zipf/pareto/gauss: hash cleanup
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f8b8f7da 1.TH fio 1 "December 2014" "User Manual"
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AC
2.SH NAME
3fio \- flexible I/O tester
4.SH SYNOPSIS
5.B fio
6[\fIoptions\fR] [\fIjobfile\fR]...
7.SH DESCRIPTION
8.B fio
9is a tool that will spawn a number of threads or processes doing a
10particular type of I/O action as specified by the user.
11The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching the I/O load
12one wants to simulate.
13.SH OPTIONS
14.TP
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JA
15.BI \-\-debug \fR=\fPtype
16Enable verbose tracing of various fio actions. May be `all' for all types
17or individual types separated by a comma (eg \-\-debug=io,file). `help' will
18list all available tracing options.
19.TP
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20.BI \-\-output \fR=\fPfilename
21Write output to \fIfilename\fR.
22.TP
e28ee21d 23.BI \-\-output-format \fR=\fPformat
513e37ee
VF
24Set the reporting format to \fInormal\fR, \fIterse\fR, \fIjson\fR, or
25\fIjson+\fR. Multiple formats can be selected, separate by a comma. \fIterse\fR
26is a CSV based format. \fIjson+\fR is like \fIjson\fR, except it adds a full
27dump of the latency buckets.
e28ee21d 28.TP
b2cecdc2 29.BI \-\-runtime \fR=\fPruntime
30Limit run time to \fIruntime\fR seconds.
d60e92d1 31.TP
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32.B \-\-bandwidth\-log
33Generate per-job bandwidth logs.
34.TP
35.B \-\-minimal
d1429b5c 36Print statistics in a terse, semicolon-delimited format.
d60e92d1 37.TP
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JA
38.B \-\-append-terse
39Print statistics in selected mode AND terse, semicolon-delimited format.
40Deprecated, use \-\-output-format instead to select multiple formats.
41.TP
49da1240
JA
42.B \-\-version
43Display version information and exit.
44.TP
065248bf 45.BI \-\-terse\-version \fR=\fPversion
4d658652 46Set terse version output format (Current version 3, or older version 2).
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JA
47.TP
48.B \-\-help
49Display usage information and exit.
50.TP
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JA
51.B \-\-cpuclock-test
52Perform test and validation of internal CPU clock
53.TP
54.BI \-\-crctest[\fR=\fPtest]
55Test the speed of the builtin checksumming functions. If no argument is given,
56all of them are tested. Or a comma separated list can be passed, in which
57case the given ones are tested.
58.TP
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JA
59.BI \-\-cmdhelp \fR=\fPcommand
60Print help information for \fIcommand\fR. May be `all' for all commands.
61.TP
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62.BI \-\-enghelp \fR=\fPioengine[,command]
63List all commands defined by \fIioengine\fR, or print help for \fIcommand\fR defined by \fIioengine\fR.
64.TP
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65.BI \-\-showcmd \fR=\fPjobfile
66Convert \fIjobfile\fR to a set of command-line options.
67.TP
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68.BI \-\-eta \fR=\fPwhen
69Specifies when real-time ETA estimate should be printed. \fIwhen\fR may
70be one of `always', `never' or `auto'.
71.TP
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JA
72.BI \-\-eta\-newline \fR=\fPtime
73Force an ETA newline for every `time` period passed.
74.TP
75.BI \-\-status\-interval \fR=\fPtime
76Report full output status every `time` period passed.
77.TP
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JA
78.BI \-\-readonly
79Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing any attempted write.
80.TP
c0a5d35e 81.BI \-\-section \fR=\fPsec
cf145d90 82Only run section \fIsec\fR from job file. This option can be used multiple times to add more sections to run.
c0a5d35e 83.TP
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JA
84.BI \-\-alloc\-size \fR=\fPkb
85Set the internal smalloc pool size to \fIkb\fP kilobytes.
d60e92d1 86.TP
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JA
87.BI \-\-warnings\-fatal
88All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an error.
9183788d 89.TP
49da1240 90.BI \-\-max\-jobs \fR=\fPnr
57e118a2 91Set the maximum allowed number of jobs (threads/processes) to support.
d60e92d1 92.TP
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JA
93.BI \-\-server \fR=\fPargs
94Start a backend server, with \fIargs\fP specifying what to listen to. See client/server section.
f57a9c59 95.TP
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JA
96.BI \-\-daemonize \fR=\fPpidfile
97Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given pid file.
98.TP
99.BI \-\-client \fR=\fPhost
39b5f61e 100Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given host or set of hosts. See client/server section.
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HL
101.TP
102.BI \-\-idle\-prof \fR=\fPoption
103Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis (\fIoption\fP=system,percpu) or run unit work calibration only (\fIoption\fP=calibrate).
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104.SH "JOB FILE FORMAT"
105Job files are in `ini' format. They consist of one or more
106job definitions, which begin with a job name in square brackets and
107extend to the next job name. The job name can be any ASCII string
108except `global', which has a special meaning. Following the job name is
109a sequence of zero or more parameters, one per line, that define the
110behavior of the job. Any line starting with a `;' or `#' character is
d1429b5c 111considered a comment and ignored.
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112.P
113If \fIjobfile\fR is specified as `-', the job file will be read from
114standard input.
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115.SS "Global Section"
116The global section contains default parameters for jobs specified in the
117job file. A job is only affected by global sections residing above it,
118and there may be any number of global sections. Specific job definitions
119may override any parameter set in global sections.
120.SH "JOB PARAMETERS"
121.SS Types
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SC
122Some parameters may take arguments of a specific type.
123Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression may be used,
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JA
124provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators are:
125.RS
126.RS
127.TP
128.B addition (+)
129.TP
130.B subtraction (-)
131.TP
132.B multiplication (*)
133.TP
134.B division (/)
135.TP
136.B modulus (%)
137.TP
138.B exponentiation (^)
139.RE
140.RE
141.P
142For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
143different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
144parentheses). The types used are:
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AC
145.TP
146.I str
147String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
148.TP
149.I int
d60e92d1 150SI integer: a whole number, possibly containing a suffix denoting the base unit
b09da8fa
JA
151of the value. Accepted suffixes are `k', 'M', 'G', 'T', and 'P', denoting
152kilo (1024), mega (1024^2), giga (1024^3), tera (1024^4), and peta (1024^5)
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153respectively. If prefixed with '0x', the value is assumed to be base 16
154(hexadecimal). A suffix may include a trailing 'b', for instance 'kb' is
155identical to 'k'. You can specify a base 10 value by using 'KiB', 'MiB','GiB',
156etc. This is useful for disk drives where values are often given in base 10
157values. Specifying '30GiB' will get you 30*1000^3 bytes.
158When specifying times the default suffix meaning changes, still denoting the
159base unit of the value, but accepted suffixes are 'D' (days), 'H' (hours), 'M'
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JA
160(minutes), 'S' Seconds, 'ms' (or msec) milli seconds, 'us' (or 'usec') micro
161seconds. Time values without a unit specify seconds.
74454ce4 162The suffixes are not case sensitive.
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AC
163.TP
164.I bool
165Boolean: a true or false value. `0' denotes false, `1' denotes true.
166.TP
167.I irange
168Integer range: a range of integers specified in the format
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AC
169\fIlower\fR:\fIupper\fR or \fIlower\fR\-\fIupper\fR. \fIlower\fR and
170\fIupper\fR may contain a suffix as described above. If an option allows two
171sets of ranges, they are separated with a `,' or `/' character. For example:
172`8\-8k/8M\-4G'.
83349190
YH
173.TP
174.I float_list
175List of floating numbers: A list of floating numbers, separated by
cecbfd47 176a ':' character.
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177.SS "Parameter List"
178.TP
179.BI name \fR=\fPstr
d9956b64 180May be used to override the job name. On the command line, this parameter
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AC
181has the special purpose of signalling the start of a new job.
182.TP
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AK
183.BI wait_for \fR=\fPstr
184Specifies the name of the already defined job to wait for. Single waitee name
185only may be specified. If set, the job won't be started until all workers of
186the waitee job are done. Wait_for operates on the job name basis, so there are
187a few limitations. First, the waitee must be defined prior to the waiter job
188(meaning no forward references). Second, if a job is being referenced as a
189waitee, it must have a unique name (no duplicate waitees).
190.TP
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191.BI description \fR=\fPstr
192Human-readable description of the job. It is printed when the job is run, but
193otherwise has no special purpose.
194.TP
195.BI directory \fR=\fPstr
196Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files in a location other
197than `./'.
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198You can specify a number of directories by separating the names with a ':'
199character. These directories will be assigned equally distributed to job clones
200creates with \fInumjobs\fR as long as they are using generated filenames.
201If specific \fIfilename(s)\fR are set fio will use the first listed directory,
202and thereby matching the \fIfilename\fR semantic which generates a file each
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203clone if not specified, but let all clones use the same if set. See
204\fIfilename\fR for considerations regarding escaping certain characters on
205some platforms.
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AC
206.TP
207.BI filename \fR=\fPstr
208.B fio
209normally makes up a file name based on the job name, thread number, and file
d1429b5c 210number. If you want to share files between threads in a job or several jobs,
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211specify a \fIfilename\fR for each of them to override the default.
212If the I/O engine is file-based, you can specify
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AC
213a number of files by separating the names with a `:' character. `\-' is a
214reserved name, meaning stdin or stdout, depending on the read/write direction
67445b63
JA
215set. On Windows, disk devices are accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first
216device, \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and FreeBSD
217prevent write access to areas of the disk containing in-use data
218(e.g. filesystems). If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
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JM
219escape that with a '\\' character. For instance, if the filename is
220"/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\\:c".
d60e92d1 221.TP
de98bd30 222.BI filename_format \fR=\fPstr
ce594fbe 223If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have
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JA
224fio generate the exact names that you want. By default, fio will name a file
225based on the default file format specification of
226\fBjobname.jobnumber.filenumber\fP. With this option, that can be
227customized. Fio will recognize and replace the following keywords in this
228string:
229.RS
230.RS
231.TP
232.B $jobname
233The name of the worker thread or process.
234.TP
235.B $jobnum
236The incremental number of the worker thread or process.
237.TP
238.B $filenum
239The incremental number of the file for that worker thread or process.
240.RE
241.P
242To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can be set to
243have fio generate filenames that are shared between the two. For instance,
244if \fBtestfiles.$filenum\fR is specified, file number 4 for any job will
245be named \fBtestfiles.4\fR. The default of \fB$jobname.$jobnum.$filenum\fR
246will be used if no other format specifier is given.
247.RE
248.P
249.TP
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JA
250.BI lockfile \fR=\fPstr
251Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does IO to them. If a file or
252file descriptor is shared, fio can serialize IO to that file to make the end
253result consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that share files.
254The lock modes are:
255.RS
256.RS
257.TP
258.B none
259No locking. This is the default.
260.TP
261.B exclusive
cf145d90 262Only one thread or process may do IO at a time, excluding all others.
3ce9dcaf
JA
263.TP
264.B readwrite
265Read-write locking on the file. Many readers may access the file at the same
266time, but writes get exclusive access.
267.RE
ce594fbe 268.RE
3ce9dcaf 269.P
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AC
270.BI opendir \fR=\fPstr
271Recursively open any files below directory \fIstr\fR.
272.TP
273.BI readwrite \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP rw" \fR=\fPstr
274Type of I/O pattern. Accepted values are:
275.RS
276.RS
277.TP
278.B read
d1429b5c 279Sequential reads.
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AC
280.TP
281.B write
d1429b5c 282Sequential writes.
d60e92d1 283.TP
fa769d44
SW
284.B trim
285Sequential trim (Linux block devices only).
286.TP
d60e92d1 287.B randread
d1429b5c 288Random reads.
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AC
289.TP
290.B randwrite
d1429b5c 291Random writes.
d60e92d1 292.TP
fa769d44
SW
293.B randtrim
294Random trim (Linux block devices only).
295.TP
10b023db 296.B rw, readwrite
d1429b5c 297Mixed sequential reads and writes.
d60e92d1 298.TP
ff6bb260 299.B randrw
d1429b5c 300Mixed random reads and writes.
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JA
301.TP
302.B trimwrite
303Trim and write mixed workload. Blocks will be trimmed first, then the same
304blocks will be written to.
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AC
305.RE
306.P
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JA
307For mixed I/O, the default split is 50/50. For certain types of io the result
308may still be skewed a bit, since the speed may be different. It is possible to
3b7fa9ec 309specify a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is done by
38dad62d
JA
310appending a `:\fI<nr>\fR to the end of the string given. For a random read, it
311would look like \fBrw=randread:8\fR for passing in an offset modifier with a
059b0802
JA
312value of 8. If the postfix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
313specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO. For instance,
314using \fBrw=write:4k\fR will skip 4k for every write. It turns sequential IO
315into sequential IO with holes. See the \fBrw_sequencer\fR option.
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AC
316.RE
317.TP
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JA
318.BI rw_sequencer \fR=\fPstr
319If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to the \fBrw=<str>\fR line,
320then this option controls how that number modifies the IO offset being
321generated. Accepted values are:
322.RS
323.RS
324.TP
325.B sequential
326Generate sequential offset
327.TP
328.B identical
329Generate the same offset
330.RE
331.P
332\fBsequential\fR is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
333generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append eg 8 to randread, you
334would get a new random offset for every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for
335only every 8 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use \fBrw=randread:8\fR to specify
336that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting \fBsequential\fR for that
337would not result in any differences. \fBidentical\fR behaves in a similar
338fashion, except it sends the same offset 8 number of times before generating a
339new offset.
340.RE
341.P
342.TP
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JA
343.BI kb_base \fR=\fPint
344The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024. Storage
345manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base ten unit instead, for obvious
5c9323fb 346reasons. Allowed values are 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
90fef2d1 347.TP
771e58be
JA
348.BI unified_rw_reporting \fR=\fPbool
349Fio normally reports statistics on a per data direction basis, meaning that
350read, write, and trim are accounted and reported separately. If this option is
cf145d90 351set fio sums the results and reports them as "mixed" instead.
771e58be 352.TP
d60e92d1 353.BI randrepeat \fR=\fPbool
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CE
354Seed the random number generator used for random I/O patterns in a predictable
355way so the pattern is repeatable across runs. Default: true.
356.TP
357.BI allrandrepeat \fR=\fPbool
358Seed all random number generators in a predictable way so results are
359repeatable across runs. Default: false.
d60e92d1 360.TP
04778baf
JA
361.BI randseed \fR=\fPint
362Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to be able to
363control what sequence of output is being generated. If not set, the random
364sequence depends on the \fBrandrepeat\fR setting.
365.TP
a596f047
EG
366.BI fallocate \fR=\fPstr
367Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files. Accepted values
368are:
369.RS
370.RS
371.TP
372.B none
373Do not pre-allocate space.
374.TP
375.B posix
ccc2b328 376Pre-allocate via \fBposix_fallocate\fR\|(3).
a596f047
EG
377.TP
378.B keep
ccc2b328 379Pre-allocate via \fBfallocate\fR\|(2) with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
a596f047
EG
380.TP
381.B 0
382Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
383.TP
384.B 1
385Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'.
386.RE
387.P
388May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
389available on Linux. If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to 'none'
390because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
391.RE
7bc8c2cf 392.TP
d60e92d1 393.BI fadvise_hint \fR=\fPbool
cf145d90 394Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what I/O patterns
d1429b5c 395are likely to be issued. Default: true.
d60e92d1 396.TP
37659335
JA
397.BI fadvise_stream \fR=\fPint
398Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what stream ID the
399writes issued belong to. Only supported on Linux. Note, this option
400may change going forward.
401.TP
f7fa2653 402.BI size \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1 403Total size of I/O for this job. \fBfio\fR will run until this many bytes have
a4d3b4db
JA
404been transferred, unless limited by other options (\fBruntime\fR, for instance,
405or increased/descreased by \fBio_size\fR). Unless \fBnrfiles\fR and
406\fBfilesize\fR options are given, this amount will be divided between the
407available files for the job. If not set, fio will use the full size of the
408given files or devices. If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is
409also possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20% is
410given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given files or devices.
411.TP
412.BI io_size \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fB io_limit \fR=\fPint
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JA
413Normally fio operates within the region set by \fBsize\fR, which means that
414the \fBsize\fR option sets both the region and size of IO to be performed.
415Sometimes that is not what you want. With this option, it is possible to
416define just the amount of IO that fio should do. For instance, if \fBsize\fR
417is set to 20G and \fBio_limit\fR is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within
a4d3b4db
JA
418the first 20G but exit when 5G have been done. The opposite is also
419possible - if \fBsize\fR is set to 20G, and \fBio_size\fR is set to 40G, then
420fio will do 40G of IO within the 0..20G region.
d60e92d1 421.TP
74586c1e 422.BI fill_device \fR=\fPbool "\fR,\fB fill_fs" \fR=\fPbool
3ce9dcaf
JA
423Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no space left on
424device) as the terminating condition. Only makes sense with sequential write.
425For a read workload, the mount point will be filled first then IO started on
4f12432e
JA
426the result. This option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
427since the size of that is already known by the file system. Additionally,
428writing beyond end-of-device will not return ENOSPC there.
3ce9dcaf 429.TP
d60e92d1
AC
430.BI filesize \fR=\fPirange
431Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case \fBfio\fR will select sizes
d1429b5c
AC
432for files at random within the given range, limited to \fBsize\fR in total (if
433that is given). If \fBfilesize\fR is not specified, each created file is the
434same size.
d60e92d1 435.TP
bedc9dc2
JA
436.BI file_append \fR=\fPbool
437Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will operate within the
438size of a file. If this option is set, then fio will append to the file
439instead. This has identical behavior to setting \fRoffset\fP to the size
0aae4ce7 440of a file. This option is ignored on non-regular files.
bedc9dc2 441.TP
f7fa2653 442.BI blocksize \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB bs" \fR=\fPint[,int]
d9472271
JA
443Block size for I/O units. Default: 4k. Values for reads, writes, and trims
444can be specified separately in the format \fIread\fR,\fIwrite\fR,\fItrim\fR
445either of which may be empty to leave that value at its default. If a trailing
446comma isn't given, the remainder will inherit the last value set.
d60e92d1 447.TP
9183788d 448.BI blocksize_range \fR=\fPirange[,irange] "\fR,\fB bsrange" \fR=\fPirange[,irange]
d1429b5c
AC
449Specify a range of I/O block sizes. The issued I/O unit will always be a
450multiple of the minimum size, unless \fBblocksize_unaligned\fR is set. Applies
9183788d 451to both reads and writes if only one range is given, but can be specified
de8f6de9 452separately with a comma separating the values. Example: bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k.
9183788d
JA
453Also (see \fBblocksize\fR).
454.TP
455.BI bssplit \fR=\fPstr
456This option allows even finer grained control of the block sizes issued,
457not just even splits between them. With this option, you can weight various
458block sizes for exact control of the issued IO for a job that has mixed
459block sizes. The format of the option is bssplit=blocksize/percentage,
5982a925 460optionally adding as many definitions as needed separated by a colon.
9183788d 461Example: bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40 would issue 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k
c83cdd3e
JA
462blocks and 40% 32k blocks. \fBbssplit\fR also supports giving separate
463splits to reads and writes. The format is identical to what the
464\fBbs\fR option accepts, the read and write parts are separated with a
465comma.
d60e92d1
AC
466.TP
467.B blocksize_unaligned\fR,\fP bs_unaligned
d1429b5c
AC
468If set, any size in \fBblocksize_range\fR may be used. This typically won't
469work with direct I/O, as that normally requires sector alignment.
d60e92d1 470.TP
2b7a01d0 471.BI blockalign \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB ba" \fR=\fPint[,int]
639ce0f3
MS
472At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to the same as 'blocksize'
473the minimum blocksize given. Minimum alignment is typically 512b
2b7a01d0
JA
474for using direct IO, though it usually depends on the hardware block size.
475This option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for files, so it
476will turn off that option.
43602667 477.TP
6aca9b3d
JA
478.BI bs_is_seq_rand \fR=\fPbool
479If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write blocksize settings as
480sequential,random instead. Any random read or write will use the WRITE
481blocksize settings, and any sequential read or write will use the READ
482blocksize setting.
483.TP
d60e92d1 484.B zero_buffers
cf145d90 485Initialize buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
d60e92d1 486.TP
901bb994
JA
487.B refill_buffers
488If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers on every submit. The
489default is to only fill it at init time and reuse that data. Only makes sense
490if zero_buffers isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
491refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
492.TP
fd68418e
JA
493.BI scramble_buffers \fR=\fPbool
494If \fBrefill_buffers\fR is too costly and the target is using data
495deduplication, then setting this option will slightly modify the IO buffer
496contents to defeat normal de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat
497more clever block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe
498of blocks. Default: true.
499.TP
c5751c62
JA
500.BI buffer_compress_percentage \fR=\fPint
501If this is set, then fio will attempt to provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs)
502that compress to the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
d1af2894
JA
503random data and a fixed pattern. The fixed pattern is either zeroes, or the
504pattern specified by \fBbuffer_pattern\fR. If the pattern option is used, it
505might skew the compression ratio slightly. Note that this is per block size
506unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches this setting. Note
507that this is per block size unit, for file/disk wide compression level that
508matches this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
c5751c62
JA
509.TP
510.BI buffer_compress_chunk \fR=\fPint
511See \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR. This setting allows fio to manage how
512big the ranges of random data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
513provide \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR of blocksize random data, followed by
514the remaining zeroed. With this set to some chunk size smaller than the block
515size, fio can alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO buffer.
516.TP
ce35b1ec 517.BI buffer_pattern \fR=\fPstr
cf145d90
CVB
518If set, fio will fill the IO buffers with this pattern. If not set, the contents
519of IO buffers is defined by the other options related to buffer contents. The
ce35b1ec 520setting can be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
02975b64 521values. It may also be a string, where the string must then be wrapped with
2fa5a241
RP
522"", e.g.:
523.RS
524.RS
525\fBbuffer_pattern\fR="abcd"
526.RS
527or
528.RE
529\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=-12
530.RS
531or
532.RE
533\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface
534.RE
535.LP
536Also you can combine everything together in any order:
537.LP
538.RS
539\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface"abcd"-12
540.RE
541.RE
ce35b1ec 542.TP
5c94b008
JA
543.BI dedupe_percentage \fR=\fPint
544If set, fio will generate this percentage of identical buffers when writing.
545These buffers will be naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend
546on what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's possible to have
547the individual buffers either fully compressible, or not at all. This option
548only controls the distribution of unique buffers.
549.TP
d60e92d1
AC
550.BI nrfiles \fR=\fPint
551Number of files to use for this job. Default: 1.
552.TP
553.BI openfiles \fR=\fPint
554Number of files to keep open at the same time. Default: \fBnrfiles\fR.
555.TP
556.BI file_service_type \fR=\fPstr
557Defines how files to service are selected. The following types are defined:
558.RS
559.RS
560.TP
561.B random
5c9323fb 562Choose a file at random.
d60e92d1
AC
563.TP
564.B roundrobin
cf145d90 565Round robin over opened files (default).
5c9323fb 566.TP
6b7f6851
JA
567.B sequential
568Do each file in the set sequentially.
8c07860d
JA
569.TP
570.B zipf
571Use a zipfian distribution to decide what file to access.
572.TP
573.B pareto
574Use a pareto distribution to decide what file to access.
575.TP
576.B gauss
577Use a gaussian (normal) distribution to decide what file to access.
d60e92d1
AC
578.RE
579.P
8c07860d
JA
580For \fBrandom\fR, \fBroundrobin\fR, and \fBsequential\fR, a postfix can be
581appended to tell fio how many I/Os to issue before switching to a new file.
582For example, specifying \fBfile_service_type=random:8\fR would cause fio to
583issue \fI8\fR I/Os before selecting a new file at random. For the non-uniform
584distributions, a floating point postfix can be given to influence how the
585distribution is skewed. See \fBrandom_distribution\fR for a description of how
586that would work.
d60e92d1
AC
587.RE
588.TP
589.BI ioengine \fR=\fPstr
590Defines how the job issues I/O. The following types are defined:
591.RS
592.RS
593.TP
594.B sync
ccc2b328 595Basic \fBread\fR\|(2) or \fBwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fBfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
d60e92d1
AC
596position the I/O location.
597.TP
a31041ea 598.B psync
ccc2b328 599Basic \fBpread\fR\|(2) or \fBpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
a31041ea 600.TP
9183788d 601.B vsync
ccc2b328 602Basic \fBreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
cecbfd47 603coalescing adjacent IOs into a single submission.
9183788d 604.TP
a46c5e01 605.B pvsync
ccc2b328 606Basic \fBpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
a46c5e01 607.TP
2cafffbe
JA
608.B pvsync2
609Basic \fBpreadv2\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev2\fR\|(2) I/O.
610.TP
d60e92d1 611.B libaio
de890a1e 612Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
d60e92d1
AC
613.TP
614.B posixaio
ccc2b328 615POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fBaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fBaio_write\fR\|(3).
03e20d68
BC
616.TP
617.B solarisaio
618Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
619.TP
620.B windowsaio
621Windows native asynchronous I/O.
d60e92d1
AC
622.TP
623.B mmap
ccc2b328
SW
624File is memory mapped with \fBmmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
625\fBmemcpy\fR\|(3).
d60e92d1
AC
626.TP
627.B splice
ccc2b328 628\fBsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
d1429b5c 629transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
d60e92d1
AC
630.TP
631.B syslet-rw
632Use the syslet system calls to make regular read/write asynchronous.
633.TP
634.B sg
635SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May be either synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
ccc2b328
SW
636the target is an sg character device, we use \fBread\fR\|(2) and
637\fBwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
d60e92d1
AC
638.TP
639.B null
640Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. Mainly used to exercise \fBfio\fR
641itself and for debugging and testing purposes.
642.TP
643.B net
de890a1e
SL
644Transfer over the network. The protocol to be used can be defined with the
645\fBprotocol\fR parameter. Depending on the protocol, \fBfilename\fR,
646\fBhostname\fR, \fBport\fR, or \fBlisten\fR must be specified.
647This ioengine defines engine specific options.
d60e92d1
AC
648.TP
649.B netsplice
ccc2b328 650Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fBsplice\fR\|(2) and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
de890a1e 651and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
d60e92d1 652.TP
53aec0a4 653.B cpuio
d60e92d1
AC
654Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to \fBcpuload\fR and
655\fBcpucycles\fR parameters.
656.TP
657.B guasi
658The GUASI I/O engine is the Generic Userspace Asynchronous Syscall Interface
cecbfd47 659approach to asynchronous I/O.
d1429b5c
AC
660.br
661See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
d60e92d1 662.TP
21b8aee8 663.B rdma
85286c5c
BVA
664The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ)
665and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
21b8aee8 666.TP
d60e92d1
AC
667.B external
668Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
669`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
d54fce84
DM
670.TP
671.B falloc
cecbfd47 672 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate call to simulate data
d54fce84
DM
673transfer as fio ioengine
674.br
675 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
676.br
0981fd71 677 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
d54fce84
DM
678.br
679 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE)
680.TP
681.B e4defrag
682IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate defragment activity
683request to DDIR_WRITE event
0d978694
DAG
684.TP
685.B rbd
ff6bb260
SL
686IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd
687without the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This ioengine defines engine specific
0d978694 688options.
a7c386f4 689.TP
690.B gfapi
cc47f094 691Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
692having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
693options.
694.TP
695.B gfapi_async
696Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
a7c386f4 697having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
698options.
1b10477b 699.TP
b74e419e
MM
700.B libhdfs
701Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS). The \fBfilename\fR option is used to
702specify host,port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This engine interprets
703offsets a little differently. In HDFS, files once created cannot be modified.
704So random writes are not possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine expects
705bunch of small files to be created over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
706file out of those files based on the offset generated by fio backend. (see the
707example job file to create such files, use rw=write option). Please note, you
708might want to set necessary environment variables to work with hdfs/libhdfs
709properly.
65fa28ca
DE
710.TP
711.B mtd
712Read, write and erase an MTD character device (e.g., /dev/mtd0). Discards are
713treated as erases. Depending on the underlying device type, the I/O may have
714to go in a certain pattern, e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially to erase blocks
715and discarding before overwriting. The writetrim mode works well for this
716constraint.
5c4ef02e
JA
717.TP
718.B pmemblk
719Read and write through the NVML libpmemblk interface.
d60e92d1 720.RE
595e1734 721.P
d60e92d1
AC
722.RE
723.TP
724.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
8489dae4
SK
725Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that increasing
726iodepth beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except for small
cf145d90 727degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
ee72ca09
JA
728restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved. This may happen on
729Linux when using libaio and not setting \fBdirect\fR=1, since buffered IO is
730not async on that OS. Keep an eye on the IO depth distribution in the
731fio output to verify that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
d60e92d1 732.TP
e63a0b2f
RP
733.BI iodepth_batch \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_submit" \fR=\fPint
734This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once. It defaults to 1
735which means that we submit each IO as soon as it is available, but can
736be raised to submit bigger batches of IO at the time. If it is set to 0
737the \fBiodepth\fR value will be used.
d60e92d1 738.TP
82407585 739.BI iodepth_batch_complete_min \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_complete" \fR=\fPint
3ce9dcaf
JA
740This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1 which
741 means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from the
742kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
743\fBiodepth_low\fR. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always check for
744completed events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce IO latency, at the
745cost of more retrieval system calls.
746.TP
82407585
RP
747.BI iodepth_batch_complete_max \fR=\fPint
748This defines maximum pieces of IO to
749retrieve at once. This variable should be used along with
750\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=int variable, specifying the range
751of min and max amount of IO which should be retrieved. By default
752it is equal to \fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR value.
753
754Example #1:
755.RS
756.RS
757\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=1
758.LP
759\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
760.RE
761
762which means that we will retrieve at leat 1 IO and up to the
763whole submitted queue depth. If none of IO has been completed
764yet, we will wait.
765
766Example #2:
767.RS
768\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=0
769.LP
770\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
771.RE
772
773which means that we can retrieve up to the whole submitted
774queue depth, but if none of IO has been completed yet, we will
775NOT wait and immediately exit the system call. In this example
776we simply do polling.
777.RE
778.TP
d60e92d1
AC
779.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
780Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
ff6bb260 781\fBiodepth\fR.
d60e92d1 782.TP
1ad01bd1
JA
783.BI io_submit_mode \fR=\fPstr
784This option controls how fio submits the IO to the IO engine. The default is
785\fBinline\fR, which means that the fio job threads submit and reap IO directly.
786If set to \fBoffload\fR, the job threads will offload IO submission to a
787dedicated pool of IO threads. This requires some coordination and thus has a
788bit of extra overhead, especially for lower queue depth IO where it can
789increase latencies. The benefit is that fio can manage submission rates
790independently of the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
791reporting if IO gets back up on the device side (the coordinated omission
792problem).
793.TP
d60e92d1
AC
794.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
795If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
796.TP
d01612f3
CM
797.BI atomic \fR=\fPbool
798If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic writes are guaranteed
799to be stable once acknowledged by the operating system. Only Linux supports
800O_ATOMIC right now.
801.TP
d60e92d1
AC
802.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
803If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
804Default: true.
805.TP
f7fa2653 806.BI offset \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1
AC
807Offset in the file to start I/O. Data before the offset will not be touched.
808.TP
591e9e06
JA
809.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
810If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
69bdd6ba
JH
811offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread number is a
812counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for each sub-job (i.e. when
813numjobs option is specified). This option is useful if there are several jobs
814which are intended to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
815even spacing between the starting points.
591e9e06 816.TP
ddf24e42
JA
817.BI number_ios \fR=\fPint
818Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size of the region
819set by \fBsize\fR, or if it exhaust the allocated time (or hits an error
820condition). With this setting, the range/size can be set independently of
821the number of IOs to perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit
be3fec7d
JA
822normally and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
823of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this condition is met
824before other end-of-job criteria.
ddf24e42 825.TP
d60e92d1 826.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
d1429b5c
AC
827How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
8280, don't sync. Default: 0.
d60e92d1 829.TP
5f9099ea
JA
830.BI fdatasync \fR=\fPint
831Like \fBfsync\fR, but uses \fBfdatasync\fR\|(2) instead to only sync the
832data parts of the file. Default: 0.
833.TP
fa769d44
SW
834.BI write_barrier \fR=\fPint
835Make every Nth write a barrier write.
836.TP
e76b1da4 837.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
ccc2b328
SW
838Use \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) for every \fRval\fP number of write operations. Fio will
839track range of writes that have happened since the last \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) call.
e76b1da4
JA
840\fRstr\fP can currently be one or more of:
841.RS
842.TP
843.B wait_before
844SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
845.TP
846.B write
847SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
848.TP
849.B wait_after
850SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
851.TP
852.RE
853.P
854So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would use
855\fBSYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE\fP for every 8 writes.
ccc2b328 856Also see the \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
e76b1da4 857.TP
d60e92d1 858.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
d1429b5c 859If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
d60e92d1
AC
860.TP
861.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
dbd11ead 862Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
d60e92d1
AC
863.TP
864.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
865If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
d1429b5c 866it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
d60e92d1 867.TP
d60e92d1
AC
868.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
869Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
870.TP
871.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
d1429b5c 872Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
c35dd7a6
JA
873\fBrwmixwrite\fR are given and do not sum to 100%, the latter of the two
874overrides the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is
875asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then
876the distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
d60e92d1 877.TP
92d42d69
JA
878.BI random_distribution \fR=\fPstr:float
879By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
880to perform random IO. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
881specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
882Fio includes the following distribution models:
883.RS
884.TP
885.B random
886Uniform random distribution
887.TP
888.B zipf
889Zipf distribution
890.TP
891.B pareto
892Pareto distribution
893.TP
8116fd24
JA
894.B gauss
895Normal (gaussian) distribution
896.TP
e0a04ac1
JA
897.B zoned
898Zoned random distribution
899.TP
92d42d69 900.RE
8116fd24
JA
901When using a \fBzipf\fR or \fBpareto\fR distribution, an input value is also
902needed to define the access pattern. For \fBzipf\fR, this is the zipf theta.
903For \fBpareto\fR, it's the pareto power. Fio includes a test program, genzipf,
904that can be used visualize what the given input values will yield in terms of
905hit rates. If you wanted to use \fBzipf\fR with a theta of 1.2, you would use
92d42d69 906random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
8116fd24
JA
907fio will disable use of the random map. For the \fBgauss\fR distribution, a
908normal deviation is supplied as a value between 0 and 100.
e0a04ac1
JA
909.P
910.RS
911For a \fBzoned\fR distribution, fio supports specifying percentages of IO
912access that should fall within what range of the file or device. For example,
913given a criteria of:
914.P
915.RS
91660% of accesses should be to the first 10%
917.RE
918.RS
91930% of accesses should be to the next 20%
920.RE
921.RS
9228% of accesses should be to to the next 30%
923.RE
924.RS
9252% of accesses should be to the next 40%
926.RE
927.P
928we can define that through zoning of the random accesses. For the above
929example, the user would do:
930.P
931.RS
932.B random_distribution=zoned:60/10:30/20:8/30:2/40
933.RE
934.P
935similarly to how \fBbssplit\fR works for setting ranges and percentages of block
936sizes. Like \fBbssplit\fR, it's possible to specify separate zones for reads,
937writes, and trims. If just one set is given, it'll apply to all of them.
938.RE
92d42d69 939.TP
211c9b89
JA
940.BI percentage_random \fR=\fPint
941For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This defaults
942to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set from
943anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
d9472271
JA
944sequential. It is possible to set different values for reads, writes, and
945trim. To do so, simply use a comma separated list. See \fBblocksize\fR.
211c9b89 946.TP
d60e92d1
AC
947.B norandommap
948Normally \fBfio\fR will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
949this parameter is given, a new offset will be chosen without looking at past
950I/O history. This parameter is mutually exclusive with \fBverify\fR.
951.TP
744492c9 952.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
3ce9dcaf
JA
953See \fBnorandommap\fR. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and it
954fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without a
955random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps, this
956option is disabled by default.
957.TP
e8b1961d
JA
958.BI random_generator \fR=\fPstr
959Fio supports the following engines for generating IO offsets for random IO:
960.RS
961.TP
962.B tausworthe
963Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
964.TP
965.B lfsr
966Linear feedback shift register generator
967.TP
c3546b53
JA
968.B tausworthe64
969Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator
970.TP
e8b1961d
JA
971.RE
972.P
973Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking on the
974side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written once. LFSR
975guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's also less
976computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator, however, though
977for IO purposes it's typically good enough. LFSR only works with single block
978sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block sizes. If used with such a
3bb85e84
JA
979workload, fio may read or write some blocks multiple times. The default
980value is tausworthe, unless the required space exceeds 2^32 blocks. If it does,
981then tausworthe64 is selected automatically.
e8b1961d 982.TP
d60e92d1 983.BI nice \fR=\fPint
ccc2b328 984Run job with given nice value. See \fBnice\fR\|(2).
d60e92d1
AC
985.TP
986.BI prio \fR=\fPint
987Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
ccc2b328 988\fBionice\fR\|(1).
d60e92d1
AC
989.TP
990.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
ccc2b328 991Set I/O priority class. See \fBionice\fR\|(1).
d60e92d1
AC
992.TP
993.BI thinktime \fR=\fPint
994Stall job for given number of microseconds between issuing I/Os.
995.TP
996.BI thinktime_spin \fR=\fPint
997Pretend to spend CPU time for given number of microseconds, sleeping the rest
998of the time specified by \fBthinktime\fR. Only valid if \fBthinktime\fR is set.
999.TP
1000.BI thinktime_blocks \fR=\fPint
4d01ece6
JA
1001Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks to issue, before
1002waiting \fBthinktime\fR microseconds. If not set, defaults to 1 which will
1003make fio wait \fBthinktime\fR microseconds after every block. This
1004effectively makes any queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO
1005will be queued before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In other
1006words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
d60e92d1
AC
1007Default: 1.
1008.TP
1009.BI rate \fR=\fPint
c35dd7a6
JA
1010Cap bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal postfix
1011rules apply. You can use \fBrate\fR=500k to limit reads and writes to 500k each,
1012or you can specify read and writes separately. Using \fBrate\fR=1m,500k would
1013limit reads to 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or writes
1014can be done with \fBrate\fR=,500k or \fBrate\fR=500k,. The former will only
1015limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only limit reads.
d60e92d1 1016.TP
6d428bcd 1017.BI rate_min \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1 1018Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
c35dd7a6
JA
1019Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
1020as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write separation.
d60e92d1
AC
1021.TP
1022.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint
c35dd7a6
JA
1023Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as rate, just
1024specified independently of bandwidth. The same format as \fBrate\fR is used for
de8f6de9 1025read vs write separation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
c35dd7a6 1026size is used as the metric.
d60e92d1
AC
1027.TP
1028.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint
c35dd7a6 1029If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
de8f6de9 1030is used for read vs write separation.
d60e92d1 1031.TP
6de65959
JA
1032.BI rate_process \fR=\fPstr
1033This option controls how fio manages rated IO submissions. The default is
1034\fBlinear\fR, which submits IO in a linear fashion with fixed delays between
1035IOs that gets adjusted based on IO completion rates. If this is set to
1036\fBpoisson\fR, fio will submit IO based on a more real world random request
1037flow, known as the Poisson process
5d02b083
JA
1038(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process). The lambda will be
103910^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
ff6bb260 1040.TP
6d428bcd
JA
1041.BI rate_cycle \fR=\fPint
1042Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBrate_min\fR over this number of
d60e92d1
AC
1043milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
1044.TP
3e260a46
JA
1045.BI latency_target \fR=\fPint
1046If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance point that the given
1047workload will run at while maintaining a latency below this target. The
1048values is given in microseconds. See \fBlatency_window\fR and
1049\fBlatency_percentile\fR.
1050.TP
1051.BI latency_window \fR=\fPint
1052Used with \fBlatency_target\fR to specify the sample window that the job
1053is run at varying queue depths to test the performance. The value is given
1054in microseconds.
1055.TP
1056.BI latency_percentile \fR=\fPfloat
1057The percentage of IOs that must fall within the criteria specified by
1058\fBlatency_target\fR and \fBlatency_window\fR. If not set, this defaults
1059to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal or below to the value set
1060by \fBlatency_target\fR.
1061.TP
15501535
JA
1062.BI max_latency \fR=\fPint
1063If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum latency. It will exit
1064with an ETIME error.
1065.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1066.BI cpumask \fR=\fPint
1067Set CPU affinity for this job. \fIint\fR is a bitmask of allowed CPUs the job
1068may run on. See \fBsched_setaffinity\fR\|(2).
1069.TP
1070.BI cpus_allowed \fR=\fPstr
1071Same as \fBcpumask\fR, but allows a comma-delimited list of CPU numbers.
1072.TP
c2acfbac
JA
1073.BI cpus_allowed_policy \fR=\fPstr
1074Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs specified by \fBcpus_allowed\fR
1075or \fBcpumask\fR. Two policies are supported:
1076.RS
1077.RS
1078.TP
1079.B shared
1080All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1081.TP
1082.B split
1083Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1084.RE
1085.P
1086\fBshared\fR is the default behaviour, if the option isn't specified. If
ada083cd
JA
1087\fBsplit\fR is specified, then fio will assign one cpu per job. If not enough
1088CPUs are given for the jobs listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in
1089the set.
c2acfbac
JA
1090.RE
1091.P
1092.TP
d0b937ed 1093.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
cecbfd47 1094Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
d0b937ed
YR
1095comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1096.TP
1097.BI numa_mem_policy \fR=\fPstr
1098Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of
cecbfd47 1099the arguments:
d0b937ed
YR
1100.RS
1101.TP
1102.B <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1103.TP
1104.B mode
1105is one of the following memory policy:
1106.TP
1107.B default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1108.TP
1109.RE
1110For \fBdefault\fR and \fBlocal\fR memory policy, no \fBnodelist\fR is
1111needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
1112allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
1113comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1114.TP
23ed19b0
CE
1115.BI startdelay \fR=\fPirange
1116Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds. Supports all time
1117suffixes to allow specification of hours, minutes, seconds and
bd66aa2c 1118milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is omitted.
23ed19b0
CE
1119Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
1120range.
d60e92d1
AC
1121.TP
1122.BI runtime \fR=\fPint
1123Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.
1124.TP
1125.B time_based
1126If given, run for the specified \fBruntime\fR duration even if the files are
1127completely read or written. The same workload will be repeated as many times
1128as \fBruntime\fR allows.
1129.TP
901bb994
JA
1130.BI ramp_time \fR=\fPint
1131If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
1132logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle before
1133logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
c35dd7a6
JA
1134that the \fBramp_time\fR is considered lead in time for a job, thus it will
1135increase the total runtime if a special timeout or runtime is specified.
901bb994 1136.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1137.BI invalidate \fR=\fPbool
1138Invalidate buffer-cache for the file prior to starting I/O. Default: true.
1139.TP
1140.BI sync \fR=\fPbool
1141Use synchronous I/O for buffered writes. For the majority of I/O engines,
d1429b5c 1142this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
d60e92d1
AC
1143.TP
1144.BI iomem \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP mem" \fR=\fPstr
1145Allocation method for I/O unit buffer. Allowed values are:
1146.RS
1147.RS
1148.TP
1149.B malloc
ccc2b328 1150Allocate memory with \fBmalloc\fR\|(3).
d60e92d1
AC
1151.TP
1152.B shm
ccc2b328 1153Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fBshmget\fR\|(2).
d60e92d1
AC
1154.TP
1155.B shmhuge
1156Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
1157.TP
1158.B mmap
ccc2b328 1159Use \fBmmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
d60e92d1
AC
1160is given after the option in the format `:\fIfile\fR'.
1161.TP
1162.B mmaphuge
1163Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use huge files as backing.
09c782bb
JA
1164.TP
1165.B mmapshared
1166Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
d60e92d1
AC
1167.RE
1168.P
1169The amount of memory allocated is the maximum allowed \fBblocksize\fR for the
1170job multiplied by \fBiodepth\fR. For \fBshmhuge\fR or \fBmmaphuge\fR to work,
1171the system must have free huge pages allocated. \fBmmaphuge\fR also needs to
2e266ba6
JA
1172have hugetlbfs mounted, and \fIfile\fR must point there. At least on Linux,
1173huge pages must be manually allocated. See \fB/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugehages\fR
1174and the documentation for that. Normally you just need to echo an appropriate
1175number, eg echoing 8 will ensure that the OS has 8 huge pages ready for
1176use.
d60e92d1
AC
1177.RE
1178.TP
d392365e 1179.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
cecbfd47 1180This indicates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
d529ee19
JA
1181given alignment is applied to the first IO unit buffer, if using \fBiodepth\fR
1182the alignment of the following buffers are given by the \fBbs\fR used. In
1183other words, if using a \fBbs\fR that is a multiple of the page sized in the
1184system, all buffers will be aligned to this value. If using a \fBbs\fR that
1185is not page aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1186sum of the \fBiomem_align\fR and \fBbs\fR used.
1187.TP
f7fa2653 1188.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1 1189Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
b22989b9 1190Should be a multiple of 1MB. Default: 4MB.
d60e92d1
AC
1191.TP
1192.B exitall
1193Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
1194.TP
f9cafb12
JA
1195.B exitall_on_error \fR=\fPbool
1196Terminate all jobs if one job finishes in error. Default: wait for each job
1197to finish.
1198.TP
d60e92d1 1199.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
a47591e4
JA
1200Average bandwidth calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1201also does bandwidth logging through \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, then the minimum of
1202this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
d60e92d1 1203.TP
c8eeb9df 1204.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
a47591e4
JA
1205Average IOPS calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1206also does IOPS logging through \fBwrite_iops_log\fR, then the minimum of
1207this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
c8eeb9df 1208.TP
d60e92d1 1209.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
d1429b5c 1210If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
d60e92d1
AC
1211.TP
1212.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
ccc2b328 1213\fBfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
d60e92d1 1214.TP
6b7f6851
JA
1215.BI create_on_open \fR=\fPbool
1216If true, the files are not created until they are opened for IO by the job.
1217.TP
25460cf6
JA
1218.BI create_only \fR=\fPbool
1219If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
1220laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done. The actual job contents
1221are not executed.
1222.TP
2378826d
JA
1223.BI allow_file_create \fR=\fPbool
1224If true, fio is permitted to create files as part of its workload. This is
1225the default behavior. If this option is false, then fio will error out if the
1226files it needs to use don't already exist. Default: true.
1227.TP
e81ecca3
JA
1228.BI allow_mounted_write \fR=\fPbool
1229If this isn't set, fio will abort jobs that are destructive (eg that write)
1230to what appears to be a mounted device or partition. This should help catch
1231creating inadvertently destructive tests, not realizing that the test will
1232destroy data on the mounted file system. Default: false.
1233.TP
e9f48479
JA
1234.BI pre_read \fR=\fPbool
1235If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the given
1236IO operation. This will also clear the \fR \fBinvalidate\fR flag, since it is
9c0d2241
JA
1237pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO
1238engines that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1239multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice IO.
e9f48479 1240.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1241.BI unlink \fR=\fPbool
1242Unlink job files when done. Default: false.
1243.TP
1244.BI loops \fR=\fPint
1245Specifies the number of iterations (runs of the same workload) of this job.
1246Default: 1.
1247.TP
5e4c7118
JA
1248.BI verify_only \fR=\fPbool
1249Do not perform the specified workload, only verify data still matches previous
1250invocation of this workload. This option allows one to check data multiple
1251times at a later date without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1252workloads that write data, and does not support workloads with the
1253\fBtime_based\fR option set.
1254.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1255.BI do_verify \fR=\fPbool
1256Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if \fBverify\fR is set.
1257Default: true.
1258.TP
1259.BI verify \fR=\fPstr
b638d82f
RP
1260Method of verifying file contents after each iteration of the job. Each
1261verification method also implies verification of special header, which is
1262written to the beginning of each block. This header also includes meta
1263information, like offset of the block, block number, timestamp when block
1264was written, etc. \fBverify\fR=str can be combined with \fBverify_pattern\fR=str
1265option. The allowed values are:
d60e92d1
AC
1266.RS
1267.RS
1268.TP
844ea602 1269.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1 xxhash
0539d758
JA
1270Store appropriate checksum in the header of each block. crc32c-intel is
1271hardware accelerated SSE4.2 driven, falls back to regular crc32c if
1272not supported by the system.
d60e92d1
AC
1273.TP
1274.B meta
b638d82f
RP
1275This option is deprecated, since now meta information is included in generic
1276verification header and meta verification happens by default. For detailed
1277information see the description of the \fBverify\fR=str setting. This option
1278is kept because of compatibility's sake with old configurations. Do not use it.
d60e92d1 1279.TP
59245381
JA
1280.B pattern
1281Verify a strict pattern. Normally fio includes a header with some basic
1282information and checksumming, but if this option is set, only the
1283specific pattern set with \fBverify_pattern\fR is verified.
1284.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1285.B null
1286Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
1287.RE
b892dc08
JA
1288
1289This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
1290that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction given
1291is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a previously
1292written file. If the data direction includes any form of write, the verify will
1293be of the newly written data.
d60e92d1
AC
1294.RE
1295.TP
5c9323fb 1296.BI verifysort \fR=\fPbool
d60e92d1
AC
1297If true, written verify blocks are sorted if \fBfio\fR deems it to be faster to
1298read them back in a sorted manner. Default: true.
1299.TP
fa769d44
SW
1300.BI verifysort_nr \fR=\fPint
1301Pre-load and sort verify blocks for a read workload.
1302.TP
f7fa2653 1303.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1 1304Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
d1429b5c 1305writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
d60e92d1 1306.TP
f7fa2653 1307.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1
AC
1308Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
1309\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
1310.TP
996093bb
JA
1311.BI verify_pattern \fR=\fPstr
1312If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to filling
1313with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1314pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the width of the pattern,
1315fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time(it can be either a
1316decimal or a hex number). The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity
1317has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use with
b638d82f
RP
1318\fBverify\fP=str. Also, verify_pattern supports %o format, which means that for
1319each block offset will be written and then verifyied back, e.g.:
2fa5a241
RP
1320.RS
1321.RS
1322\fBverify_pattern\fR=%o
1323.RE
1324Or use combination of everything:
1325.LP
1326.RS
1327\fBverify_pattern\fR=0xff%o"abcd"-21
1328.RE
1329.RE
996093bb 1330.TP
d60e92d1
AC
1331.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
1332If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
1333false.
1334.TP
b463e936
JA
1335.BI verify_dump \fR=\fPbool
1336If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block we
1337read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of
ef71e317 1338data corruption occurred. Off by default.
b463e936 1339.TP
e8462bd8
JA
1340.BI verify_async \fR=\fPint
1341Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting thread. This option
1342takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for IO
1343verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
c85c324c
JA
1344to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even sync IO
1345engines can benefit from using an \fBiodepth\fR setting higher than 1, as it
1346allows them to have IO in flight while verifies are running.
e8462bd8
JA
1347.TP
1348.BI verify_async_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1349Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async IO verification threads.
1350See \fBcpus_allowed\fP for the format used.
1351.TP
6f87418f
JA
1352.BI verify_backlog \fR=\fPint
1353Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
1354once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
1355everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1356instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with an
1357IO block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would
092f707f
DN
1358be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
1359only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
6f87418f
JA
1360.TP
1361.BI verify_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1362Control how many blocks fio will verify if verify_backlog is set. If not set,
1363will default to the value of \fBverify_backlog\fR (meaning the entire queue is
ff6bb260
SL
1364read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
1365\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
092f707f
DN
1366\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
1367will be verified more than once.
6f87418f 1368.TP
fa769d44
SW
1369.BI trim_percentage \fR=\fPint
1370Number of verify blocks to discard/trim.
1371.TP
1372.BI trim_verify_zero \fR=\fPbool
1373Verify that trim/discarded blocks are returned as zeroes.
1374.TP
1375.BI trim_backlog \fR=\fPint
1376Trim after this number of blocks are written.
1377.TP
1378.BI trim_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1379Trim this number of IO blocks.
1380.TP
1381.BI experimental_verify \fR=\fPbool
1382Enable experimental verification.
1383.TP
ca09be4b
JA
1384.BI verify_state_save \fR=\fPbool
1385When a job exits during the write phase of a verify workload, save its
1386current state. This allows fio to replay up until that point, if the
1387verify state is loaded for the verify read phase.
1388.TP
1389.BI verify_state_load \fR=\fPbool
1390If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores the current write
1391state of each thread. This can be used at verification time so that fio
1392knows how far it should verify. Without this information, fio will run
1393a full verification pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
1394.TP
d392365e 1395.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
5982a925 1396Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
d60e92d1
AC
1397\fBstonewall\fR implies \fBnew_group\fR.
1398.TP
1399.B new_group
1400Start a new reporting group. If not given, all jobs in a file will be part
1401of the same reporting group, unless separated by a stonewall.
1402.TP
1403.BI numjobs \fR=\fPint
ff6bb260 1404Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
d60e92d1
AC
1405Default: 1.
1406.TP
1407.B group_reporting
1408If set, display per-group reports instead of per-job when \fBnumjobs\fR is
1409specified.
1410.TP
1411.B thread
1412Use threads created with \fBpthread_create\fR\|(3) instead of processes created
1413with \fBfork\fR\|(2).
1414.TP
f7fa2653 1415.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1
AC
1416Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1417.TP
fa769d44
SW
1418.BI zonerange \fR=\fPint
1419Give size of an IO zone. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1420.TP
f7fa2653 1421.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
d1429b5c 1422Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
d60e92d1
AC
1423read.
1424.TP
1425.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
5b42a488
SH
1426Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. Specify a separate file
1427for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be
1428corrupt.
d60e92d1
AC
1429.TP
1430.BI read_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1431Replay the I/O patterns contained in the specified file generated by
1432\fBwrite_iolog\fR, or may be a \fBblktrace\fR binary file.
1433.TP
64bbb865
DN
1434.BI replay_no_stall \fR=\fPint
1435While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1436attempts to respect timing information between I/Os. Enabling
1437\fBreplay_no_stall\fR causes I/Os to be replayed as fast as possible while
1438still respecting ordering.
1439.TP
d1c46c04
DN
1440.BI replay_redirect \fR=\fPstr
1441While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1442is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
1443from. Setting \fBreplay_redirect\fR causes all IOPS to be replayed onto the
1444single specified device regardless of the device it was recorded from.
1445.TP
0c63576e
JA
1446.BI replay_align \fR=\fPint
1447Force alignment of IO offsets and lengths in a trace to this power of 2 value.
1448.TP
1449.BI replay_scale \fR=\fPint
1450Scale sector offsets down by this factor when replaying traces.
1451.TP
3a5db920
JA
1452.BI per_job_logs \fR=\fPbool
1453If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per file private filenames. If
1454not set, jobs with identical names will share the log filename. Default: true.
1455.TP
836bad52 1456.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
901bb994
JA
1457If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job file. Can be used to
1458store data of the bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime. The included
1459fio_generate_plots script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
26b26fca 1460graphs. See \fBwrite_lat_log\fR for behaviour of given filename. For this
8ad3b3dd 1461option, the postfix is _bw.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
3a5db920 1462where N is the number of jobs). If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the
a3ae5b05
JA
1463filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1464section.
d60e92d1 1465.TP
836bad52 1466.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
901bb994 1467Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
8ad3b3dd
JA
1468filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1469"jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1470N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still
3a5db920 1471append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will
a3ae5b05 1472not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
901bb994 1473.TP
c8eeb9df
JA
1474.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1475Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
8ad3b3dd
JA
1476option, the default filename of "jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the
1477index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
3a5db920 1478is given, fio will still append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false,
a3ae5b05
JA
1479then the filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1480section.
c8eeb9df 1481.TP
b8bc8cba
JA
1482.BI log_avg_msec \fR=\fPint
1483By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
1484IO that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
1485very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
e6989e10 1486over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
4b1ddb7a 1487\fBlog_max_value\fR as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
e6989e10 1488.TP
4b1ddb7a 1489.BI log_max_value \fR=\fPbool
e6989e10
JA
1490If \fBlog_avg_msec\fR is set, fio logs the average over that window. If you
1491instead want to log the maximum value, set this option to 1. Defaults to
14920, meaning that averaged values are logged.
b8bc8cba 1493.TP
ae588852
JA
1494.BI log_offset \fR=\fPbool
1495If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte offset for the IO
1496entry as well as the other data values.
1497.TP
aee2ab67
JA
1498.BI log_compression \fR=\fPint
1499If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as it goes, to keep the memory
1500footprint lower. When a log reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed
1501and compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are fairly highly
1502compressible, this yields a nice memory savings for longer runs. The downside
1503is that the compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so it may
1504impact the run. This, however, is also true if the logging ends up consuming
1505most of the system memory. So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved
1506normally at the end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1507in the specified log file. This feature depends on the availability of zlib.
1508.TP
c08f9fe2
JA
1509.BI log_compression_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1510Define the set of CPUs that are allowed to handle online log compression
1511for the IO jobs. This can provide better isolation between performance
1512sensitive jobs, and background compression work.
1513.TP
b26317c9 1514.BI log_store_compressed \fR=\fPbool
c08f9fe2
JA
1515If set, fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They can be
1516decompressed with fio, using the \fB\-\-inflate-log\fR command line parameter.
1517The files will be stored with a \fB\.fz\fR suffix.
b26317c9 1518.TP
66347cfa
DE
1519.BI block_error_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1520If set, record errors in trim block-sized units from writes and trims and output
1521a histogram of how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind of error
1522was encountered.
1523.TP
836bad52 1524.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
02af0988 1525Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
ccc2b328 1526back the number of calls to \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2), as that does impact performance at
901bb994
JA
1527really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1528calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and disable_bw as well.
1529.TP
836bad52 1530.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
c95f9daf 1531Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
02af0988 1532.TP
836bad52 1533.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
02af0988 1534Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
901bb994 1535.TP
836bad52 1536.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
02af0988 1537Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
d60e92d1 1538.TP
f7fa2653 1539.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
d60e92d1 1540Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
81c6b6cd 1541simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
d60e92d1
AC
1542.TP
1543.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1544Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
ce486495
EV
1545.RS
1546Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1547.RE
d60e92d1
AC
1548.TP
1549.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1550Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
ce486495
EV
1551.RS
1552Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1553.RE
d60e92d1
AC
1554.TP
1555.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1556Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1557.TP
d60e92d1 1558.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
d1429b5c 1559Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
901bb994 1560.TP
23893646
JA
1561.BI clocksource \fR=\fPstr
1562Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
1563.RS
1564.TP
1565.B gettimeofday
ccc2b328 1566\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2)
23893646
JA
1567.TP
1568.B clock_gettime
ccc2b328 1569\fBclock_gettime\fR\|(2)
23893646
JA
1570.TP
1571.B cpu
1572Internal CPU clock source
1573.TP
1574.RE
1575.P
1576\fBcpu\fR is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast
1577(and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource
1578if it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
1579unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
1580means supporting TSC Invariant.
1581.TP
901bb994 1582.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
ccc2b328 1583Enable all of the \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
901bb994 1584disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
ccc2b328 1585\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
901bb994
JA
1586the gtod() calls we would have done if all time keeping was enabled.
1587.TP
1588.BI gtod_cpu \fR=\fPint
1589Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just getting
1590the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very intensive on
ccc2b328 1591\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
901bb994
JA
1592nothing but logging current time to a shared memory location. Then the other
1593threads/processes that run IO workloads need only copy that segment, instead of
ccc2b328 1594entering the kernel with a \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call. The CPU set aside for doing
901bb994
JA
1595these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1596from the CPU mask of other jobs.
f2bba182 1597.TP
8b28bd41
DM
1598.BI ignore_error \fR=\fPstr
1599Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can specify
1600error list for each error type.
1601.br
1602ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1603.br
1604errors for given error type is separated with ':'.
1605Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or an integer.
1606.br
1607Example: ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122 .
ff6bb260
SL
1608.br
1609This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
8b28bd41
DM
1610.TP
1611.BI error_dump \fR=\fPbool
1612If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If disabled
1613only fatal error will be dumped
1614.TP
fa769d44
SW
1615.BI profile \fR=\fPstr
1616Select a specific builtin performance test.
1617.TP
a696fa2a
JA
1618.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1619Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
6adb38a1
JA
1620The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
1621your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with:
1622
5982a925 1623# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
a696fa2a
JA
1624.TP
1625.BI cgroup_weight \fR=\fPint
1626Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
1627with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
e0b0d892 1628.TP
7de87099
VG
1629.BI cgroup_nodelete \fR=\fPbool
1630Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job completion.
1631To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the job completion,
1632set cgroup_nodelete=1. This can be useful if one wants to inspect various
1633cgroup files after job completion. Default: false
1634.TP
e0b0d892
JA
1635.BI uid \fR=\fPint
1636Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value before
1637the thread/process does any work.
1638.TP
1639.BI gid \fR=\fPint
1640Set group ID, see \fBuid\fR.
83349190 1641.TP
fa769d44
SW
1642.BI unit_base \fR=\fPint
1643Base unit for reporting. Allowed values are:
1644.RS
1645.TP
1646.B 0
1647Use auto-detection (default).
1648.TP
1649.B 8
1650Byte based.
1651.TP
1652.B 1
1653Bit based.
1654.RE
1655.P
1656.TP
9e684a49
DE
1657.BI flow_id \fR=\fPint
1658The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global flow. See
1659\fBflow\fR.
1660.TP
1661.BI flow \fR=\fPint
1662Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then there is a
1663\fBflow counter\fR which is used to regulate the proportion of activity between
1664two or more jobs. fio attempts to keep this flow counter near zero. The
1665\fBflow\fR parameter stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the
1666flow counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if one job has
1667\fBflow=8\fR and another job has \fBflow=-1\fR, then there will be a roughly
16681:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1669.TP
1670.BI flow_watermark \fR=\fPint
1671The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow counter is allowed to
1672reach before the job must wait for a lower value of the counter.
1673.TP
1674.BI flow_sleep \fR=\fPint
1675The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow watermark has been
1676exceeded before retrying operations
1677.TP
83349190
YH
1678.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1679Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1680.TP
1681.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
66347cfa
DE
1682Overwrite the default list of percentiles for completion latencies and the
1683block error histogram. Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
1684and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the
3eb07285 1685numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
83349190
YH
1686report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1687the observed latencies fell, respectively.
de890a1e
SL
1688.SS "Ioengine Parameters List"
1689Some parameters are only valid when a specific ioengine is in use. These are
1690used identically to normal parameters, with the caveat that when used on the
cf145d90 1691command line, they must come after the ioengine.
de890a1e 1692.TP
e4585935
JA
1693.BI (cpu)cpuload \fR=\fPint
1694Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1695.TP
1696.BI (cpu)cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1697Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
1698.TP
046395d7
JA
1699.BI (cpu)exit_on_io_done \fR=\fPbool
1700Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1701.TP
de890a1e
SL
1702.BI (libaio)userspace_reap
1703Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1704the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1705With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1706from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1707enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1708iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1709.TP
2cafffbe
JA
1710.BI (psyncv2)hipri
1711Set RWF_HIPRI on IO, indicating to the kernel that it's of
1712higher priority than normal.
1713.TP
de890a1e
SL
1714.BI (net,netsplice)hostname \fR=\fPstr
1715The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1716If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
b511c9aa 1717used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
de890a1e
SL
1718.TP
1719.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
6315af9d
JA
1720The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used with
1721\fBnumjobs\fR to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then
1722this will be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
de890a1e 1723.TP
b93b6a2e
SB
1724.BI (net,netsplice)interface \fR=\fPstr
1725The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP multicast
1726packets.
1727.TP
d3a623de
SB
1728.BI (net,netsplice)ttl \fR=\fPint
1729Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1
1730.TP
1d360ffb
JA
1731.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1732Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1733.TP
de890a1e
SL
1734.BI (net,netsplice)protocol \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP proto" \fR=\fPstr
1735The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1736.RS
1737.RS
1738.TP
1739.B tcp
1740Transmission control protocol
1741.TP
49ccb8c1
JA
1742.B tcpv6
1743Transmission control protocol V6
1744.TP
de890a1e 1745.B udp
f5cc3d0e 1746User datagram protocol
de890a1e 1747.TP
49ccb8c1
JA
1748.B udpv6
1749User datagram protocol V6
1750.TP
de890a1e
SL
1751.B unix
1752UNIX domain socket
1753.RE
1754.P
1755When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1756as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1757reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1758used and the port is invalid.
1759.RE
1760.TP
1761.BI (net,netsplice)listen
1762For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1763connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1764hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
d54fce84 1765.TP
7aeb1e94 1766.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
cecbfd47 1767Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
cf145d90 1768will just consume packets. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
7aeb1e94
JA
1769payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the same payload back.
1770This allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission and completion
1771latencies then measure local time spent sending or receiving, and the
1772completion latency measures how long it took for the other end to receive and
b511c9aa
SB
1773send back. For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a single
1774reader when multiple readers are listening to the same address.
7aeb1e94 1775.TP
1008602c
JA
1776.BI (net, window_size) \fR=\fPint
1777Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1778.TP
e5f34d95
JA
1779.BI (net, mss) \fR=\fPint
1780Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1781.TP
d54fce84
DM
1782.BI (e4defrag,donorname) \fR=\fPstr
1783File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files)
1784.TP
1785.BI (e4defrag,inplace) \fR=\fPint
ff6bb260 1786Configure donor file block allocation strategy
d54fce84
DM
1787.RS
1788.BI 0(default) :
1789Preallocate donor's file on init
1790.TP
1791.BI 1:
cecbfd47 1792allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right after event
d54fce84 1793.RE
6e20c6e7
T
1794.TP
1795.BI (rbd)clustername \fR=\fPstr
1796Specifies the name of the ceph cluster.
0d978694
DAG
1797.TP
1798.BI (rbd)rbdname \fR=\fPstr
1799Specifies the name of the RBD.
1800.TP
1801.BI (rbd)pool \fR=\fPstr
1802Specifies the name of the Ceph pool containing the RBD.
1803.TP
1804.BI (rbd)clientname \fR=\fPstr
6e20c6e7 1805Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the Ceph
08a2cbf6
JA
1806cluster. If the clustername is specified, the clientname shall be the full
1807type.id string. If no type. prefix is given, fio will add 'client.' by default.
65fa28ca
DE
1808.TP
1809.BI (mtd)skipbad \fR=\fPbool
1810Skip operations against known bad blocks.
d60e92d1 1811.SH OUTPUT
d1429b5c
AC
1812While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
1813example:
d60e92d1 1814.RS
d1429b5c 1815.P
d60e92d1
AC
1816Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
1817.RE
1818.P
d1429b5c
AC
1819The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
1820threads. The possible values are:
1821.P
1822.PD 0
d60e92d1
AC
1823.RS
1824.TP
1825.B P
1826Setup but not started.
1827.TP
1828.B C
1829Thread created.
1830.TP
1831.B I
1832Initialized, waiting.
1833.TP
1834.B R
1835Running, doing sequential reads.
1836.TP
1837.B r
1838Running, doing random reads.
1839.TP
1840.B W
1841Running, doing sequential writes.
1842.TP
1843.B w
1844Running, doing random writes.
1845.TP
1846.B M
1847Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1848.TP
1849.B m
1850Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1851.TP
1852.B F
1853Running, currently waiting for \fBfsync\fR\|(2).
1854.TP
1855.B V
1856Running, verifying written data.
1857.TP
1858.B E
1859Exited, not reaped by main thread.
1860.TP
1861.B \-
1862Exited, thread reaped.
1863.RE
d1429b5c 1864.PD
d60e92d1
AC
1865.P
1866The second set of brackets shows the estimated completion percentage of
1867the current group. The third set shows the read and write I/O rate,
1868respectively. Finally, the estimated run time of the job is displayed.
1869.P
1870When \fBfio\fR completes (or is interrupted by Ctrl-C), it will show data
1871for each thread, each group of threads, and each disk, in that order.
1872.P
1873Per-thread statistics first show the threads client number, group-id, and
1874error code. The remaining figures are as follows:
1875.RS
d60e92d1
AC
1876.TP
1877.B io
1878Number of megabytes of I/O performed.
1879.TP
1880.B bw
1881Average data rate (bandwidth).
1882.TP
1883.B runt
1884Threads run time.
1885.TP
1886.B slat
1887Submission latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This is
1888the time it took to submit the I/O.
1889.TP
1890.B clat
1891Completion latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This
1892is the time between submission and completion.
1893.TP
1894.B bw
1895Bandwidth minimum, maximum, percentage of aggregate bandwidth received, average
1896and standard deviation.
1897.TP
1898.B cpu
1899CPU usage statistics. Includes user and system time, number of context switches
23a8e176
JA
1900this thread went through and number of major and minor page faults. The CPU
1901utilization numbers are averages for the jobs in that reporting group, while
1902the context and fault counters are summed.
d60e92d1
AC
1903.TP
1904.B IO depths
1905Distribution of I/O depths. Each depth includes everything less than (or equal)
1906to it, but greater than the previous depth.
1907.TP
1908.B IO issued
1909Number of read/write requests issued, and number of short read/write requests.
1910.TP
1911.B IO latencies
1912Distribution of I/O completion latencies. The numbers follow the same pattern
1913as \fBIO depths\fR.
1914.RE
d60e92d1
AC
1915.P
1916The group statistics show:
d1429b5c 1917.PD 0
d60e92d1
AC
1918.RS
1919.TP
1920.B io
1921Number of megabytes I/O performed.
1922.TP
1923.B aggrb
1924Aggregate bandwidth of threads in the group.
1925.TP
1926.B minb
1927Minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1928.TP
1929.B maxb
1930Maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1931.TP
1932.B mint
d1429b5c 1933Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
d60e92d1
AC
1934.TP
1935.B maxt
1936Longest runtime of threads in the group.
1937.RE
d1429b5c 1938.PD
d60e92d1
AC
1939.P
1940Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
d1429b5c 1941.PD 0
d60e92d1
AC
1942.RS
1943.TP
1944.B ios
1945Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
1946.TP
1947.B merge
1948Number of merges in the I/O scheduler.
1949.TP
1950.B ticks
1951Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1952.TP
1953.B io_queue
1954Total time spent in the disk queue.
1955.TP
1956.B util
1957Disk utilization.
1958.RE
d1429b5c 1959.PD
8423bd11
JA
1960.P
1961It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1962running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the \fBUSR1\fR
1963signal.
d60e92d1 1964.SH TERSE OUTPUT
2b8c71b0
CE
1965If the \fB\-\-minimal\fR / \fB\-\-append-terse\fR options are given, the
1966results will be printed/appended in a semicolon-delimited format suitable for
1967scripted use.
1968A job description (if provided) follows on a new line. Note that the first
525c2bfa
JA
1969number in the line is the version number. If the output has to be changed
1970for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
1971change. The fields are:
d60e92d1
AC
1972.P
1973.RS
5e726d0a 1974.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
d60e92d1
AC
1975.P
1976Read status:
1977.RS
312b4af2 1978.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
d60e92d1
AC
1979.P
1980Submission latency:
1981.RS
1982.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1983.RE
1984Completion latency:
1985.RS
1986.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1987.RE
1db92cb6
JA
1988Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
1989.RS
1990.B Xth percentile=usec
1991.RE
525c2bfa
JA
1992Total latency:
1993.RS
1994.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1995.RE
d60e92d1
AC
1996Bandwidth:
1997.RS
1998.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
1999.RE
2000.RE
2001.P
2002Write status:
2003.RS
312b4af2 2004.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
d60e92d1
AC
2005.P
2006Submission latency:
2007.RS
2008.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2009.RE
2010Completion latency:
2011.RS
2012.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2013.RE
1db92cb6
JA
2014Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2015.RS
2016.B Xth percentile=usec
2017.RE
525c2bfa
JA
2018Total latency:
2019.RS
2020.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2021.RE
d60e92d1
AC
2022Bandwidth:
2023.RS
2024.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2025.RE
2026.RE
2027.P
d1429b5c 2028CPU usage:
d60e92d1 2029.RS
bd2626f0 2030.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
d60e92d1
AC
2031.RE
2032.P
2033IO depth distribution:
2034.RS
2035.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
2036.RE
2037.P
562c2d2f 2038IO latency distribution:
d60e92d1 2039.RS
562c2d2f
DN
2040Microseconds:
2041.RS
2042.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
2043.RE
2044Milliseconds:
2045.RS
2046.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
2047.RE
2048.RE
2049.P
f2f788dd
JA
2050Disk utilization (1 for each disk used):
2051.RS
2052.B name, read ios, write ios, read merges, write merges, read ticks, write ticks, read in-queue time, write in-queue time, disk utilization percentage
2053.RE
2054.P
5982a925 2055Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
562c2d2f 2056.RS
ff6bb260 2057.B total # errors, first error code
d60e92d1
AC
2058.RE
2059.P
562c2d2f 2060.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
d60e92d1 2061.RE
29dbd1e5
JA
2062.SH TRACE FILE FORMAT
2063There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
2064is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
2065below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
2066
2067In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
2068
2069.P
2070.B Trace file format v1
2071.RS
2072Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
2073
2074rw, offset, length
2075
2076where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
2077
2078This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
2079
2080.RE
2081.P
2082.B Trace file format v2
2083.RS
2084The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
2085It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
2086possible file actions.
2087
2088The first line of the trace file has to be:
2089
2090\fBfio version 2 iolog\fR
2091
2092Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
2093The file management format:
2094
2095\fBfilename action\fR
2096
2097The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
2098
2099.P
2100.PD 0
2101.RS
2102.TP
2103.B add
2104Add the given filename to the trace
2105.TP
2106.B open
2107Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have been previously
2108added with the \fBadd\fR action.
2109.TP
2110.B close
2111Close the file with the given filename. The file must have previously been
2112opened.
2113.RE
2114.PD
2115.P
2116
2117The file io action format:
2118
2119\fBfilename action offset length\fR
2120
2121The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
2122before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
2123bytes. The action can be one of these:
2124
2125.P
2126.PD 0
2127.RS
2128.TP
2129.B wait
2130Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded. The time is
2131relative to the previous wait statement.
2132.TP
2133.B read
2134Read \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2135.TP
2136.B write
2137Write \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2138.TP
2139.B sync
2140fsync() the file
2141.TP
2142.B datasync
2143fdatasync() the file
2144.TP
2145.B trim
2146trim the given file from the given \fBoffset\fR for \fBlength\fR bytes
2147.RE
2148.PD
2149.P
2150
2151.SH CPU IDLENESS PROFILING
2152In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
2153we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
2154fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
2155idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
2156By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
2157CPU can be derived accordingly.
2158
2159An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
2160and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
2161work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
2162overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
2163
2164.SH VERIFICATION AND TRIGGERS
2165Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
2166first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
2167write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
2168it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
2169on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
2170same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
2171on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
2172data was written.
2173
2174With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
2175to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
2176and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
2177power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
2178
2179A verification trigger consists of two things:
2180
2181.RS
2182Storing the write state of each job
2183.LP
2184Executing a trigger command
2185.RE
2186
2187The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
2188to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
2189done, the last X completions, etc.
2190
2191A trigger is invoked either through creation (\fBtouch\fR) of a specified
2192file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
2193\fB\-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/trigger-file\fR, then it will continually check for
2194the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
2195fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
2196command).
2197
2198For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
2199fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
2200to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
2201specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
2202back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
2203
2204.RE
2205.P
2206.B Verification trigger example
2207.RS
2208
2209Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
2210Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
2211at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
2212or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
2213backend normally:
2214
2215server# \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2216
2217and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
2218
e0ee7a8b 2219localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger-remote="bash \-c "echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger""\fR
29dbd1e5
JA
2220
2221We set \fB/tmp/my-trigger\fR as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
2222
2223\fBecho b > /proc/sysrq-trigger\fR
2224
2225on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
2226state. This will work, but it's not \fIreally\fR cutting power to the server,
2227it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
2228power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
2229a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
2230IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
2231then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
2232
2233localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger="ipmi-reboot server"\fR
2234
2235For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
2236then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
2237
2238.RE
2239.P
2240.B Loading verify state
2241.RS
2242To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
2243the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
2244stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
2245and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
2246the files over and load them from there.
2247
2248.RE
2249
a3ae5b05
JA
2250.SH LOG FILE FORMATS
2251
2252Fio supports a variety of log file formats, for logging latencies, bandwidth,
2253and IOPS. The logs share a common format, which looks like this:
2254
2255.B time (msec), value, data direction, offset
2256
2257Time for the log entry is always in milliseconds. The value logged depends
2258on the type of log, it will be one of the following:
2259
2260.P
2261.PD 0
2262.TP
2263.B Latency log
2264Value is in latency in usecs
2265.TP
2266.B Bandwidth log
2267Value is in KB/sec
2268.TP
2269.B IOPS log
2270Value is in IOPS
2271.PD
2272.P
2273
2274Data direction is one of the following:
2275
2276.P
2277.PD 0
2278.TP
2279.B 0
2280IO is a READ
2281.TP
2282.B 1
2283IO is a WRITE
2284.TP
2285.B 2
2286IO is a TRIM
2287.PD
2288.P
2289
2290The \fIoffset\fR is the offset, in bytes, from the start of the file, for that
2291particular IO. The logging of the offset can be toggled with \fBlog_offset\fR.
2292
2293If windowed logging is enabled though \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, then fio doesn't log
2294individual IOs. Instead of logs the average values over the specified
2295period of time. Since \fIdata direction\fR and \fIoffset\fR are per-IO values,
2296they aren't applicable if windowed logging is enabled. If windowed logging
2297is enabled and \fBlog_max_value\fR is set, then fio logs maximum values in
2298that window instead of averages.
2299
2300.RE
2301
49da1240
JA
2302.SH CLIENT / SERVER
2303Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
2304where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
2305run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
2306have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
2307be running, while controlling it from another machine.
2308
2309To start the server, you would do:
2310
2311\fBfio \-\-server=args\fR
2312
2313on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
811826be 2314are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
20c67f10
MS
2315for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain
2316socket. 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
811826be 2317listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
49da1240 2318
e0ee7a8b 23191) \fBfio \-\-server\fR
49da1240
JA
2320
2321 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
2322
e0ee7a8b 23232) \fBfio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444\fR
49da1240
JA
2324
2325 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
2326
e0ee7a8b 23273) \fBfio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444\fR
811826be
JA
2328
2329 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
2330
e0ee7a8b 23314) \fBfio \-\-server=,4444\fR
49da1240
JA
2332
2333 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
2334
e0ee7a8b 23355) \fBfio \-\-server=1.2.3.4\fR
49da1240
JA
2336
2337 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
2338
e0ee7a8b 23396) \fBfio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock\fR
49da1240
JA
2340
2341 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
2342
2343When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
2344is run with:
2345
e0ee7a8b 2346\fBfio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>\fR
49da1240 2347
e01e9745
MS
2348where \-\-local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
2349running, 'server' is the connect string, and \-\-remote-args and <job file(s)>
49da1240
JA
2350are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
2351does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
2352You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
2353
e0ee7a8b 2354\fBfio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>\fR
323255cc
JA
2355
2356If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
2357to load a local file as well. This is done by using \-\-remote-config:
2358
e0ee7a8b 2359\fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-remote-config /path/to/file.fio\fR
323255cc 2360
39b5f61e 2361Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
323255cc 2362of being passed one from the client.
39b5f61e 2363
ff6bb260 2364If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
39b5f61e
BE
2365of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter value for the \-\-client option.
2366For example, here is an example "host.list" file containing 2 hostnames:
2367
2368host1.your.dns.domain
2369.br
2370host2.your.dns.domain
2371
2372The fio command would then be:
2373
e0ee7a8b 2374\fBfio \-\-client=host.list <job file>\fR
39b5f61e
BE
2375
2376In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files, and all
2377servers receive the same job file.
2378
2379In order to enable fio \-\-client runs utilizing a shared filesystem from multiple hosts,
ff6bb260
SL
2380fio \-\-client now prepends the IP address of the server to the filename. For example,
2381if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio and is writing filename fileio.tmp,
39b5f61e
BE
2382with a \-\-client hostfile
2383containing two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and 192.168.10.121, then
2384fio will create two files:
2385
2386/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
2387.br
2388/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
2389
d60e92d1 2390.SH AUTHORS
49da1240 2391
d60e92d1 2392.B fio
aa58d252 2393was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
f8b8f7da 2394now Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>.
d1429b5c
AC
2395.br
2396This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
d60e92d1
AC
2397on documentation by Jens Axboe.
2398.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
482900c9 2399Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
d1429b5c 2400See \fBREADME\fR.
d60e92d1 2401.SH "SEE ALSO"
d1429b5c
AC
2402For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
2403.br
2404Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.