backend: mark the thread as finishing, when we are out of the IO loop
[fio.git] / fio.1
... / ...
CommitLineData
1.TH fio 1 "December 2014" "User Manual"
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
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
20.BI \-\-output \fR=\fPfilename
21Write output to \fIfilename\fR.
22.TP
23.BI \-\-output-format \fR=\fPformat
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.
28.TP
29.BI \-\-runtime \fR=\fPruntime
30Limit run time to \fIruntime\fR seconds.
31.TP
32.B \-\-bandwidth\-log
33Generate per-job bandwidth logs.
34.TP
35.B \-\-minimal
36Print statistics in a terse, semicolon-delimited format.
37.TP
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
42.B \-\-version
43Display version information and exit.
44.TP
45.BI \-\-terse\-version \fR=\fPversion
46Set terse version output format (Current version 3, or older version 2).
47.TP
48.B \-\-help
49Display usage information and exit.
50.TP
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
59.BI \-\-cmdhelp \fR=\fPcommand
60Print help information for \fIcommand\fR. May be `all' for all commands.
61.TP
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
65.BI \-\-showcmd \fR=\fPjobfile
66Convert \fIjobfile\fR to a set of command-line options.
67.TP
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
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
78.BI \-\-readonly
79Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing any attempted write.
80.TP
81.BI \-\-section \fR=\fPsec
82Only run section \fIsec\fR from job file. This option can be used multiple times to add more sections to run.
83.TP
84.BI \-\-alloc\-size \fR=\fPkb
85Set the internal smalloc pool size to \fIkb\fP kilobytes.
86.TP
87.BI \-\-warnings\-fatal
88All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an error.
89.TP
90.BI \-\-max\-jobs \fR=\fPnr
91Set the maximum allowed number of jobs (threads/processes) to support.
92.TP
93.BI \-\-server \fR=\fPargs
94Start a backend server, with \fIargs\fP specifying what to listen to. See client/server section.
95.TP
96.BI \-\-daemonize \fR=\fPpidfile
97Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given pid file.
98.TP
99.BI \-\-client \fR=\fPhost
100Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given host or set of hosts. See client/server section.
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).
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
111considered a comment and ignored.
112.P
113If \fIjobfile\fR is specified as `-', the job file will be read from
114standard input.
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
122Some parameters may take arguments of a specific type.
123Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression may be used,
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:
145.TP
146.I str
147String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
148.TP
149.I int
150SI integer: a whole number, possibly containing a suffix denoting the base unit
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)
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'
160(minutes), 'S' Seconds, 'ms' (or msec) milli seconds, 'us' (or 'usec') micro
161seconds. Time values without a unit specify seconds.
162The suffixes are not case sensitive.
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
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'.
173.TP
174.I float_list
175List of floating numbers: A list of floating numbers, separated by
176a ':' character.
177.SS "Parameter List"
178.TP
179.BI name \fR=\fPstr
180May be used to override the job name. On the command line, this parameter
181has the special purpose of signalling the start of a new job.
182.TP
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
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 `./'.
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
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.
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
210number. If you want to share files between threads in a job or several jobs,
211specify a \fIfilename\fR for each of them to override the default.
212If the I/O engine is file-based, you can specify
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
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
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".
221.TP
222.BI filename_format \fR=\fPstr
223If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have
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
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
262Only one thread or process may do IO at a time, excluding all others.
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
268.RE
269.P
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
279Sequential reads.
280.TP
281.B write
282Sequential writes.
283.TP
284.B trim
285Sequential trim (Linux block devices only).
286.TP
287.B randread
288Random reads.
289.TP
290.B randwrite
291Random writes.
292.TP
293.B randtrim
294Random trim (Linux block devices only).
295.TP
296.B rw, readwrite
297Mixed sequential reads and writes.
298.TP
299.B randrw
300Mixed random reads and writes.
301.TP
302.B trimwrite
303Trim and write mixed workload. Blocks will be trimmed first, then the same
304blocks will be written to.
305.RE
306.P
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
309specify a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is done by
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
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.
316.RE
317.TP
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
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
346reasons. Allowed values are 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
347.TP
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
351set fio sums the results and reports them as "mixed" instead.
352.TP
353.BI randrepeat \fR=\fPbool
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.
360.TP
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
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
376Pre-allocate via \fBposix_fallocate\fR\|(3).
377.TP
378.B keep
379Pre-allocate via \fBfallocate\fR\|(2) with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
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
392.TP
393.BI fadvise_hint \fR=\fPbool
394Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what I/O patterns
395are likely to be issued. Default: true.
396.TP
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
402.BI size \fR=\fPint
403Total size of I/O for this job. \fBfio\fR will run until this many bytes have
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
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
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.
421.TP
422.BI fill_device \fR=\fPbool "\fR,\fB fill_fs" \fR=\fPbool
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
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.
429.TP
430.BI filesize \fR=\fPirange
431Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case \fBfio\fR will select sizes
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.
435.TP
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
440of a file. This option is ignored on non-regular files.
441.TP
442.BI blocksize \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB bs" \fR=\fPint[,int]
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.
447.TP
448.BI blocksize_range \fR=\fPirange[,irange] "\fR,\fB bsrange" \fR=\fPirange[,irange]
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
451to both reads and writes if only one range is given, but can be specified
452separately with a comma separating the values. Example: bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k.
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,
460optionally adding as many definitions as needed separated by a colon.
461Example: bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40 would issue 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k
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.
466.TP
467.B blocksize_unaligned\fR,\fP bs_unaligned
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.
470.TP
471.BI blockalign \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB ba" \fR=\fPint[,int]
472At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to the same as 'blocksize'
473the minimum blocksize given. Minimum alignment is typically 512b
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.
477.TP
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
484.B zero_buffers
485Initialize buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
486.TP
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
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
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
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.
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
517.BI buffer_pattern \fR=\fPstr
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
520setting can be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
521values. It may also be a string, where the string must then be wrapped with
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
542.TP
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
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
562Choose a file at random.
563.TP
564.B roundrobin
565Round robin over opened files (default).
566.TP
567.B sequential
568Do each file in the set sequentially.
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.
578.RE
579.P
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.
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
595Basic \fBread\fR\|(2) or \fBwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fBfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
596position the I/O location.
597.TP
598.B psync
599Basic \fBpread\fR\|(2) or \fBpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
600.TP
601.B vsync
602Basic \fBreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
603coalescing adjacent IOs into a single submission.
604.TP
605.B pvsync
606Basic \fBpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
607.TP
608.B pvsync2
609Basic \fBpreadv2\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev2\fR\|(2) I/O.
610.TP
611.B libaio
612Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
613.TP
614.B posixaio
615POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fBaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fBaio_write\fR\|(3).
616.TP
617.B solarisaio
618Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
619.TP
620.B windowsaio
621Windows native asynchronous I/O.
622.TP
623.B mmap
624File is memory mapped with \fBmmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
625\fBmemcpy\fR\|(3).
626.TP
627.B splice
628\fBsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
629transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
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
636the target is an sg character device, we use \fBread\fR\|(2) and
637\fBwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
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
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.
648.TP
649.B netsplice
650Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fBsplice\fR\|(2) and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
651and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
652.TP
653.B cpuio
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
659approach to asynchronous I/O.
660.br
661See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
662.TP
663.B rdma
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.
666.TP
667.B external
668Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
669`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
670.TP
671.B falloc
672 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate call to simulate data
673transfer as fio ioengine
674.br
675 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
676.br
677 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
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
684.TP
685.B rbd
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
688options.
689.TP
690.B gfapi
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
697having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
698options.
699.TP
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.
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.
717.TP
718.B pmemblk
719Read and write through the NVML libpmemblk interface.
720.RE
721.P
722.RE
723.TP
724.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
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
727degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
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.
732.TP
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.
738.TP
739.BI iodepth_batch_complete_min \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_complete" \fR=\fPint
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
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
779.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
780Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
781\fBiodepth\fR.
782.TP
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
794.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
795If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
796.TP
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
802.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
803If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
804Default: true.
805.TP
806.BI offset \fR=\fPint
807Offset in the file to start I/O. Data before the offset will not be touched.
808.TP
809.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
810If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
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.
816.TP
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
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.
825.TP
826.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
827How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
8280, don't sync. Default: 0.
829.TP
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
834.BI write_barrier \fR=\fPint
835Make every Nth write a barrier write.
836.TP
837.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
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.
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.
856Also see the \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
857.TP
858.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
859If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
860.TP
861.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
862Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
863.TP
864.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
865If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
866it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
867.TP
868.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
869Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
870.TP
871.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
872Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
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.
877.TP
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
894.B gauss
895Normal (gaussian) distribution
896.TP
897.B zoned
898Zoned random distribution
899.TP
900.RE
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
906random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
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.
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
939.TP
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
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.
946.TP
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
952.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
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
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
968.B tausworthe64
969Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator
970.TP
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
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.
982.TP
983.BI nice \fR=\fPint
984Run job with given nice value. See \fBnice\fR\|(2).
985.TP
986.BI prio \fR=\fPint
987Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
988\fBionice\fR\|(1).
989.TP
990.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
991Set I/O priority class. See \fBionice\fR\|(1).
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
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.
1007Default: 1.
1008.TP
1009.BI rate \fR=\fPint
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.
1016.TP
1017.BI rate_min \fR=\fPint
1018Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
1019Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
1020as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write separation.
1021.TP
1022.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint
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
1025read vs write separation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
1026size is used as the metric.
1027.TP
1028.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint
1029If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
1030is used for read vs write separation.
1031.TP
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
1038(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process). The lambda will be
103910^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
1040.TP
1041.BI rate_cycle \fR=\fPint
1042Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBrate_min\fR over this number of
1043milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
1044.TP
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
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
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
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
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.
1090.RE
1091.P
1092.TP
1093.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
1094Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
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
1099the arguments:
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
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
1118milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is omitted.
1119Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
1120range.
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
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
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.
1136.TP
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,
1142this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
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
1150Allocate memory with \fBmalloc\fR\|(3).
1151.TP
1152.B shm
1153Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fBshmget\fR\|(2).
1154.TP
1155.B shmhuge
1156Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
1157.TP
1158.B mmap
1159Use \fBmmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
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.
1164.TP
1165.B mmapshared
1166Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
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
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.
1177.RE
1178.TP
1179.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
1180This indicates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
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
1188.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
1189Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
1190Should be a multiple of 1MB. Default: 4MB.
1191.TP
1192.B exitall
1193Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
1194.TP
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
1199.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
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.
1203.TP
1204.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
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.
1208.TP
1209.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
1210If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
1211.TP
1212.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
1213\fBfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
1214.TP
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
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
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
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
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
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.
1240.TP
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
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
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
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:
1266.RS
1267.RS
1268.TP
1269.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1 xxhash
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.
1273.TP
1274.B meta
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.
1279.TP
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
1285.B null
1286Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
1287.RE
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.
1294.RE
1295.TP
1296.BI verifysort \fR=\fPbool
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
1300.BI verifysort_nr \fR=\fPint
1301Pre-load and sort verify blocks for a read workload.
1302.TP
1303.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
1304Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
1305writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
1306.TP
1307.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
1308Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
1309\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
1310.TP
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
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.:
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
1330.TP
1331.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
1332If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
1333false.
1334.TP
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
1338data corruption occurred. Off by default.
1339.TP
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
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.
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
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
1358be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
1359only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
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
1364read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
1365\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
1366\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
1367will be verified more than once.
1368.TP
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
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
1395.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
1396Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
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
1404Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
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
1415.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
1416Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1417.TP
1418.BI zonerange \fR=\fPint
1419Give size of an IO zone. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1420.TP
1421.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
1422Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
1423read.
1424.TP
1425.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
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.
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
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
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
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
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
1456.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
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
1460graphs. See \fBwrite_lat_log\fR for behaviour of given filename. For this
1461option, the postfix is _bw.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
1462where N is the number of jobs). If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the
1463filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1464section.
1465.TP
1466.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
1467Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
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
1471append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will
1472not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1473.TP
1474.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1475Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
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
1478is given, fio will still append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false,
1479then the filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1480section.
1481.TP
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
1486over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
1487\fBlog_max_value\fR as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
1488.TP
1489.BI log_max_value \fR=\fPbool
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.
1493.TP
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
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
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
1514.BI log_store_compressed \fR=\fPbool
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.
1518.TP
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
1524.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
1525Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
1526back the number of calls to \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2), as that does impact performance at
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
1530.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
1531Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1532.TP
1533.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
1534Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1535.TP
1536.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
1537Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1538.TP
1539.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
1540Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
1541simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1542.TP
1543.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1544Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
1545.RS
1546Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1547.RE
1548.TP
1549.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1550Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
1551.RS
1552Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1553.RE
1554.TP
1555.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1556Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1557.TP
1558.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
1559Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
1560.TP
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
1566\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2)
1567.TP
1568.B clock_gettime
1569\fBclock_gettime\fR\|(2)
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
1582.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
1583Enable all of the \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
1584disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
1585\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
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
1591\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
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
1594entering the kernel with a \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call. The CPU set aside for doing
1595these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1596from the CPU mask of other jobs.
1597.TP
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 .
1608.br
1609This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
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
1615.BI profile \fR=\fPstr
1616Select a specific builtin performance test.
1617.TP
1618.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1619Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
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
1623# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
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.
1628.TP
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
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.
1641.TP
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
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
1678.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1679Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1680.TP
1681.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
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
1685numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
1686report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1687the observed latencies fell, respectively.
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
1691command line, they must come after the ioengine.
1692.TP
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
1699.BI (cpu)exit_on_io_done \fR=\fPbool
1700Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1701.TP
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
1710.BI (psyncv2)hipri
1711Set RWF_HIPRI on IO, indicating to the kernel that it's of
1712higher priority than normal.
1713.TP
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
1717used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
1718.TP
1719.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
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.
1723.TP
1724.BI (net,netsplice)interface \fR=\fPstr
1725The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP multicast
1726packets.
1727.TP
1728.BI (net,netsplice)ttl \fR=\fPint
1729Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1
1730.TP
1731.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1732Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1733.TP
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
1742.B tcpv6
1743Transmission control protocol V6
1744.TP
1745.B udp
1746User datagram protocol
1747.TP
1748.B udpv6
1749User datagram protocol V6
1750.TP
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.
1765.TP
1766.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
1767Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
1768will just consume packets. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
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
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.
1775.TP
1776.BI (net, window_size) \fR=\fPint
1777Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1778.TP
1779.BI (net, mss) \fR=\fPint
1780Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1781.TP
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
1786Configure donor file block allocation strategy
1787.RS
1788.BI 0(default) :
1789Preallocate donor's file on init
1790.TP
1791.BI 1:
1792allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right after event
1793.RE
1794.TP
1795.BI (rbd)clustername \fR=\fPstr
1796Specifies the name of the ceph cluster.
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
1805Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the Ceph
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.
1808.TP
1809.BI (mtd)skipbad \fR=\fPbool
1810Skip operations against known bad blocks.
1811.SH OUTPUT
1812While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
1813example:
1814.RS
1815.P
1816Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
1817.RE
1818.P
1819The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
1820threads. The possible values are:
1821.P
1822.PD 0
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
1864.PD
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
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
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.
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
1915.P
1916The group statistics show:
1917.PD 0
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
1933Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
1934.TP
1935.B maxt
1936Longest runtime of threads in the group.
1937.RE
1938.PD
1939.P
1940Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
1941.PD 0
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
1959.PD
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.
1964.SH TERSE OUTPUT
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
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:
1972.P
1973.RS
1974.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
1975.P
1976Read status:
1977.RS
1978.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
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
1988Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
1989.RS
1990.B Xth percentile=usec
1991.RE
1992Total latency:
1993.RS
1994.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1995.RE
1996Bandwidth:
1997.RS
1998.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
1999.RE
2000.RE
2001.P
2002Write status:
2003.RS
2004.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
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
2014Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2015.RS
2016.B Xth percentile=usec
2017.RE
2018Total latency:
2019.RS
2020.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2021.RE
2022Bandwidth:
2023.RS
2024.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2025.RE
2026.RE
2027.P
2028CPU usage:
2029.RS
2030.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
2031.RE
2032.P
2033IO depth distribution:
2034.RS
2035.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
2036.RE
2037.P
2038IO latency distribution:
2039.RS
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
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
2055Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
2056.RS
2057.B total # errors, first error code
2058.RE
2059.P
2060.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
2061.RE
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
2219localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger-remote="bash \-c "echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger""\fR
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
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
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
2314are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
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
2317listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
2318
23191) \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2320
2321 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
2322
23232) \fBfio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444\fR
2324
2325 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
2326
23273) \fBfio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444\fR
2328
2329 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
2330
23314) \fBfio \-\-server=,4444\fR
2332
2333 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
2334
23355) \fBfio \-\-server=1.2.3.4\fR
2336
2337 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
2338
23396) \fBfio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock\fR
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
2346\fBfio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>\fR
2347
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)>
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
2354\fBfio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>\fR
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
2359\fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-remote-config /path/to/file.fio\fR
2360
2361Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
2362of being passed one from the client.
2363
2364If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
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
2374\fBfio \-\-client=host.list <job file>\fR
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,
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,
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
2390.SH AUTHORS
2391
2392.B fio
2393was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
2394now Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>.
2395.br
2396This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
2397on documentation by Jens Axboe.
2398.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
2399Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
2400See \fBREADME\fR.
2401.SH "SEE ALSO"
2402For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
2403.br
2404Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.