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1.TH fio 1 "September 2007" "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 \-\-runtime \fR=\fPruntime
24Limit run time to \fIruntime\fR seconds.
25.TP
26.B \-\-latency\-log
27Generate per-job latency logs.
28.TP
29.B \-\-bandwidth\-log
30Generate per-job bandwidth logs.
31.TP
32.B \-\-minimal
33Print statistics in a terse, semicolon-delimited format.
34.TP
35.B \-\-version
36Display version information and exit.
37.TP
38.BI \-\-terse\-version \fR=\fPversion
39Set terse version output format (Current version 3, or older version 2).
40.TP
41.B \-\-help
42Display usage information and exit.
43.TP
44.BI \-\-cmdhelp \fR=\fPcommand
45Print help information for \fIcommand\fR. May be `all' for all commands.
46.TP
47.BI \-\-enghelp \fR=\fPioengine[,command]
48List all commands defined by \fIioengine\fR, or print help for \fIcommand\fR defined by \fIioengine\fR.
49.TP
50.BI \-\-showcmd \fR=\fPjobfile
51Convert \fIjobfile\fR to a set of command-line options.
52.TP
53.BI \-\-eta \fR=\fPwhen
54Specifies when real-time ETA estimate should be printed. \fIwhen\fR may
55be one of `always', `never' or `auto'.
56.TP
57.BI \-\-eta\-newline \fR=\fPtime
58Force an ETA newline for every `time` period passed.
59.TP
60.BI \-\-status\-interval \fR=\fPtime
61Report full output status every `time` period passed.
62.TP
63.BI \-\-readonly
64Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing any attempted write.
65.TP
66.BI \-\-section \fR=\fPsec
67Only run section \fIsec\fR from job file. Multiple of these options can be given, adding more sections to run.
68.TP
69.BI \-\-alloc\-size \fR=\fPkb
70Set the internal smalloc pool size to \fIkb\fP kilobytes.
71.TP
72.BI \-\-warnings\-fatal
73All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an error.
74.TP
75.BI \-\-max\-jobs \fR=\fPnr
76Set the maximum allowed number of jobs (threads/processes) to support.
77.TP
78.BI \-\-server \fR=\fPargs
79Start a backend server, with \fIargs\fP specifying what to listen to. See client/server section.
80.TP
81.BI \-\-daemonize \fR=\fPpidfile
82Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given pid file.
83.TP
84.BI \-\-client \fR=\fPhost
85Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given host.
86.TP
87.BI \-\-idle\-prof \fR=\fPoption
88Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis (\fIoption\fP=system,percpu) or run unit work calibration only (\fIoption\fP=calibrate).
89.SH "JOB FILE FORMAT"
90Job files are in `ini' format. They consist of one or more
91job definitions, which begin with a job name in square brackets and
92extend to the next job name. The job name can be any ASCII string
93except `global', which has a special meaning. Following the job name is
94a sequence of zero or more parameters, one per line, that define the
95behavior of the job. Any line starting with a `;' or `#' character is
96considered a comment and ignored.
97.P
98If \fIjobfile\fR is specified as `-', the job file will be read from
99standard input.
100.SS "Global Section"
101The global section contains default parameters for jobs specified in the
102job file. A job is only affected by global sections residing above it,
103and there may be any number of global sections. Specific job definitions
104may override any parameter set in global sections.
105.SH "JOB PARAMETERS"
106.SS Types
107Some parameters may take arguments of a specific type. The types used are:
108.TP
109.I str
110String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
111.TP
112.I int
113SI integer: a whole number, possibly containing a suffix denoting the base unit
114of the value. Accepted suffixes are `k', 'M', 'G', 'T', and 'P', denoting
115kilo (1024), mega (1024^2), giga (1024^3), tera (1024^4), and peta (1024^5)
116respectively. The suffix is not case sensitive. If prefixed with '0x', the
117value is assumed to be base 16 (hexadecimal). A suffix may include a trailing 'b',
118for instance 'kb' is identical to 'k'. You can specify a base 10 value
119by using 'KiB', 'MiB', 'GiB', etc. This is useful for disk drives where
120values are often given in base 10 values. Specifying '30GiB' will get you
12130*1000^3 bytes.
122.TP
123.I bool
124Boolean: a true or false value. `0' denotes false, `1' denotes true.
125.TP
126.I irange
127Integer range: a range of integers specified in the format
128\fIlower\fR:\fIupper\fR or \fIlower\fR\-\fIupper\fR. \fIlower\fR and
129\fIupper\fR may contain a suffix as described above. If an option allows two
130sets of ranges, they are separated with a `,' or `/' character. For example:
131`8\-8k/8M\-4G'.
132.TP
133.I float_list
134List of floating numbers: A list of floating numbers, separated by
135a ':' charcater.
136.SS "Parameter List"
137.TP
138.BI name \fR=\fPstr
139May be used to override the job name. On the command line, this parameter
140has the special purpose of signalling the start of a new job.
141.TP
142.BI description \fR=\fPstr
143Human-readable description of the job. It is printed when the job is run, but
144otherwise has no special purpose.
145.TP
146.BI directory \fR=\fPstr
147Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files in a location other
148than `./'.
149.TP
150.BI filename \fR=\fPstr
151.B fio
152normally makes up a file name based on the job name, thread number, and file
153number. If you want to share files between threads in a job or several jobs,
154specify a \fIfilename\fR for each of them to override the default.
155If the I/O engine is file-based, you can specify
156a number of files by separating the names with a `:' character. `\-' is a
157reserved name, meaning stdin or stdout, depending on the read/write direction
158set.
159.TP
160.BI filename_format \fR=\fPstr
161If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have
162fio generate the exact names that you want. By default, fio will name a file
163based on the default file format specification of
164\fBjobname.jobnumber.filenumber\fP. With this option, that can be
165customized. Fio will recognize and replace the following keywords in this
166string:
167.RS
168.RS
169.TP
170.B $jobname
171The name of the worker thread or process.
172.TP
173.B $jobnum
174The incremental number of the worker thread or process.
175.TP
176.B $filenum
177The incremental number of the file for that worker thread or process.
178.RE
179.P
180To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can be set to
181have fio generate filenames that are shared between the two. For instance,
182if \fBtestfiles.$filenum\fR is specified, file number 4 for any job will
183be named \fBtestfiles.4\fR. The default of \fB$jobname.$jobnum.$filenum\fR
184will be used if no other format specifier is given.
185.RE
186.P
187.TP
188.BI lockfile \fR=\fPstr
189Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does IO to them. If a file or
190file descriptor is shared, fio can serialize IO to that file to make the end
191result consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that share files.
192The lock modes are:
193.RS
194.RS
195.TP
196.B none
197No locking. This is the default.
198.TP
199.B exclusive
200Only one thread or process may do IO at the time, excluding all others.
201.TP
202.B readwrite
203Read-write locking on the file. Many readers may access the file at the same
204time, but writes get exclusive access.
205.RE
206.RE
207.P
208.BI opendir \fR=\fPstr
209Recursively open any files below directory \fIstr\fR.
210.TP
211.BI readwrite \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP rw" \fR=\fPstr
212Type of I/O pattern. Accepted values are:
213.RS
214.RS
215.TP
216.B read
217Sequential reads.
218.TP
219.B write
220Sequential writes.
221.TP
222.B randread
223Random reads.
224.TP
225.B randwrite
226Random writes.
227.TP
228.B rw, readwrite
229Mixed sequential reads and writes.
230.TP
231.B randrw
232Mixed random reads and writes.
233.RE
234.P
235For mixed I/O, the default split is 50/50. For certain types of io the result
236may still be skewed a bit, since the speed may be different. It is possible to
237specify a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is done by
238appending a `:\fI<nr>\fR to the end of the string given. For a random read, it
239would look like \fBrw=randread:8\fR for passing in an offset modifier with a
240value of 8. If the postfix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
241specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO. For instance,
242using \fBrw=write:4k\fR will skip 4k for every write. It turns sequential IO
243into sequential IO with holes. See the \fBrw_sequencer\fR option.
244.RE
245.TP
246.BI rw_sequencer \fR=\fPstr
247If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to the \fBrw=<str>\fR line,
248then this option controls how that number modifies the IO offset being
249generated. Accepted values are:
250.RS
251.RS
252.TP
253.B sequential
254Generate sequential offset
255.TP
256.B identical
257Generate the same offset
258.RE
259.P
260\fBsequential\fR is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
261generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append eg 8 to randread, you
262would get a new random offset for every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for
263only every 8 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use \fBrw=randread:8\fR to specify
264that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting \fBsequential\fR for that
265would not result in any differences. \fBidentical\fR behaves in a similar
266fashion, except it sends the same offset 8 number of times before generating a
267new offset.
268.RE
269.P
270.TP
271.BI kb_base \fR=\fPint
272The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024. Storage
273manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base ten unit instead, for obvious
274reasons. Allow values are 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
275.TP
276.BI unified_rw_reporting \fR=\fPbool
277Fio normally reports statistics on a per data direction basis, meaning that
278read, write, and trim are accounted and reported separately. If this option is
279set, the fio will sum the results and report them as "mixed" instead.
280.TP
281.BI randrepeat \fR=\fPbool
282Seed the random number generator in a predictable way so results are repeatable
283across runs. Default: true.
284.TP
285.BI use_os_rand \fR=\fPbool
286Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS to generator random
287offsets, or it can use it's own internal generator (based on Tausworthe).
288Default is to use the internal generator, which is often of better quality and
289faster. Default: false.
290.TP
291.BI fallocate \fR=\fPstr
292Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files. Accepted values
293are:
294.RS
295.RS
296.TP
297.B none
298Do not pre-allocate space.
299.TP
300.B posix
301Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate().
302.TP
303.B keep
304Pre-allocate via fallocate() with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
305.TP
306.B 0
307Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
308.TP
309.B 1
310Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'.
311.RE
312.P
313May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
314available on Linux. If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to 'none'
315because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
316.RE
317.TP
318.BI fadvise_hint \fR=\fPbool
319Use of \fIposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what I/O patterns
320are likely to be issued. Default: true.
321.TP
322.BI size \fR=\fPint
323Total size of I/O for this job. \fBfio\fR will run until this many bytes have
324been transfered, unless limited by other options (\fBruntime\fR, for instance).
325Unless \fBnrfiles\fR and \fBfilesize\fR options are given, this amount will be
326divided between the available files for the job. If not set, fio will use the
327full size of the given files or devices. If the the files do not exist, size
328must be given. It is also possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and
329100. If size=20% is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given files
330or devices.
331.TP
332.BI fill_device \fR=\fPbool "\fR,\fB fill_fs" \fR=\fPbool
333Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no space left on
334device) as the terminating condition. Only makes sense with sequential write.
335For a read workload, the mount point will be filled first then IO started on
336the result. This option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
337since the size of that is already known by the file system. Additionally,
338writing beyond end-of-device will not return ENOSPC there.
339.TP
340.BI filesize \fR=\fPirange
341Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case \fBfio\fR will select sizes
342for files at random within the given range, limited to \fBsize\fR in total (if
343that is given). If \fBfilesize\fR is not specified, each created file is the
344same size.
345.TP
346.BI blocksize \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB bs" \fR=\fPint[,int]
347Block size for I/O units. Default: 4k. Values for reads and writes can be
348specified separately in the format \fIread\fR,\fIwrite\fR, either of
349which may be empty to leave that value at its default.
350.TP
351.BI blocksize_range \fR=\fPirange[,irange] "\fR,\fB bsrange" \fR=\fPirange[,irange]
352Specify a range of I/O block sizes. The issued I/O unit will always be a
353multiple of the minimum size, unless \fBblocksize_unaligned\fR is set. Applies
354to both reads and writes if only one range is given, but can be specified
355separately with a comma seperating the values. Example: bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k.
356Also (see \fBblocksize\fR).
357.TP
358.BI bssplit \fR=\fPstr
359This option allows even finer grained control of the block sizes issued,
360not just even splits between them. With this option, you can weight various
361block sizes for exact control of the issued IO for a job that has mixed
362block sizes. The format of the option is bssplit=blocksize/percentage,
363optionally adding as many definitions as needed separated by a colon.
364Example: bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40 would issue 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k
365blocks and 40% 32k blocks. \fBbssplit\fR also supports giving separate
366splits to reads and writes. The format is identical to what the
367\fBbs\fR option accepts, the read and write parts are separated with a
368comma.
369.TP
370.B blocksize_unaligned\fR,\fP bs_unaligned
371If set, any size in \fBblocksize_range\fR may be used. This typically won't
372work with direct I/O, as that normally requires sector alignment.
373.TP
374.BI blockalign \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB ba" \fR=\fPint[,int]
375At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to the same as 'blocksize'
376the minimum blocksize given. Minimum alignment is typically 512b
377for using direct IO, though it usually depends on the hardware block size.
378This option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for files, so it
379will turn off that option.
380.TP
381.B zero_buffers
382Initialise buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
383.TP
384.B refill_buffers
385If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers on every submit. The
386default is to only fill it at init time and reuse that data. Only makes sense
387if zero_buffers isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
388refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
389.TP
390.BI scramble_buffers \fR=\fPbool
391If \fBrefill_buffers\fR is too costly and the target is using data
392deduplication, then setting this option will slightly modify the IO buffer
393contents to defeat normal de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat
394more clever block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe
395of blocks. Default: true.
396.TP
397.BI buffer_compress_percentage \fR=\fPint
398If this is set, then fio will attempt to provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs)
399that compress to the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
400random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size unit, for file/disk
401wide compression level that matches this setting, you'll also want to set
402\fBrefill_buffers\fR.
403.TP
404.BI buffer_compress_chunk \fR=\fPint
405See \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR. This setting allows fio to manage how
406big the ranges of random data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
407provide \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR of blocksize random data, followed by
408the remaining zeroed. With this set to some chunk size smaller than the block
409size, fio can alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO buffer.
410.TP
411.BI nrfiles \fR=\fPint
412Number of files to use for this job. Default: 1.
413.TP
414.BI openfiles \fR=\fPint
415Number of files to keep open at the same time. Default: \fBnrfiles\fR.
416.TP
417.BI file_service_type \fR=\fPstr
418Defines how files to service are selected. The following types are defined:
419.RS
420.RS
421.TP
422.B random
423Choose a file at random
424.TP
425.B roundrobin
426Round robin over open files (default).
427.B sequential
428Do each file in the set sequentially.
429.RE
430.P
431The number of I/Os to issue before switching a new file can be specified by
432appending `:\fIint\fR' to the service type.
433.RE
434.TP
435.BI ioengine \fR=\fPstr
436Defines how the job issues I/O. The following types are defined:
437.RS
438.RS
439.TP
440.B sync
441Basic \fIread\fR\|(2) or \fIwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fIfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
442position the I/O location.
443.TP
444.B psync
445Basic \fIpread\fR\|(2) or \fIpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
446.TP
447.B vsync
448Basic \fIreadv\fR\|(2) or \fIwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
449coalescing adjacents IOs into a single submission.
450.TP
451.B pvsync
452Basic \fIpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fIpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
453.TP
454.B libaio
455Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
456.TP
457.B posixaio
458POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fIaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fIaio_write\fR\|(3).
459.TP
460.B solarisaio
461Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
462.TP
463.B windowsaio
464Windows native asynchronous I/O.
465.TP
466.B mmap
467File is memory mapped with \fImmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
468\fImemcpy\fR\|(3).
469.TP
470.B splice
471\fIsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fIvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
472transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
473.TP
474.B syslet-rw
475Use the syslet system calls to make regular read/write asynchronous.
476.TP
477.B sg
478SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May be either synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
479the target is an sg character device, we use \fIread\fR\|(2) and
480\fIwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
481.TP
482.B null
483Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. Mainly used to exercise \fBfio\fR
484itself and for debugging and testing purposes.
485.TP
486.B net
487Transfer over the network. The protocol to be used can be defined with the
488\fBprotocol\fR parameter. Depending on the protocol, \fBfilename\fR,
489\fBhostname\fR, \fBport\fR, or \fBlisten\fR must be specified.
490This ioengine defines engine specific options.
491.TP
492.B netsplice
493Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fIsplice\fR\|(2) and \fIvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
494and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
495.TP
496.B cpuio
497Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to \fBcpuload\fR and
498\fBcpucycles\fR parameters.
499.TP
500.B guasi
501The GUASI I/O engine is the Generic Userspace Asynchronous Syscall Interface
502approach to asycnronous I/O.
503.br
504See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
505.TP
506.B rdma
507The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ)
508and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
509.TP
510.B external
511Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
512`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
513.TP
514.B falloc
515 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate callt to simulate data
516transfer as fio ioengine
517.br
518 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
519.br
520 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
521.br
522 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE)
523.TP
524.B e4defrag
525IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate defragment activity
526request to DDIR_WRITE event
527.RE
528.P
529.RE
530.TP
531.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
532Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that increasing
533iodepth beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except for small
534degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines my impose OS
535restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved. This may happen on
536Linux when using libaio and not setting \fBdirect\fR=1, since buffered IO is
537not async on that OS. Keep an eye on the IO depth distribution in the
538fio output to verify that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
539.TP
540.BI iodepth_batch \fR=\fPint
541Number of I/Os to submit at once. Default: \fBiodepth\fR.
542.TP
543.BI iodepth_batch_complete \fR=\fPint
544This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1 which
545 means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from the
546kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
547\fBiodepth_low\fR. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always check for
548completed events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce IO latency, at the
549cost of more retrieval system calls.
550.TP
551.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
552Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
553\fBiodepth\fR.
554.TP
555.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
556If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
557.TP
558.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
559If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
560Default: true.
561.TP
562.BI offset \fR=\fPint
563Offset in the file to start I/O. Data before the offset will not be touched.
564.TP
565.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
566If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
567offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread number is a counter
568that starts at 0 and is incremented for each job. This option is useful if
569there are several jobs which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in
570disjoint segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
571.TP
572.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
573How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
5740, don't sync. Default: 0.
575.TP
576.BI fdatasync \fR=\fPint
577Like \fBfsync\fR, but uses \fBfdatasync\fR\|(2) instead to only sync the
578data parts of the file. Default: 0.
579.TP
580.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
581Use sync_file_range() for every \fRval\fP number of write operations. Fio will
582track range of writes that have happened since the last sync_file_range() call.
583\fRstr\fP can currently be one or more of:
584.RS
585.TP
586.B wait_before
587SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
588.TP
589.B write
590SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
591.TP
592.B wait_after
593SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
594.TP
595.RE
596.P
597So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would use
598\fBSYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE\fP for every 8 writes.
599Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
600.TP
601.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
602If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
603.TP
604.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
605Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
606.TP
607.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
608If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
609it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
610.TP
611.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
612Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
613.TP
614.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
615Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
616\fBrwmixwrite\fR are given and do not sum to 100%, the latter of the two
617overrides the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is
618asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then
619the distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
620.TP
621.BI random_distribution \fR=\fPstr:float
622By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
623to perform random IO. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
624specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
625Fio includes the following distribution models:
626.RS
627.TP
628.B random
629Uniform random distribution
630.TP
631.B zipf
632Zipf distribution
633.TP
634.B pareto
635Pareto distribution
636.TP
637.RE
638.P
639When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value is also needed to
640define the access pattern. For zipf, this is the zipf theta. For pareto,
641it's the pareto power. Fio includes a test program, genzipf, that can be
642used visualize what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
643If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
644random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
645fio will disable use of the random map.
646.TP
647.BI percentage_random \fR=\fPint
648For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This defaults
649to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set from
650anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
651sequential.
652.TP
653.BI percentage_sequential \fR=\fPint
654See \fBpercentage_random\fR.
655.TP
656.B norandommap
657Normally \fBfio\fR will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
658this parameter is given, a new offset will be chosen without looking at past
659I/O history. This parameter is mutually exclusive with \fBverify\fR.
660.TP
661.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
662See \fBnorandommap\fR. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and it
663fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without a
664random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps, this
665option is disabled by default.
666.TP
667.BI random_generator \fR=\fPstr
668Fio supports the following engines for generating IO offsets for random IO:
669.RS
670.TP
671.B tausworthe
672Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
673.TP
674.B lfsr
675Linear feedback shift register generator
676.TP
677.RE
678.P
679Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking on the
680side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written once. LFSR
681guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's also less
682computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator, however, though
683for IO purposes it's typically good enough. LFSR only works with single block
684sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block sizes. If used with such a
685workload, fio may read or write some blocks multiple times.
686.TP
687.BI nice \fR=\fPint
688Run job with given nice value. See \fInice\fR\|(2).
689.TP
690.BI prio \fR=\fPint
691Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
692\fIionice\fR\|(1).
693.TP
694.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
695Set I/O priority class. See \fIionice\fR\|(1).
696.TP
697.BI thinktime \fR=\fPint
698Stall job for given number of microseconds between issuing I/Os.
699.TP
700.BI thinktime_spin \fR=\fPint
701Pretend to spend CPU time for given number of microseconds, sleeping the rest
702of the time specified by \fBthinktime\fR. Only valid if \fBthinktime\fR is set.
703.TP
704.BI thinktime_blocks \fR=\fPint
705Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks to issue, before
706waiting \fBthinktime\fR microseconds. If not set, defaults to 1 which will
707make fio wait \fBthinktime\fR microseconds after every block. This
708effectively makes any queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO
709will be queued before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In other
710words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
711Default: 1.
712.TP
713.BI rate \fR=\fPint
714Cap bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal postfix
715rules apply. You can use \fBrate\fR=500k to limit reads and writes to 500k each,
716or you can specify read and writes separately. Using \fBrate\fR=1m,500k would
717limit reads to 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or writes
718can be done with \fBrate\fR=,500k or \fBrate\fR=500k,. The former will only
719limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only limit reads.
720.TP
721.BI ratemin \fR=\fPint
722Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
723Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
724as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write separation.
725.TP
726.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint
727Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as rate, just
728specified independently of bandwidth. The same format as \fBrate\fR is used for
729read vs write seperation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
730size is used as the metric.
731.TP
732.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint
733If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
734is used for read vs write seperation.
735.TP
736.BI ratecycle \fR=\fPint
737Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBratemin\fR over this number of
738milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
739.TP
740.BI max_latency \fR=\fPint
741If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum latency. It will exit
742with an ETIME error.
743.TP
744.BI cpumask \fR=\fPint
745Set CPU affinity for this job. \fIint\fR is a bitmask of allowed CPUs the job
746may run on. See \fBsched_setaffinity\fR\|(2).
747.TP
748.BI cpus_allowed \fR=\fPstr
749Same as \fBcpumask\fR, but allows a comma-delimited list of CPU numbers.
750.TP
751.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
752Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
753comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
754.TP
755.BI numa_mem_policy \fR=\fPstr
756Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of
757the argements:
758.RS
759.TP
760.B <mode>[:<nodelist>]
761.TP
762.B mode
763is one of the following memory policy:
764.TP
765.B default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
766.TP
767.RE
768For \fBdefault\fR and \fBlocal\fR memory policy, no \fBnodelist\fR is
769needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
770allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
771comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
772.TP
773.BI startdelay \fR=\fPint
774Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds.
775.TP
776.BI runtime \fR=\fPint
777Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.
778.TP
779.B time_based
780If given, run for the specified \fBruntime\fR duration even if the files are
781completely read or written. The same workload will be repeated as many times
782as \fBruntime\fR allows.
783.TP
784.BI ramp_time \fR=\fPint
785If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
786logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle before
787logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
788that the \fBramp_time\fR is considered lead in time for a job, thus it will
789increase the total runtime if a special timeout or runtime is specified.
790.TP
791.BI invalidate \fR=\fPbool
792Invalidate buffer-cache for the file prior to starting I/O. Default: true.
793.TP
794.BI sync \fR=\fPbool
795Use synchronous I/O for buffered writes. For the majority of I/O engines,
796this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
797.TP
798.BI iomem \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP mem" \fR=\fPstr
799Allocation method for I/O unit buffer. Allowed values are:
800.RS
801.RS
802.TP
803.B malloc
804Allocate memory with \fImalloc\fR\|(3).
805.TP
806.B shm
807Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fIshmget\fR\|(2).
808.TP
809.B shmhuge
810Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
811.TP
812.B mmap
813Use \fImmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
814is given after the option in the format `:\fIfile\fR'.
815.TP
816.B mmaphuge
817Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use huge files as backing.
818.RE
819.P
820The amount of memory allocated is the maximum allowed \fBblocksize\fR for the
821job multiplied by \fBiodepth\fR. For \fBshmhuge\fR or \fBmmaphuge\fR to work,
822the system must have free huge pages allocated. \fBmmaphuge\fR also needs to
823have hugetlbfs mounted, and \fIfile\fR must point there. At least on Linux,
824huge pages must be manually allocated. See \fB/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugehages\fR
825and the documentation for that. Normally you just need to echo an appropriate
826number, eg echoing 8 will ensure that the OS has 8 huge pages ready for
827use.
828.RE
829.TP
830.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
831This indiciates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
832given alignment is applied to the first IO unit buffer, if using \fBiodepth\fR
833the alignment of the following buffers are given by the \fBbs\fR used. In
834other words, if using a \fBbs\fR that is a multiple of the page sized in the
835system, all buffers will be aligned to this value. If using a \fBbs\fR that
836is not page aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
837sum of the \fBiomem_align\fR and \fBbs\fR used.
838.TP
839.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
840Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
841Should be a multiple of 1MB. Default: 4MB.
842.TP
843.B exitall
844Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
845.TP
846.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
847Average bandwidth calculations over the given time in milliseconds. Default:
848500ms.
849.TP
850.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
851Average IOPS calculations over the given time in milliseconds. Default:
852500ms.
853.TP
854.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
855If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
856.TP
857.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
858\fIfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
859.TP
860.BI create_on_open \fR=\fPbool
861If true, the files are not created until they are opened for IO by the job.
862.TP
863.BI create_only \fR=\fPbool
864If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
865laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done. The actual job contents
866are not executed.
867.TP
868.BI pre_read \fR=\fPbool
869If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the given
870IO operation. This will also clear the \fR \fBinvalidate\fR flag, since it is
871pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO
872engines that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
873multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice IO.
874.TP
875.BI unlink \fR=\fPbool
876Unlink job files when done. Default: false.
877.TP
878.BI loops \fR=\fPint
879Specifies the number of iterations (runs of the same workload) of this job.
880Default: 1.
881.TP
882.BI do_verify \fR=\fPbool
883Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if \fBverify\fR is set.
884Default: true.
885.TP
886.BI verify \fR=\fPstr
887Method of verifying file contents after each iteration of the job. Allowed
888values are:
889.RS
890.RS
891.TP
892.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1
893Store appropriate checksum in the header of each block. crc32c-intel is
894hardware accelerated SSE4.2 driven, falls back to regular crc32c if
895not supported by the system.
896.TP
897.B meta
898Write extra information about each I/O (timestamp, block number, etc.). The
899block number is verified. See \fBverify_pattern\fR as well.
900.TP
901.B null
902Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
903.RE
904
905This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
906that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction given
907is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a previously
908written file. If the data direction includes any form of write, the verify will
909be of the newly written data.
910.RE
911.TP
912.BI verify_sort \fR=\fPbool
913If true, written verify blocks are sorted if \fBfio\fR deems it to be faster to
914read them back in a sorted manner. Default: true.
915.TP
916.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
917Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
918writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
919.TP
920.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
921Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
922\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
923.TP
924.BI verify_pattern \fR=\fPstr
925If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to filling
926with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
927pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the width of the pattern,
928fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time(it can be either a
929decimal or a hex number). The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity
930has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use with
931\fBverify\fP=meta.
932.TP
933.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
934If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
935false.
936.TP
937.BI verify_dump \fR=\fPbool
938If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block we
939read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of
940data corruption occurred. Off by default.
941.TP
942.BI verify_async \fR=\fPint
943Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting thread. This option
944takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for IO
945verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
946to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even sync IO
947engines can benefit from using an \fBiodepth\fR setting higher than 1, as it
948allows them to have IO in flight while verifies are running.
949.TP
950.BI verify_async_cpus \fR=\fPstr
951Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async IO verification threads.
952See \fBcpus_allowed\fP for the format used.
953.TP
954.BI verify_backlog \fR=\fPint
955Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
956once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
957everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
958instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with an
959IO block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would
960be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
961only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
962.TP
963.BI verify_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
964Control how many blocks fio will verify if verify_backlog is set. If not set,
965will default to the value of \fBverify_backlog\fR (meaning the entire queue is
966read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
967\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
968\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
969will be verified more than once.
970.TP
971.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
972Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
973\fBstonewall\fR implies \fBnew_group\fR.
974.TP
975.B new_group
976Start a new reporting group. If not given, all jobs in a file will be part
977of the same reporting group, unless separated by a stonewall.
978.TP
979.BI numjobs \fR=\fPint
980Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
981Default: 1.
982.TP
983.B group_reporting
984If set, display per-group reports instead of per-job when \fBnumjobs\fR is
985specified.
986.TP
987.B thread
988Use threads created with \fBpthread_create\fR\|(3) instead of processes created
989with \fBfork\fR\|(2).
990.TP
991.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
992Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
993.TP
994.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
995Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
996read.
997.TP
998.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
999Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. Specify a separate file
1000for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be
1001corrupt.
1002.TP
1003.BI read_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1004Replay the I/O patterns contained in the specified file generated by
1005\fBwrite_iolog\fR, or may be a \fBblktrace\fR binary file.
1006.TP
1007.BI replay_no_stall \fR=\fPint
1008While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1009attempts to respect timing information between I/Os. Enabling
1010\fBreplay_no_stall\fR causes I/Os to be replayed as fast as possible while
1011still respecting ordering.
1012.TP
1013.BI replay_redirect \fR=\fPstr
1014While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1015is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
1016from. Setting \fBreplay_redirect\fR causes all IOPS to be replayed onto the
1017single specified device regardless of the device it was recorded from.
1018.TP
1019.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
1020If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job file. Can be used to
1021store data of the bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime. The included
1022fio_generate_plots script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
1023graphs. See \fBwrite_log_log\fR for behaviour of given filename. For this
1024option, the postfix is _bw.log.
1025.TP
1026.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
1027Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
1028filename is given with this option, the default filename of "jobname_type.log"
1029is used. Even if the filename is given, fio will still append the type of log.
1030.TP
1031.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1032Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
1033option, the default filename of "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the
1034filename is given, fio will still append the type of log.
1035.TP
1036.BI log_avg_msec \fR=\fPint
1037By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
1038IO that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
1039very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
1040over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
1041Defaults to 0.
1042.TP
1043.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
1044Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
1045back the number of calls to gettimeofday, as that does impact performance at
1046really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1047calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and disable_bw as well.
1048.TP
1049.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
1050Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1051.TP
1052.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
1053Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1054.TP
1055.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
1056Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1057.TP
1058.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
1059Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
1060simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1061.TP
1062.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1063Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
1064.RS
1065Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1066.RE
1067.TP
1068.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1069Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
1070.RS
1071Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1072.RE
1073.TP
1074.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1075Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1076.TP
1077.BI cpuload \fR=\fPint
1078If the job is a CPU cycle-eater, attempt to use the specified percentage of
1079CPU cycles.
1080.TP
1081.BI cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1082If the job is a CPU cycle-eater, split the load into cycles of the
1083given time in milliseconds.
1084.TP
1085.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
1086Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
1087.TP
1088.BI clocksource \fR=\fPstr
1089Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
1090.RS
1091.TP
1092.B gettimeofday
1093gettimeofday(2)
1094.TP
1095.B clock_gettime
1096clock_gettime(2)
1097.TP
1098.B cpu
1099Internal CPU clock source
1100.TP
1101.RE
1102.P
1103\fBcpu\fR is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast
1104(and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource
1105if it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
1106unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
1107means supporting TSC Invariant.
1108.TP
1109.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
1110Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
1111disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
1112gettimeofday() call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
1113the gtod() calls we would have done if all time keeping was enabled.
1114.TP
1115.BI gtod_cpu \fR=\fPint
1116Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just getting
1117the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very intensive on
1118gettimeofday() calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
1119nothing but logging current time to a shared memory location. Then the other
1120threads/processes that run IO workloads need only copy that segment, instead of
1121entering the kernel with a gettimeofday() call. The CPU set aside for doing
1122these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1123from the CPU mask of other jobs.
1124.TP
1125.BI ignore_error \fR=\fPstr
1126Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can specify
1127error list for each error type.
1128.br
1129ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1130.br
1131errors for given error type is separated with ':'.
1132Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or an integer.
1133.br
1134Example: ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122 .
1135.br
1136This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
1137.TP
1138.BI error_dump \fR=\fPbool
1139If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If disabled
1140only fatal error will be dumped
1141.TP
1142.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1143Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
1144The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
1145your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with:
1146
1147# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
1148.TP
1149.BI cgroup_weight \fR=\fPint
1150Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
1151with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
1152.TP
1153.BI cgroup_nodelete \fR=\fPbool
1154Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job completion.
1155To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the job completion,
1156set cgroup_nodelete=1. This can be useful if one wants to inspect various
1157cgroup files after job completion. Default: false
1158.TP
1159.BI uid \fR=\fPint
1160Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value before
1161the thread/process does any work.
1162.TP
1163.BI gid \fR=\fPint
1164Set group ID, see \fBuid\fR.
1165.TP
1166.BI flow_id \fR=\fPint
1167The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global flow. See
1168\fBflow\fR.
1169.TP
1170.BI flow \fR=\fPint
1171Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then there is a
1172\fBflow counter\fR which is used to regulate the proportion of activity between
1173two or more jobs. fio attempts to keep this flow counter near zero. The
1174\fBflow\fR parameter stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the
1175flow counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if one job has
1176\fBflow=8\fR and another job has \fBflow=-1\fR, then there will be a roughly
11771:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1178.TP
1179.BI flow_watermark \fR=\fPint
1180The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow counter is allowed to
1181reach before the job must wait for a lower value of the counter.
1182.TP
1183.BI flow_sleep \fR=\fPint
1184The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow watermark has been
1185exceeded before retrying operations
1186.TP
1187.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1188Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1189.TP
1190.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
1191Overwrite the default list of percentiles for completion
1192latencies. Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100], and
1193the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the
1194numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
1195report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1196the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1197.SS "Ioengine Parameters List"
1198Some parameters are only valid when a specific ioengine is in use. These are
1199used identically to normal parameters, with the caveat that when used on the
1200command line, the must come after the ioengine that defines them is selected.
1201.TP
1202.BI (cpu)cpuload \fR=\fPint
1203Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1204.TP
1205.BI (cpu)cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1206Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
1207.TP
1208.BI (libaio)userspace_reap
1209Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1210the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1211With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1212from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1213enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1214iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1215.TP
1216.BI (net,netsplice)hostname \fR=\fPstr
1217The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1218If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1219used and must be omitted.
1220.TP
1221.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
1222The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
1223.TP
1224.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1225Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1226.TP
1227.BI (net,netsplice)protocol \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP proto" \fR=\fPstr
1228The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1229.RS
1230.RS
1231.TP
1232.B tcp
1233Transmission control protocol
1234.TP
1235.B udp
1236User datagram protocol
1237.TP
1238.B unix
1239UNIX domain socket
1240.RE
1241.P
1242When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1243as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1244reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1245used and the port is invalid.
1246.RE
1247.TP
1248.BI (net,netsplice)listen
1249For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1250connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1251hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1252.TP
1253.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
1254Normal a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
1255will just consume packages. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
1256payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the same payload back.
1257This allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission and completion
1258latencies then measure local time spent sending or receiving, and the
1259completion latency measures how long it took for the other end to receive and
1260send back.
1261.TP
1262.BI (e4defrag,donorname) \fR=\fPstr
1263File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files)
1264.TP
1265.BI (e4defrag,inplace) \fR=\fPint
1266Configure donor file block allocation strategy
1267.RS
1268.BI 0(default) :
1269Preallocate donor's file on init
1270.TP
1271.BI 1:
1272allocate space immidietly inside defragment event, and free right after event
1273.RE
1274.TP
1275.SH OUTPUT
1276While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
1277example:
1278.RS
1279.P
1280Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
1281.RE
1282.P
1283The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
1284threads. The possible values are:
1285.P
1286.PD 0
1287.RS
1288.TP
1289.B P
1290Setup but not started.
1291.TP
1292.B C
1293Thread created.
1294.TP
1295.B I
1296Initialized, waiting.
1297.TP
1298.B R
1299Running, doing sequential reads.
1300.TP
1301.B r
1302Running, doing random reads.
1303.TP
1304.B W
1305Running, doing sequential writes.
1306.TP
1307.B w
1308Running, doing random writes.
1309.TP
1310.B M
1311Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1312.TP
1313.B m
1314Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1315.TP
1316.B F
1317Running, currently waiting for \fBfsync\fR\|(2).
1318.TP
1319.B V
1320Running, verifying written data.
1321.TP
1322.B E
1323Exited, not reaped by main thread.
1324.TP
1325.B \-
1326Exited, thread reaped.
1327.RE
1328.PD
1329.P
1330The second set of brackets shows the estimated completion percentage of
1331the current group. The third set shows the read and write I/O rate,
1332respectively. Finally, the estimated run time of the job is displayed.
1333.P
1334When \fBfio\fR completes (or is interrupted by Ctrl-C), it will show data
1335for each thread, each group of threads, and each disk, in that order.
1336.P
1337Per-thread statistics first show the threads client number, group-id, and
1338error code. The remaining figures are as follows:
1339.RS
1340.TP
1341.B io
1342Number of megabytes of I/O performed.
1343.TP
1344.B bw
1345Average data rate (bandwidth).
1346.TP
1347.B runt
1348Threads run time.
1349.TP
1350.B slat
1351Submission latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This is
1352the time it took to submit the I/O.
1353.TP
1354.B clat
1355Completion latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This
1356is the time between submission and completion.
1357.TP
1358.B bw
1359Bandwidth minimum, maximum, percentage of aggregate bandwidth received, average
1360and standard deviation.
1361.TP
1362.B cpu
1363CPU usage statistics. Includes user and system time, number of context switches
1364this thread went through and number of major and minor page faults.
1365.TP
1366.B IO depths
1367Distribution of I/O depths. Each depth includes everything less than (or equal)
1368to it, but greater than the previous depth.
1369.TP
1370.B IO issued
1371Number of read/write requests issued, and number of short read/write requests.
1372.TP
1373.B IO latencies
1374Distribution of I/O completion latencies. The numbers follow the same pattern
1375as \fBIO depths\fR.
1376.RE
1377.P
1378The group statistics show:
1379.PD 0
1380.RS
1381.TP
1382.B io
1383Number of megabytes I/O performed.
1384.TP
1385.B aggrb
1386Aggregate bandwidth of threads in the group.
1387.TP
1388.B minb
1389Minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1390.TP
1391.B maxb
1392Maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1393.TP
1394.B mint
1395Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
1396.TP
1397.B maxt
1398Longest runtime of threads in the group.
1399.RE
1400.PD
1401.P
1402Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
1403.PD 0
1404.RS
1405.TP
1406.B ios
1407Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
1408.TP
1409.B merge
1410Number of merges in the I/O scheduler.
1411.TP
1412.B ticks
1413Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1414.TP
1415.B io_queue
1416Total time spent in the disk queue.
1417.TP
1418.B util
1419Disk utilization.
1420.RE
1421.PD
1422.P
1423It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1424running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the \fBUSR1\fR
1425signal.
1426.SH TERSE OUTPUT
1427If the \fB\-\-minimal\fR option is given, the results will be printed in a
1428semicolon-delimited format suitable for scripted use - a job description
1429(if provided) follows on a new line. Note that the first
1430number in the line is the version number. If the output has to be changed
1431for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
1432change. The fields are:
1433.P
1434.RS
1435.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
1436.P
1437Read status:
1438.RS
1439.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
1440.P
1441Submission latency:
1442.RS
1443.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1444.RE
1445Completion latency:
1446.RS
1447.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1448.RE
1449Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
1450.RS
1451.B Xth percentile=usec
1452.RE
1453Total latency:
1454.RS
1455.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1456.RE
1457Bandwidth:
1458.RS
1459.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
1460.RE
1461.RE
1462.P
1463Write status:
1464.RS
1465.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
1466.P
1467Submission latency:
1468.RS
1469.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1470.RE
1471Completion latency:
1472.RS
1473.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1474.RE
1475Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
1476.RS
1477.B Xth percentile=usec
1478.RE
1479Total latency:
1480.RS
1481.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1482.RE
1483Bandwidth:
1484.RS
1485.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
1486.RE
1487.RE
1488.P
1489CPU usage:
1490.RS
1491.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
1492.RE
1493.P
1494IO depth distribution:
1495.RS
1496.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
1497.RE
1498.P
1499IO latency distribution:
1500.RS
1501Microseconds:
1502.RS
1503.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
1504.RE
1505Milliseconds:
1506.RS
1507.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
1508.RE
1509.RE
1510.P
1511Disk utilization (1 for each disk used):
1512.RS
1513.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
1514.RE
1515.P
1516Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
1517.RS
1518.B total # errors, first error code
1519.RE
1520.P
1521.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
1522.RE
1523.SH CLIENT / SERVER
1524Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
1525where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
1526run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
1527have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
1528be running, while controlling it from another machine.
1529
1530To start the server, you would do:
1531
1532\fBfio \-\-server=args\fR
1533
1534on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
1535are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
1536for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain
1537socket. 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
1538listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
1539
15401) fio \-\-server
1541
1542 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
1543
15442) fio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444
1545
1546 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
1547
15483) fio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444
1549
1550 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
1551
15524) fio \-\-server=,4444
1553
1554 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
1555
15565) fio \-\-server=1.2.3.4
1557
1558 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
1559
15606) fio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
1561
1562 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
1563
1564When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
1565is run with:
1566
1567fio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>
1568
1569where \-\-local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
1570running, 'server' is the connect string, and \-\-remote-args and <job file(s)>
1571are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
1572does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
1573You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
1574
1575fio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>
1576.SH AUTHORS
1577
1578.B fio
1579was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
1580now Jens Axboe <jaxboe@fusionio.com>.
1581.br
1582This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
1583on documentation by Jens Axboe.
1584.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
1585Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
1586See \fBREADME\fR.
1587.SH "SEE ALSO"
1588For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
1589.br
1590Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.
1591