f2 501blocksize_unaligned
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502bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
503 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
504 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
71bfa161 505
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506zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
507 all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
508
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509refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
510 on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
511 time and reuse that data. Only makes sense if zero_buffers
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512 isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
513 refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
5973cafb 514
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515scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
516 using data deduplication, then setting this option will
517 slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
518 de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
519 block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
520 blocks. Default: true.
521
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522buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
523 provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
524 the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
525 random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
526 unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
527 this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
528
529buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
530 setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
531 data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
532 provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
533 data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
534 to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
535 alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
536 buffer.
537
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538nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
539
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540openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
541 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
542 simultaneous opens.
543
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544file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
545 service next. The following types are defined:
546
547 random Just choose a file at random.
548
549 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
550 is the default.
551
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552 sequential Finish one file before moving on to
553 the next. Multiple files can still be
554 open depending on 'openfiles'.
555
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556 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
557 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
558 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
559 have been issued.
560
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561ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
562 types are defined:
563
564 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
565 used to position the io location.
566
a31041ea 567 psync Basic pread(2) or pwrite(2) io.
568
e05af9e5 569 vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
1d2af02a 570
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571 psyncv Basic preadv(2) or pwritev(2) IO.
572
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573 libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
574 may only support queued behaviour with
575 non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
de890a1e 576 This engine defines engine specific options.
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577
578 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
579
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580 solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
581
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582 windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
583
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584 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
585 to/from using memcpy(3).
586
587 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
588 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
589 space to the kernel.
590
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591 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
592 regular read/write async.
593
71bfa161 594 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
6c219763 595 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
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596 the target is an sg character device
597 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
598 io.
599
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600 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
601 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
602 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
603
ed92ac0c 604 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
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605 Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
606 port, listen and filename options are used to
607 specify what sort of connection to make, while
608 the protocol option determines which protocol
609 will be used.
610 This engine defines engine specific options.
ed92ac0c 611
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612 netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
613 map data and send/receive.
de890a1e 614 This engine defines engine specific options.
9cce02e8 615
53aec0a4 616 cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
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617 cycles according to the cpuload= and
618 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
619 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
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620 85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
621 use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
622 usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
623 CPU at the desired rate.
ba0fbe10 624
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625 guasi The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
626 Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
627 to async IO. See
628
629 http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi-lib.html
630
631 for more info on GUASI.
632
21b8aee8 633 rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
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634 memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
635 channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
636 InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
21b8aee8 637
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638 falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
639 simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
640 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
0981fd71 641 DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
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642 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
643
644 e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
645 ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
646 request to DDIR_WRITE event
0981fd71 647
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648 external Prefix to specify loading an external
649 IO engine object file. Append the engine
650 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
651 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
652
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653iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
654 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
655 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
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656 concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
657 affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
9b836561 658 verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
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659 restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
660 This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
661 direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
662 eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
663 that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
71bfa161 664
4950421a 665iodepth_batch_submit=int
cb5ab512 666iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
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667 It defaults to 1 which means that we submit each IO
668 as soon as it is available, but can be raised to submit
669 bigger batches of IO at the time.
cb5ab512 670
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671iodepth_batch_complete=int This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve
672 at once. It defaults to 1 which means that we'll ask
673 for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from
674 the kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we
675 hit the limit set by iodepth_low. If this variable is
676 set to 0, then fio will always check for completed
677 events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce
678 IO latency, at the cost of more retrieval system calls.
679
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680iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
681 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
682 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
683 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
684 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
685 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
686
71bfa161 687direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
9b836561 688 O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
93bcfd20 689 On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
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690
691buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
692 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
71bfa161 693
f7fa2653 694offset=int Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
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695 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
696 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
697
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698offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
699 the offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the
700 thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented
701 for each job. This option is useful if there are several jobs
702 which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in disjoint
703 segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
704
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705fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
706 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
707 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
708 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
709 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
6c219763 710 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
71bfa161 711
e76b1da4 712fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
5f9099ea 713 metadata blocks.
93bcfd20 714 In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
e72fa4d4 715 using fsync()
5f9099ea 716
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717sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
718 write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
719 have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
720 can currently be one or more of:
721
722 wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
723 write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
724 wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
725
726 So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
727 use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
728 every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
729 This option is Linux specific.
730
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731overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
732 data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
733 created before the write phase begins. If the file exists
734 and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
735 will be done.
71bfa161 736
dbd11ead 737end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when a write stage has completed.
71bfa161 738
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739fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
740 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
741 file close, not just at the end of the job.
742
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743rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
744
745rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
746 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
747 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
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748 the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting,
749 if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
750 If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
71bfa161 751
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752random_distribution=str:float By default, fio will use a completely uniform
753 random distribution when asked to perform random IO. Sometimes
754 it is useful to skew the distribution in specific ways,
755 ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
756 fio includes the following distribution models:
757
758 random Uniform random distribution
759 zipf Zipf distribution
760 pareto Pareto distribution
761
762 When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value
763 is also needed to define the access pattern. For zipf, this
764 is the zipf theta. For pareto, it's the pareto power. Fio
765 includes a test program, genzipf, that can be used visualize
766 what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
767 If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
768 random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform
769 model is used, fio will disable use of the random map.
770
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771percentage_random=int For a random workload, set how big a percentage should
772 be random. This defaults to 100%, in which case the workload
773 is fully random. It can be set from anywhere from 0 to 100.
774 Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully sequential. Any
775 setting in between will result in a random mix of sequential
776 and random IO, at the given percentages.
777
778percentage_sequential=int See percentage_random. It is guaranteed that
779 they add up to 100. The later setting has priority, each
780 will adjust the other.
781
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782norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
783 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
784 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
785 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
786 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
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787 is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
788 blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
789 complete rewrites of blocks.
bb8895e0 790
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791softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
792 enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
793 set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
794 will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
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795 disabled by default.
796
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797random_generator=str Fio supports the following engines for generating
798 IO offsets for random IO:
799
800 tausworthe Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
801 lfsr Linear feedback shift register generator
802
803 Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it
804 requires tracking on the side if we want to ensure that
805 blocks are only read or written once. LFSR guarantees
806 that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's
807 also less computationally expensive. It's not a true
808 random generator, however, though for IO purposes it's
809 typically good enough. LFSR only works with single
810 block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
811 sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write
812 some blocks multiple times.
43f09da1 813
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814nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
815
816prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
817 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
818 See man ionice(1).
819
820prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
821
822thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
823 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
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824 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
825 thinktime_spin.
826
827thinktime_spin=int
828 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
829 doing something with the data received, before falling back
830 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
831 thinktime.
9c1f7434 832
4d01ece6 833thinktime_blocks=int
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834 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
835 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
836 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
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837 after every block. This effectively makes any queue depth
838 setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO will be queued
839 before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In
840 other words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth
841 if the latter is larger.
71bfa161 842
581e7141 843rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
b09da8fa 844 the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
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845 reads and writes to 500k each, or you can specify read and
846 writes separately. Using rate=1m,500k would limit reads to
847 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or
848 writes can be done with rate=,500k or rate=500k,. The former
849 will only limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only
850 limit reads.
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851
852ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
4e991c23 853 bandwidth. Failing to meet this requirement, will cause
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854 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for
855 read vs write separation.
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856
857rate_iops=int Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same
858 as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
859 job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
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860 the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
861 as rate is used for read vs write seperation.
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862
863rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
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864 the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
865 write seperation.
71bfa161 866
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867max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
868 latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
869
71bfa161 870ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
6c219763 871 of milliseconds.
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872
873cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
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874 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. So if you want
875 the allowed CPUs to be 1 and 5, you would pass the decimal
876 value of (1 << 1 | 1 << 5), or 34. See man
7dbb6eba 877 sched_setaffinity(2). This may not work on all supported
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878 operating systems or kernel versions. This option doesn't
879 work well for a higher CPU count than what you can store in
880 an integer mask, so it can only control cpus 1-32. For
881 boxes with larger CPU counts, use cpus_allowed.
71bfa161 882
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883cpus_allowed=str Controls the same options as cpumask, but it allows a text
884 setting of the permitted CPUs instead. So to use CPUs 1 and
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885 5, you would specify cpus_allowed=1,5. This options also
886 allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
887 1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
d2e268b0 888
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YR
889numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
890 arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
891 A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
67bf9823 892 fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el) installed.
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YR
893
894numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
895 nodes. Format of the argements:
896 <mode>[:<nodelist>]
897 `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
898 default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
899 For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
900 needed to be specified.
901 For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
902 For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
903 list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
904
e417fd66 905startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
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906 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
907 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
908 time.
909
e417fd66 910runtime=time Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
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911 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
912 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
913 cap the total runtime to a given time.
914
cf4464ca 915time_based If set, fio will run for the duration of the runtime
bf9a3edb 916 specified even if the file(s) are completely read or
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917 written. It will simply loop over the same workload
918 as many times as the runtime allows.
919
e417fd66 920ramp_time=time If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount
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921 of time before logging any performance numbers. Useful for
922 letting performance settle before logging results, thus
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923 minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
924 that the ramp_time is considered lead in time for a job,
925 thus it will increase the total runtime if a special timeout
926 or runtime is specified.
721938ae 927
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928invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
929 to starting io. Defaults to true.
930
931sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
932 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
933
d3aad8f2 934iomem=str
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935mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
936 The allowed values are:
937
938 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
939
940 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
941 through shmget(2).
942
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943 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
944
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945 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
946 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
947 a filename is given after the option. The
948 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
71bfa161 949
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950 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
951 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
952 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
953
71bfa161 954 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
5394ae5f
JA
955 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
956 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
957 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
958 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
b22989b9 959 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MB in size. So
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960 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
961 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
962 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
963 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
964 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
965 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
56bb17f2 966 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
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967
968 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
969 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
970 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
71bfa161 971
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972iomem_align=int This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers.
973 Note that the given alignment is applied to the first IO unit
974 buffer, if using iodepth the alignment of the following buffers
975 are given by the bs used. In other words, if using a bs that is
976 a multiple of the page sized in the system, all buffers will
977 be aligned to this value. If using a bs that is not page
978 aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
979 sum of the iomem_align and bs used.
980
f7fa2653 981hugepage-size=int
56bb17f2 982 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
b22989b9 983 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MB.
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984 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
985 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
986 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
56bb17f2 987
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988exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
989 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
990 desired action.
991
992bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
6c219763 993 is specified in milliseconds.
71bfa161 994
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995iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
996 is specified in milliseconds.
997
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998create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
999 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
1000 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
1001 used and even the number of processors in the system.
1002
1003create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
1004 default.
1005
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1006create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
1007 when it's time to do IO to that file.
1008
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1009create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
1010 If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
1011 that will be done. The actual job contents are not
1012 executed.
1013
afad68f7 1014pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
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1015 starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
1016 the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
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1017 and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO engines
1018 that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1019 multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice
1020 IO.
afad68f7 1021
e545a6ce 1022unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
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1023 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the file
1024 set again and again.
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1025
1026loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
1027 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
1028 to 1.
1029
68e1f29a 1030do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
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1031 verify is set. Defaults to 1.
1032
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1033verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
1034 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
1035
1036 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
1037 it in the header of each block.
1038
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1039 crc64 Use an experimental crc64 sum of the data
1040 area and store it in the header of each
1041 block.
1042
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1043 crc32c Use a crc32c sum of the data area and store
1044 it in the header of each block.
1045
3845591f 1046 crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
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1047 provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
1048 back to regular software crc32c, if not
1049 supported by the system.
3845591f 1050
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1051 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
1052 it in the header of each block.
1053
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1054 crc16 Use a crc16 sum of the data area and store
1055 it in the header of each block.
1056
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1057 crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
1058 it in the header of each block.
1059
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1060 sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
1061
1062 sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
1063
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1064 sha1 Use optimized sha1 as the checksum function.
1065
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SL
1066 meta Write extra information about each io
1067 (timestamp, block number etc.). The block
996093bb 1068 number is verified. See also verify_pattern.
7437ee87 1069
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1070 null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
1071 internals with ioengine=null, not for much
1072 else.
1073
6c219763 1074 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
71bfa161 1075 system to make sure that the written data is also
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1076 correctly read back. If the data direction given is
1077 a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
1078 verify a previously written file. If the data direction
1079 includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
1080 newly written data.
71bfa161 1081
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1082verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
1083 it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
1084 often the case when overwriting an existing file, since
1085 the blocks are already laid out in the file system. You
1086 can ignore this option unless doing huge amounts of really
1087 fast IO where the red-black tree sorting CPU time becomes
1088 significant.
3f9f4e26 1089
f7fa2653 1090verify_offset=int Swap the verification header with data somewhere else
546a9142
SL
1091 in the block before writing. Its swapped back before
1092 verifying.
1093
f7fa2653 1094verify_interval=int Write the verification header at a finer granularity
3f9f4e26
SL
1095 than the blocksize. It will be written for chunks the
1096 size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
1097 evenly.
90059d65 1098
0e92f873 1099verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
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SL
1100 pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
1101 bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1102 pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
1103 width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
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RR
1104 buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
1105 The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
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JA
1106 be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
1107 with verify=meta.
e28218f3 1108
68e1f29a 1109verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
a12a3b4d
JA
1110 before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
1111 option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
1112 failure.
e8462bd8 1113
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JA
1114verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
1115 block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
1116 allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
ef71e317 1117 corruption occurred. Off by default.
b463e936 1118
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JA
1119verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
1120 thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
1121 async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
1122 causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
c85c324c
JA
1123 to one or more separate threads. If using this offload
1124 option, even sync IO engines can benefit from using an
1125 iodepth setting higher than 1, as it allows them to have
1126 IO in flight while verifies are running.
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JA
1127
1128verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
1129 async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
1130 format used.
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JA
1131
1132verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
1133 job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
1134 other words, everything is written then everything is read
1135 back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1136 instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
1137 associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
1138 verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
1139 holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
f42195a3
JA
1140 will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1141
6f87418f
JA
1142 will verify the previously written blocks before continuing
1143 to write new ones.
1144
1145verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
1146 if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
1147 the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
f42195a3
JA
1148 is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
1149 less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
1150 if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
1151 blocks will be verified more than once.
66c098b8 1152
d392365e
JA
1153stonewall
1154wait_for_previous Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
71bfa161 1155 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
b3d62a75
JA
1156 points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
1157 a new reporting group.
1158
abcab6af 1159new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
71bfa161
JA
1160
1161numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
1162 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
abcab6af
AV
1163 the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
1164 statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
1165 conjunction with new_group.
1166
1167group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
04b2f799
JA
1168 groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
1169 This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
1170 individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
1171 To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
1172 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
1173 reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
1174 using 'new_group'.
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JA
1175
1176thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
1177 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
1178 instead.
1179
f7fa2653 1180zonesize=int Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
71bfa161 1181
f7fa2653 1182zoneskip=int Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
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1183 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
1184 io on zones of a file.
1185
076efc7c 1186write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
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1187 read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
1188 the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
71bfa161 1189
076efc7c 1190read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
71bfa161 1191 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
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1192 workload and replay it sometime later. The iolog given
1193 may also be a blktrace binary file, which allows fio
1194 to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
1195 for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
1196 the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
ea3e51c3 1197 file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
66c098b8 1198
64bbb865 1199replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
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1200 is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
1201 replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
1202 setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
1203 attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
1204 respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
1205 given device, but different timings.
71bfa161 1206
d1c46c04
DN
1207replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
1208 default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
1209 device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
1210 undesireable because on a different machine those major/minor
1211 numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
1212 the same system can also result in a different major/minor
1213 mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
1214 the single specified device regardless of the device it was
1215 recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
1216 IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
1217 multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
1218 contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
1219 replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
1220 blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
1221 independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
1222 the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
1223
e3cedca7 1224write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
71bfa161 1225 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
e0da9bc2
JA
1226 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
1227 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
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LAG
1228 graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
1229 filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.log.
71bfa161 1230
e3cedca7 1231write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
02af0988
JA
1232 submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
1233 filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1234 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1235 fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
e3cedca7
JA
1236
1237 write_lat_log=foo
1238
d5d94597 1239 The actual log names will be foo_slat.log, foo_clat.log,
02af0988
JA
1240 and foo_lat.log. This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs
1241 automatically.
71bfa161 1242
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JA
1243write_bw_log=str If given, write an IOPS log of the jobs in this job
1244 file. See write_bw_log.
1245
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JA
1246write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
1247 given with this option, the default filename of
1248 "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
1249 fio will still append the type of log.
1250
1251log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
1252 or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
1253 disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
1254 this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
1255 specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1256 Defaults to 0.
1257
f7fa2653 1258lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
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1259 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
1260 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
81c6b6cd 1261 The amount specified is per worker.
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1262
1263exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1264 through system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1265 jobname.prerun.txt.
71bfa161
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1266
1267exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
74c8c488
JA
1268 though system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
1269 jobname.postrun.txt.
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1270
1271ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
1272 io scheduler before running.
1273
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1274disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
1275 supports it. Defaults to on.
1276
02af0988 1277disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
9520ebb9
JA
1278 only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
1279 as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
1280 Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1281 calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
1282 disable_bw as well.
1283
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JA
1284disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
1285 disable_lat.
1286
9520ebb9 1287disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
02af0988 1288 disable_slat.
9520ebb9
JA
1289
1290disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
02af0988 1291 disable_lat.
9520ebb9 1292
83349190
YH
1293clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
1294 completion latencies.
1295
1296percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
1297 for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
1298 number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
1299 the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
1300 list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
1301 --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
1302 the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
1303 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1304
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1305clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
1306 supported options are:
1307
1308 gettimeofday gettimeofday(2)
1309
1310 clock_gettime clock_gettime(2)
1311
1312 cpu Internal CPU clock source
1313
1314 cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it
1315 is very fast (and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will
1316 automatically use this clocksource if it's supported and
1317 considered reliable on the system it is running on, unless
1318 another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs,
1319 this means supporting TSC Invariant.
1320
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1321gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
1322 (disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
1323 precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink
1324 the gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled,
1325 we only do about 0.4% of the gtod() calls we would have
1326 done if all time keeping was enabled.
1327
be4ecfdf
JA
1328gtod_cpu=int Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of
1329 execution to just getting the current time. Fio (and
1330 databases, for instance) are very intensive on gettimeofday()
1331 calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for
1332 doing nothing but logging current time to a shared memory
1333 location. Then the other threads/processes that run IO
1334 workloads need only copy that segment, instead of entering
1335 the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside
1336 for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
1337 uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
1338 jobs.
a696fa2a 1339
06842027 1340continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
f2bba182
RR
1341 failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
1342 there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
1343 is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
1344 option is used, there are two more stats that are appended,
1345 the total error count and the first error. The error field
1346 given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
1347 run.
be4ecfdf 1348
06842027
SL
1349 The allowed values are:
1350
1351 none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
1352
1353 read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
1354
1355 write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
1356
1357 io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
1358
1359 verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
1360
1361 all Continue on all errors.
1362
1363 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
1364
1365 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
1366
8b28bd41
DM
1367ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
1368 in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
1369 ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1370 errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
1371 may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
1372 Example:
1373 ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
66c098b8
BC
1374 This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
1375 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
8b28bd41
DM
1376
1377error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
1378 by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
66c098b8 1379
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JA
1380cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
1381 be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
1382 mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
1383 mounted, you can do so with:
a696fa2a
JA
1384
1385 # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
1386
a696fa2a
JA
1387cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
1388 the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
1389 are in the range of 100..1000.
71bfa161 1390
7de87099
VG
1391cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
1392 the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
1393 cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
1394 This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
1395 files after job completion. Default: false
1396
e0b0d892
JA
1397uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
1398 this value before the thread/process does any work.
1399
1400gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
1401
9e684a49
DE
1402flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
1403 global flow. See flow.
1404
1405flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
1406 there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
1407 proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
1408 to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
1409 stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
1410 counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
1411 one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
1412 will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1413
1414flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
1415 counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
1416 lower value of the counter.
1417
1418flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
1419 watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
1420
de890a1e
SL
1421In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
1422ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
1423caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
1424that defines them is selected.
1425
1426[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1427 the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1428 With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1429 from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1430 enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1431 iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1432
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1433[cpu] cpuload=int Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1434
1435[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
1436 microseconds.
1437
de890a1e
SL
1438[netsplice] hostname=str
1439[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1440 If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1441 used and must be omitted.
1442
1443[netsplice] port=int
1444[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
1445
1d360ffb
JA
1446[netsplice] nodelay=bool
1447[net] nodelay=bool Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1448
de890a1e
SL
1449[netsplice] protocol=str
1450[netsplice] proto=str
1451[net] protocol=str
1452[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1453
1454 tcp Transmission control protocol
f5cc3d0e 1455 udp User datagram protocol
de890a1e
SL
1456 unix UNIX domain socket
1457
1458 When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1459 as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1460 reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1461 used and the port is invalid.
1462
1463[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1464 connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1465 hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
7aeb1e94
JA
1466[net] pingpong Normal a network writer will just continue writing data, and
1467 a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
1468 is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
1469 then wait for the reader to send the same payload back. This
1470 allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission
1471 and completion latencies then measure local time spent
1472 sending or receiving, and the completion latency measures
1473 how long it took for the other end to receive and send back.
1474
d54fce84
DM
1475[e4defrag] donorname=str
1476 File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
1477[e4defrag] inplace=int
66c098b8 1478 Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
d54fce84
DM
1479 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
1480 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
1481 and free right after event
1482
de890a1e
SL
1483
1484
71bfa161
JA
14856.0 Interpreting the output
1486---------------------------
1487
1488fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
1489status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
1490
73c8b082 1491Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
71bfa161
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1492
1493The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
1494each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
1495
1496Idle Run
1497---- ---
1498P Thread setup, but not started.
1499C Thread created.
9c6f6316 1500I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
b0f65863 1501 p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
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JA
1502 R Running, doing sequential reads.
1503 r Running, doing random reads.
1504 W Running, doing sequential writes.
1505 w Running, doing random writes.
1506 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1507 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1508 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
fc6bd43c 1509 V Running, doing verification of written data.
71bfa161 1510E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
4f7e57a4
JA
1511_ Thread reaped, or
1512X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
a5e371a6 1513K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
71bfa161
JA
1514
1515The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
c9f60304
JA
1516currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
1517listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
1518and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
4f7e57a4
JA
1519the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
1520so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
1521first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
71bfa161
JA
1522
1523When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
1524each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
1525direction, the output looks like:
1526
1527Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
35649e58 1528 write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
6104ddb6
JA
1529 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
1530 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
b22989b9 1531 bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
e7823a94 1532 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969, majf=0, minf=17
71619dc2 1533 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
838bc709
JA
1534 submit : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
1535 complete : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
30061b97 1536 issued r/w: total=0/32768, short=0/0
8abdce66
JA
1537 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
1538 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
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JA
1539
1540The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
1541thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
1542they denote:
1543
1544io= Number of megabytes io performed
1545bw= Average bandwidth rate
35649e58 1546iops= Average IOs performed per second
71bfa161 1547runt= The runtime of that thread
72fbda2a 1548 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
71bfa161
JA
1549 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
1550 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
8a35c71e 1551 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
bf9a3edb 1552 value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
8a35c71e 1553 the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
0d237712
LAG
1554 above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
1555 latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
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JA
1556 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
1557 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
1558 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
1559 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
1560 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
1561 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
1562 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
1563 this thread received in this group. This last value is
1564 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
1565 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
1566cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
e7823a94
JA
1567 of context switches this thread went through, usage of
1568 system and user time, and finally the number of major
1569 and minor page faults.
71619dc2
JA
1570IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
1571 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
1572 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
1573 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
1574 range from 16 to 31.
838bc709
JA
1575IO submit= How many pieces of IO were submitting in a single submit
1576 call. Each entry denotes that amount and below, until
1577 the previous entry - eg, 8=100% mean that we submitted
1578 anywhere in between 5-8 ios per submit call.
1579IO complete= Like the above submit number, but for completions instead.
30061b97
JA
1580IO issued= The number of read/write requests issued, and how many
1581 of them were short.
ec118304
JA
1582IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
1583 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
1584 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
1585 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
8abdce66
JA
1586 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
1587 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
71bfa161
JA
1588
1589After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
1590will look like this:
1591
1592Run status group 0 (all jobs):
b22989b9
JA
1593 READ: io=64MB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
1594 WRITE: io=64MB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
71bfa161
JA
1595
1596For each data direction, it prints:
1597
1598io= Number of megabytes io performed.
1599aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
1600minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1601maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1602mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
1603maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
1604
1605And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
1606
1607Disk stats (read/write):
1608 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
1609
1610Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
1611numbers denote:
1612
1613ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
1614merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
1615ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1616io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
1617util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
1618 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
1619
8423bd11
JA
1620It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1621running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
06464907
JA
1622You can also get regularly timed dumps by using the --status-interval
1623parameter, or by creating a file in /tmp named fio-dump-status. If fio
1624sees this file, it will unlink it and dump the current output status.
8423bd11 1625
71bfa161
JA
1626
16277.0 Terse output
1628----------------
1629
1630For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
6af019c9 1631of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
71bfa161
JA
1632The format is one long line of values, such as:
1633
562c2d2f
DN
16342;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%
1635A description of this job goes here.
1636
1637The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
71bfa161 1638
525c2bfa
JA
1639To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
1640value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
1641be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
1642signify that change.
6820cb3b 1643
71bfa161
JA
1644Split up, the format is as follows:
1645
5e726d0a 1646 terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
71bfa161 1647 READ status:
312b4af2 1648 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
de196b82
JA
1649 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1650 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1651 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1652 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1653 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161 1654 WRITE status:
312b4af2 1655 Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
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JA
1656 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1657 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
1db92cb6 1658 Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
de196b82 1659 Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
0d237712 1660 Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
046ee302 1661 CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
2270890c 1662 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
562c2d2f
DN
1663 IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1664 IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
f2f788dd
JA
1665 Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
1666 Read merges, write merges,
1667 Read ticks, write ticks,
3d7cd9b4 1668 Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
66c098b8
BC
1669 Additional Info (dependant on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
1670
f42195a3 1671 Additional Info (dependant on description being set): Text description
25c8b9d7 1672
1db92cb6
JA
1673Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
1674for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
1675
1676 1.00%=6112
1677
1678which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
1679
f2f788dd
JA
1680For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
1681there will be a disk utilization section.
1682
25c8b9d7
PD
1683
16848.0 Trace file format
1685---------------------
66c098b8 1686There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
25c8b9d7
PD
1687is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
1688below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
1689
1690In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
1691
1692
16938.1 Trace file format v1
1694------------------------
1695Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
1696
1697rw, offset, length
1698
1699where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
1700
1701This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
1702
1703
17048.2 Trace file format v2
1705------------------------
1706The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
1707It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
1708possible file actions.
1709
1710The first line of the trace file has to be:
1711
1712fio version 2 iolog
1713
1714Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
1715
1716The file management format:
1717
1718filename action
1719
1720The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
1721
1722add Add the given filename to the trace
66c098b8 1723open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
25c8b9d7
PD
1724 been added with the add action before.
1725close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
1726 opened before.
1727
1728
1729The file io action format:
1730
1731filename action offset length
1732
1733The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
66c098b8 1734before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
25c8b9d7
PD
1735bytes. The action can be one of these:
1736
1737wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
1738read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1739write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
1740sync fsync() the file
1741datasync fdatasync() the file
1742trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes
f2a2ce0e
HL
1743
1744
17459.0 CPU idleness profiling
06464907 1746--------------------------
f2a2ce0e
HL
1747In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
1748we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
1749fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
1750idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
1751By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
1752CPU can be derived accordingly.
1753
1754An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
1755and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
1756work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
1757overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.