binject: don't use void* for pointer arithmetic (gcc)
[fio.git] / fio.1
... / ...
CommitLineData
1.TH fio 1 "May 2017" "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 aggregate 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 (default 3, or 2 or 4)
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
150Integer. A whole number value, which may contain an integer prefix
151and an integer suffix.
152
153[integer prefix]number[integer suffix]
154
155The optional integer prefix specifies the number's base. The default
156is decimal. 0x specifies hexadecimal.
157
158The optional integer suffix specifies the number's units, and includes
159an optional unit prefix and an optional unit. For quantities
160of data, the default unit is bytes. For quantities of time,
161the default unit is seconds.
162
163With \fBkb_base=1000\fR, fio follows international standards for unit prefixes.
164To specify power-of-10 decimal values defined in the International
165System of Units (SI):
166.nf
167ki means kilo (K) or 1000
168mi means mega (M) or 1000**2
169gi means giga (G) or 1000**3
170ti means tera (T) or 1000**4
171pi means peta (P) or 1000**5
172.fi
173
174To specify power-of-2 binary values defined in IEC 80000-13:
175.nf
176k means kibi (Ki) or 1024
177m means mebi (Mi) or 1024**2
178g means gibi (Gi) or 1024**3
179t means tebi (Ti) or 1024**4
180p means pebi (Pi) or 1024**5
181.fi
182
183With \fBkb_base=1024\fR (the default), the unit prefixes are opposite from
184those specified in the SI and IEC 80000-13 standards to provide
185compatibility with old scripts. For example, 4k means 4096.
186
187.nf
188Examples with \fBkb_base=1000\fR:
1894 KiB: 4096, 4096b, 4096B, 4k, 4kb, 4kB, 4K, 4KB
1901 MiB: 1048576, 1m, 1024k
1911 MB: 1000000, 1mi, 1000ki
1921 TiB: 1073741824, 1t, 1024m, 1048576k
1931 TB: 1000000000, 1ti, 1000mi, 1000000ki
194.fi
195
196.nf
197Examples with \fBkb_base=1024\fR (default):
1984 KiB: 4096, 4096b, 4096B, 4k, 4kb, 4kB, 4K, 4KB
1991 MiB: 1048576, 1m, 1024k
2001 MB: 1000000, 1mi, 1000ki
2011 TiB: 1073741824, 1t, 1024m, 1048576k
2021 TB: 1000000000, 1ti, 1000mi, 1000000ki
203.fi
204
205For quantities of data, an optional unit of 'B' may be included
206(e.g., 'kb' is the same as 'k').
207
208The integer suffix is not case sensitive (e.g., m/mi mean mebi/mega,
209not milli). 'b' and 'B' both mean byte, not bit.
210
211To specify times (units are not case sensitive):
212.nf
213D means days
214H means hours
215M mean minutes
216s or sec means seconds (default)
217ms or msec means milliseconds
218us or usec means microseconds
219.fi
220
221.TP
222.I bool
223Boolean: a true or false value. `0' denotes false, `1' denotes true.
224.TP
225.I irange
226Integer range: a range of integers specified in the format
227\fIlower\fR:\fIupper\fR or \fIlower\fR\-\fIupper\fR. \fIlower\fR and
228\fIupper\fR may contain a suffix as described above. If an option allows two
229sets of ranges, they are separated with a `,' or `/' character. For example:
230`8\-8k/8M\-4G'.
231.TP
232.I float_list
233List of floating numbers: A list of floating numbers, separated by
234a ':' character.
235.SS "Parameter List"
236.TP
237.BI name \fR=\fPstr
238May be used to override the job name. On the command line, this parameter
239has the special purpose of signalling the start of a new job.
240.TP
241.BI wait_for \fR=\fPstr
242Specifies the name of the already defined job to wait for. Single waitee name
243only may be specified. If set, the job won't be started until all workers of
244the waitee job are done. Wait_for operates on the job name basis, so there are
245a few limitations. First, the waitee must be defined prior to the waiter job
246(meaning no forward references). Second, if a job is being referenced as a
247waitee, it must have a unique name (no duplicate waitees).
248.TP
249.BI description \fR=\fPstr
250Human-readable description of the job. It is printed when the job is run, but
251otherwise has no special purpose.
252.TP
253.BI directory \fR=\fPstr
254Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files in a location other
255than `./'.
256You can specify a number of directories by separating the names with a ':'
257character. These directories will be assigned equally distributed to job clones
258creates with \fInumjobs\fR as long as they are using generated filenames.
259If specific \fIfilename(s)\fR are set fio will use the first listed directory,
260and thereby matching the \fIfilename\fR semantic which generates a file each
261clone if not specified, but let all clones use the same if set. See
262\fIfilename\fR for considerations regarding escaping certain characters on
263some platforms.
264.TP
265.BI filename \fR=\fPstr
266.B fio
267normally makes up a file name based on the job name, thread number, and file
268number. If you want to share files between threads in a job or several jobs,
269specify a \fIfilename\fR for each of them to override the default.
270If the I/O engine is file-based, you can specify
271a number of files by separating the names with a `:' character. `\-' is a
272reserved name, meaning stdin or stdout, depending on the read/write direction
273set. On Windows, disk devices are accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first
274device, \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and FreeBSD
275prevent write access to areas of the disk containing in-use data
276(e.g. filesystems). If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
277escape that with a '\\' character. For instance, if the filename is
278"/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\\:c".
279.TP
280.BI filename_format \fR=\fPstr
281If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have
282fio generate the exact names that you want. By default, fio will name a file
283based on the default file format specification of
284\fBjobname.jobnumber.filenumber\fP. With this option, that can be
285customized. Fio will recognize and replace the following keywords in this
286string:
287.RS
288.RS
289.TP
290.B $jobname
291The name of the worker thread or process.
292.TP
293.B $jobnum
294The incremental number of the worker thread or process.
295.TP
296.B $filenum
297The incremental number of the file for that worker thread or process.
298.RE
299.P
300To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can be set to
301have fio generate filenames that are shared between the two. For instance,
302if \fBtestfiles.$filenum\fR is specified, file number 4 for any job will
303be named \fBtestfiles.4\fR. The default of \fB$jobname.$jobnum.$filenum\fR
304will be used if no other format specifier is given.
305.RE
306.P
307.TP
308.BI unique_filename \fR=\fPbool
309To avoid collisions between networked clients, fio defaults to prefixing
310any generated filenames (with a directory specified) with the source of
311the client connecting. To disable this behavior, set this option to 0.
312.TP
313.BI lockfile \fR=\fPstr
314Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does IO to them. If a file or
315file descriptor is shared, fio can serialize IO to that file to make the end
316result consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that share files.
317The lock modes are:
318.RS
319.RS
320.TP
321.B none
322No locking. This is the default.
323.TP
324.B exclusive
325Only one thread or process may do IO at a time, excluding all others.
326.TP
327.B readwrite
328Read-write locking on the file. Many readers may access the file at the same
329time, but writes get exclusive access.
330.RE
331.RE
332.P
333.BI opendir \fR=\fPstr
334Recursively open any files below directory \fIstr\fR.
335.TP
336.BI readwrite \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP rw" \fR=\fPstr
337Type of I/O pattern. Accepted values are:
338.RS
339.RS
340.TP
341.B read
342Sequential reads.
343.TP
344.B write
345Sequential writes.
346.TP
347.B trim
348Sequential trims (Linux block devices only).
349.TP
350.B randread
351Random reads.
352.TP
353.B randwrite
354Random writes.
355.TP
356.B randtrim
357Random trims (Linux block devices only).
358.TP
359.B rw, readwrite
360Mixed sequential reads and writes.
361.TP
362.B randrw
363Mixed random reads and writes.
364.TP
365.B trimwrite
366Sequential trim and write mixed workload. Blocks will be trimmed first, then
367the same blocks will be written to.
368.RE
369.P
370Fio defaults to read if the option is not specified.
371For mixed I/O, the default split is 50/50. For certain types of io the result
372may still be skewed a bit, since the speed may be different. It is possible to
373specify a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is done by
374appending a `:\fI<nr>\fR to the end of the string given. For a random read, it
375would look like \fBrw=randread:8\fR for passing in an offset modifier with a
376value of 8. If the postfix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
377specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO. For instance,
378using \fBrw=write:4k\fR will skip 4k for every write. It turns sequential IO
379into sequential IO with holes. See the \fBrw_sequencer\fR option.
380.RE
381.TP
382.BI rw_sequencer \fR=\fPstr
383If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to the \fBrw=<str>\fR line,
384then this option controls how that number modifies the IO offset being
385generated. Accepted values are:
386.RS
387.RS
388.TP
389.B sequential
390Generate sequential offset
391.TP
392.B identical
393Generate the same offset
394.RE
395.P
396\fBsequential\fR is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
397generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append eg 8 to randread, you
398would get a new random offset for every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for
399only every 8 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use \fBrw=randread:8\fR to specify
400that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting \fBsequential\fR for that
401would not result in any differences. \fBidentical\fR behaves in a similar
402fashion, except it sends the same offset 8 number of times before generating a
403new offset.
404.RE
405.P
406.TP
407.BI kb_base \fR=\fPint
408The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024. Storage
409manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base ten unit instead, for obvious
410reasons. Allowed values are 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
411.TP
412.BI unified_rw_reporting \fR=\fPbool
413Fio normally reports statistics on a per data direction basis, meaning that
414reads, writes, and trims are accounted and reported separately. If this option is
415set fio sums the results and reports them as "mixed" instead.
416.TP
417.BI randrepeat \fR=\fPbool
418Seed the random number generator used for random I/O patterns in a predictable
419way so the pattern is repeatable across runs. Default: true.
420.TP
421.BI allrandrepeat \fR=\fPbool
422Seed all random number generators in a predictable way so results are
423repeatable across runs. Default: false.
424.TP
425.BI randseed \fR=\fPint
426Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to be able to
427control what sequence of output is being generated. If not set, the random
428sequence depends on the \fBrandrepeat\fR setting.
429.TP
430.BI fallocate \fR=\fPstr
431Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files. Accepted values
432are:
433.RS
434.RS
435.TP
436.B none
437Do not pre-allocate space.
438.TP
439.B posix
440Pre-allocate via \fBposix_fallocate\fR\|(3).
441.TP
442.B keep
443Pre-allocate via \fBfallocate\fR\|(2) with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
444.TP
445.B 0
446Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
447.TP
448.B 1
449Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'.
450.RE
451.P
452May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
453available on Linux. If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to 'none'
454because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
455.RE
456.TP
457.BI fadvise_hint \fR=\fPstr
458Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what I/O patterns
459are likely to be issued. Accepted values are:
460.RS
461.RS
462.TP
463.B 0
464Backwards compatible hint for "no hint".
465.TP
466.B 1
467Backwards compatible hint for "advise with fio workload type". This
468uses \fBFADV_RANDOM\fR for a random workload, and \fBFADV_SEQUENTIAL\fR
469for a sequential workload.
470.TP
471.B sequential
472Advise using \fBFADV_SEQUENTIAL\fR
473.TP
474.B random
475Advise using \fBFADV_RANDOM\fR
476.RE
477.RE
478.TP
479.BI fadvise_stream \fR=\fPint
480Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what stream ID the
481writes issued belong to. Only supported on Linux. Note, this option
482may change going forward.
483.TP
484.BI size \fR=\fPint
485Total size of I/O for this job. \fBfio\fR will run until this many bytes have
486been transferred, unless limited by other options (\fBruntime\fR, for instance,
487or increased/descreased by \fBio_size\fR). Unless \fBnrfiles\fR and
488\fBfilesize\fR options are given, this amount will be divided between the
489available files for the job. If not set, fio will use the full size of the
490given files or devices. If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is
491also possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20% is
492given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given files or devices.
493.TP
494.BI io_size \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fB io_limit \fR=\fPint
495Normally fio operates within the region set by \fBsize\fR, which means that
496the \fBsize\fR option sets both the region and size of IO to be performed.
497Sometimes that is not what you want. With this option, it is possible to
498define just the amount of IO that fio should do. For instance, if \fBsize\fR
499is set to 20G and \fBio_limit\fR is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within
500the first 20G but exit when 5G have been done. The opposite is also
501possible - if \fBsize\fR is set to 20G, and \fBio_size\fR is set to 40G, then
502fio will do 40G of IO within the 0..20G region.
503.TP
504.BI fill_device \fR=\fPbool "\fR,\fB fill_fs" \fR=\fPbool
505Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no space left on
506device) as the terminating condition. Only makes sense with sequential write.
507For a read workload, the mount point will be filled first then IO started on
508the result. This option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
509since the size of that is already known by the file system. Additionally,
510writing beyond end-of-device will not return ENOSPC there.
511.TP
512.BI filesize \fR=\fPirange
513Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case \fBfio\fR will select sizes
514for files at random within the given range, limited to \fBsize\fR in total (if
515that is given). If \fBfilesize\fR is not specified, each created file is the
516same size.
517.TP
518.BI file_append \fR=\fPbool
519Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will operate within the
520size of a file. If this option is set, then fio will append to the file
521instead. This has identical behavior to setting \fRoffset\fP to the size
522of a file. This option is ignored on non-regular files.
523.TP
524.BI blocksize \fR=\fPint[,int][,int] "\fR,\fB bs" \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
525The block size in bytes for I/O units. Default: 4096.
526A single value applies to reads, writes, and trims.
527Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and trims.
528Empty values separated by commas use the default value. A value not
529terminated in a comma applies to subsequent types.
530.nf
531Examples:
532bs=256k means 256k for reads, writes and trims
533bs=8k,32k means 8k for reads, 32k for writes and trims
534bs=8k,32k, means 8k for reads, 32k for writes, and default for trims
535bs=,8k means default for reads, 8k for writes and trims
536bs=,8k, means default for reads, 8k for writes, and default for trims
537.fi
538.TP
539.BI blocksize_range \fR=\fPirange[,irange][,irange] "\fR,\fB bsrange" \fR=\fPirange[,irange][,irange]
540A range of block sizes in bytes for I/O units.
541The issued I/O unit will always be a multiple of the minimum size, unless
542\fBblocksize_unaligned\fR is set.
543Comma-separated ranges may be specified for reads, writes, and trims
544as described in \fBblocksize\fR.
545.nf
546Example: bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k.
547.fi
548.TP
549.BI bssplit \fR=\fPstr[,str][,str]
550This option allows even finer grained control of the block sizes issued,
551not just even splits between them. With this option, you can weight various
552block sizes for exact control of the issued IO for a job that has mixed
553block sizes. The format of the option is bssplit=blocksize/percentage,
554optionally adding as many definitions as needed separated by a colon.
555Example: bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40 would issue 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k
556blocks and 40% 32k blocks. \fBbssplit\fR also supports giving separate
557splits to reads, writes, and trims.
558Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and trims
559as described in \fBblocksize\fR.
560.TP
561.B blocksize_unaligned\fR,\fB bs_unaligned
562If set, fio will issue I/O units with any size within \fBblocksize_range\fR,
563not just multiples of the minimum size. This typically won't
564work with direct I/O, as that normally requires sector alignment.
565.TP
566.BI bs_is_seq_rand \fR=\fPbool
567If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write blocksize settings as
568sequential,random blocksize settings instead. Any random read or write will
569use the WRITE blocksize settings, and any sequential read or write will use
570the READ blocksize settings.
571.TP
572.BI blockalign \fR=\fPint[,int][,int] "\fR,\fB ba" \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
573Boundary to which fio will align random I/O units. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
574Minimum alignment is typically 512b for using direct IO, though it usually
575depends on the hardware block size. This option is mutually exclusive with
576using a random map for files, so it will turn off that option.
577Comma-separated values may be specified for reads, writes, and trims
578as described in \fBblocksize\fR.
579.TP
580.B zero_buffers
581Initialize buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
582.TP
583.B refill_buffers
584If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers on every submit. The
585default is to only fill it at init time and reuse that data. Only makes sense
586if zero_buffers isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
587refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
588.TP
589.BI scramble_buffers \fR=\fPbool
590If \fBrefill_buffers\fR is too costly and the target is using data
591deduplication, then setting this option will slightly modify the IO buffer
592contents to defeat normal de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat
593more clever block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe
594of blocks. Default: true.
595.TP
596.BI buffer_compress_percentage \fR=\fPint
597If this is set, then fio will attempt to provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs)
598that compress to the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
599random data and a fixed pattern. The fixed pattern is either zeroes, or the
600pattern specified by \fBbuffer_pattern\fR. If the pattern option is used, it
601might skew the compression ratio slightly. Note that this is per block size
602unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches this setting. Note
603that this is per block size unit, for file/disk wide compression level that
604matches this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
605.TP
606.BI buffer_compress_chunk \fR=\fPint
607See \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR. This setting allows fio to manage how
608big the ranges of random data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
609provide \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR of blocksize random data, followed by
610the remaining zeroed. With this set to some chunk size smaller than the block
611size, fio can alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO buffer.
612.TP
613.BI buffer_pattern \fR=\fPstr
614If set, fio will fill the I/O buffers with this pattern or with the contents
615of a file. If not set, the contents of I/O buffers are defined by the other
616options related to buffer contents. The setting can be any pattern of bytes,
617and can be prefixed with 0x for hex values. It may also be a string, where
618the string must then be wrapped with ``""``. Or it may also be a filename,
619where the filename must be wrapped with ``''`` in which case the file is
620opened and read. Note that not all the file contents will be read if that
621would cause the buffers to overflow. So, for example:
622.RS
623.RS
624\fBbuffer_pattern\fR='filename'
625.RS
626or
627.RE
628\fBbuffer_pattern\fR="abcd"
629.RS
630or
631.RE
632\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=-12
633.RS
634or
635.RE
636\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface
637.RE
638.LP
639Also you can combine everything together in any order:
640.LP
641.RS
642\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface"abcd"-12'filename'
643.RE
644.RE
645.TP
646.BI dedupe_percentage \fR=\fPint
647If set, fio will generate this percentage of identical buffers when writing.
648These buffers will be naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend
649on what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's possible to have
650the individual buffers either fully compressible, or not at all. This option
651only controls the distribution of unique buffers.
652.TP
653.BI nrfiles \fR=\fPint
654Number of files to use for this job. Default: 1.
655.TP
656.BI openfiles \fR=\fPint
657Number of files to keep open at the same time. Default: \fBnrfiles\fR.
658.TP
659.BI file_service_type \fR=\fPstr
660Defines how files to service are selected. The following types are defined:
661.RS
662.RS
663.TP
664.B random
665Choose a file at random.
666.TP
667.B roundrobin
668Round robin over opened files (default).
669.TP
670.B sequential
671Do each file in the set sequentially.
672.TP
673.B zipf
674Use a zipfian distribution to decide what file to access.
675.TP
676.B pareto
677Use a pareto distribution to decide what file to access.
678.TP
679.B gauss
680Use a gaussian (normal) distribution to decide what file to access.
681.RE
682.P
683For \fBrandom\fR, \fBroundrobin\fR, and \fBsequential\fR, a postfix can be
684appended to tell fio how many I/Os to issue before switching to a new file.
685For example, specifying \fBfile_service_type=random:8\fR would cause fio to
686issue \fI8\fR I/Os before selecting a new file at random. For the non-uniform
687distributions, a floating point postfix can be given to influence how the
688distribution is skewed. See \fBrandom_distribution\fR for a description of how
689that would work.
690.RE
691.TP
692.BI ioengine \fR=\fPstr
693Defines how the job issues I/O. The following types are defined:
694.RS
695.RS
696.TP
697.B sync
698Basic \fBread\fR\|(2) or \fBwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fBfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
699position the I/O location.
700.TP
701.B psync
702Basic \fBpread\fR\|(2) or \fBpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
703Default on all supported operating systems except for Windows.
704.TP
705.B vsync
706Basic \fBreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
707coalescing adjacent IOs into a single submission.
708.TP
709.B pvsync
710Basic \fBpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
711.TP
712.B pvsync2
713Basic \fBpreadv2\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev2\fR\|(2) I/O.
714.TP
715.B libaio
716Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
717.TP
718.B posixaio
719POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fBaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fBaio_write\fR\|(3).
720.TP
721.B solarisaio
722Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
723.TP
724.B windowsaio
725Windows native asynchronous I/O. Default on Windows.
726.TP
727.B mmap
728File is memory mapped with \fBmmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
729\fBmemcpy\fR\|(3).
730.TP
731.B splice
732\fBsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
733transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
734.TP
735.B sg
736SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May be either synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
737the target is an sg character device, we use \fBread\fR\|(2) and
738\fBwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
739.TP
740.B null
741Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. Mainly used to exercise \fBfio\fR
742itself and for debugging and testing purposes.
743.TP
744.B net
745Transfer over the network. The protocol to be used can be defined with the
746\fBprotocol\fR parameter. Depending on the protocol, \fBfilename\fR,
747\fBhostname\fR, \fBport\fR, or \fBlisten\fR must be specified.
748This ioengine defines engine specific options.
749.TP
750.B netsplice
751Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fBsplice\fR\|(2) and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
752and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
753.TP
754.B cpuio
755Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to \fBcpuload\fR and
756\fBcpuchunks\fR parameters. A job never finishes unless there is at least one
757non-cpuio job.
758.TP
759.B guasi
760The GUASI I/O engine is the Generic Userspace Asynchronous Syscall Interface
761approach to asynchronous I/O.
762.br
763See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
764.TP
765.B rdma
766The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ)
767and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
768.TP
769.B external
770Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
771`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
772.TP
773.B falloc
774 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate call to simulate data
775transfer as fio ioengine
776.br
777 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
778.br
779 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
780.br
781 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE)
782.TP
783.B e4defrag
784IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate defragment activity
785request to DDIR_WRITE event
786.TP
787.B rbd
788IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd
789without the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This ioengine defines engine specific
790options.
791.TP
792.B gfapi
793Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
794having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
795options.
796.TP
797.B gfapi_async
798Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
799having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
800options.
801.TP
802.B libhdfs
803Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS). The \fBfilename\fR option is used to
804specify host,port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This engine interprets
805offsets a little differently. In HDFS, files once created cannot be modified.
806So random writes are not possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine expects
807bunch of small files to be created over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
808file out of those files based on the offset generated by fio backend. (see the
809example job file to create such files, use rw=write option). Please note, you
810might want to set necessary environment variables to work with hdfs/libhdfs
811properly.
812.TP
813.B mtd
814Read, write and erase an MTD character device (e.g., /dev/mtd0). Discards are
815treated as erases. Depending on the underlying device type, the I/O may have
816to go in a certain pattern, e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially to erase blocks
817and discarding before overwriting. The trimwrite mode works well for this
818constraint.
819.TP
820.B pmemblk
821Read and write using filesystem DAX to a file on a filesystem mounted with
822DAX on a persistent memory device through the NVML libpmemblk library.
823.TP
824.B dev-dax
825Read and write using device DAX to a persistent memory device
826(e.g., /dev/dax0.0) through the NVML libpmem library.
827.RE
828.P
829.RE
830.TP
831.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
832Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that increasing
833iodepth beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except for small
834degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
835restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved. This may happen on
836Linux when using libaio and not setting \fBdirect\fR=1, since buffered IO is
837not async on that OS. Keep an eye on the IO depth distribution in the
838fio output to verify that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
839.TP
840.BI iodepth_batch \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_submit" \fR=\fPint
841This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once. It defaults to 1
842which means that we submit each IO as soon as it is available, but can
843be raised to submit bigger batches of IO at the time. If it is set to 0
844the \fBiodepth\fR value will be used.
845.TP
846.BI iodepth_batch_complete_min \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_complete" \fR=\fPint
847This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1 which
848 means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from the
849kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
850\fBiodepth_low\fR. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always check for
851completed events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce IO latency, at the
852cost of more retrieval system calls.
853.TP
854.BI iodepth_batch_complete_max \fR=\fPint
855This defines maximum pieces of IO to
856retrieve at once. This variable should be used along with
857\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=int variable, specifying the range
858of min and max amount of IO which should be retrieved. By default
859it is equal to \fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR value.
860
861Example #1:
862.RS
863.RS
864\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=1
865.LP
866\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
867.RE
868
869which means that we will retrieve at least 1 IO and up to the
870whole submitted queue depth. If none of IO has been completed
871yet, we will wait.
872
873Example #2:
874.RS
875\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=0
876.LP
877\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
878.RE
879
880which means that we can retrieve up to the whole submitted
881queue depth, but if none of IO has been completed yet, we will
882NOT wait and immediately exit the system call. In this example
883we simply do polling.
884.RE
885.TP
886.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
887Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
888\fBiodepth\fR.
889.TP
890.BI io_submit_mode \fR=\fPstr
891This option controls how fio submits the IO to the IO engine. The default is
892\fBinline\fR, which means that the fio job threads submit and reap IO directly.
893If set to \fBoffload\fR, the job threads will offload IO submission to a
894dedicated pool of IO threads. This requires some coordination and thus has a
895bit of extra overhead, especially for lower queue depth IO where it can
896increase latencies. The benefit is that fio can manage submission rates
897independently of the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
898reporting if IO gets back up on the device side (the coordinated omission
899problem).
900.TP
901.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
902If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
903.TP
904.BI atomic \fR=\fPbool
905If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic writes are guaranteed
906to be stable once acknowledged by the operating system. Only Linux supports
907O_ATOMIC right now.
908.TP
909.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
910If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
911Default: true.
912.TP
913.BI offset \fR=\fPint
914Start I/O at the provided offset in the file, given as either a fixed size or a
915percentage. If a percentage is given, the next \fBblockalign\fR-ed offset will
916be used. Data before the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
917caps the file size at (real_size - offset). Can be combined with \fBsize\fR to
918constrain the start and end range of the I/O workload.
919.TP
920.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
921If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
922offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread number is a
923counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for each sub-job (i.e. when
924numjobs option is specified). This option is useful if there are several jobs
925which are intended to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
926even spacing between the starting points.
927.TP
928.BI number_ios \fR=\fPint
929Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size of the region
930set by \fBsize\fR, or if it exhaust the allocated time (or hits an error
931condition). With this setting, the range/size can be set independently of
932the number of IOs to perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit
933normally and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
934of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this condition is met
935before other end-of-job criteria.
936.TP
937.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
938How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
9390, don't sync. Default: 0.
940.TP
941.BI fdatasync \fR=\fPint
942Like \fBfsync\fR, but uses \fBfdatasync\fR\|(2) instead to only sync the
943data parts of the file. Default: 0.
944.TP
945.BI write_barrier \fR=\fPint
946Make every Nth write a barrier write.
947.TP
948.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
949Use \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) for every \fRval\fP number of write operations. Fio will
950track range of writes that have happened since the last \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) call.
951\fRstr\fP can currently be one or more of:
952.RS
953.TP
954.B wait_before
955SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
956.TP
957.B write
958SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
959.TP
960.B wait_after
961SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
962.TP
963.RE
964.P
965So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would use
966\fBSYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE\fP for every 8 writes.
967Also see the \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
968.TP
969.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
970If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
971.TP
972.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
973Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
974.TP
975.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
976If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
977it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
978.TP
979.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
980Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
981.TP
982.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
983Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
984\fBrwmixwrite\fR are given and do not sum to 100%, the latter of the two
985overrides the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is
986asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then
987the distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
988.TP
989.BI random_distribution \fR=\fPstr:float
990By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
991to perform random IO. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
992specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
993Fio includes the following distribution models:
994.RS
995.TP
996.B random
997Uniform random distribution
998.TP
999.B zipf
1000Zipf distribution
1001.TP
1002.B pareto
1003Pareto distribution
1004.TP
1005.B gauss
1006Normal (gaussian) distribution
1007.TP
1008.B zoned
1009Zoned random distribution
1010.TP
1011.RE
1012When using a \fBzipf\fR or \fBpareto\fR distribution, an input value is also
1013needed to define the access pattern. For \fBzipf\fR, this is the zipf theta.
1014For \fBpareto\fR, it's the pareto power. Fio includes a test program, genzipf,
1015that can be used visualize what the given input values will yield in terms of
1016hit rates. If you wanted to use \fBzipf\fR with a theta of 1.2, you would use
1017random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
1018fio will disable use of the random map. For the \fBgauss\fR distribution, a
1019normal deviation is supplied as a value between 0 and 100.
1020.P
1021.RS
1022For a \fBzoned\fR distribution, fio supports specifying percentages of IO
1023access that should fall within what range of the file or device. For example,
1024given a criteria of:
1025.P
1026.RS
102760% of accesses should be to the first 10%
1028.RE
1029.RS
103030% of accesses should be to the next 20%
1031.RE
1032.RS
10338% of accesses should be to to the next 30%
1034.RE
1035.RS
10362% of accesses should be to the next 40%
1037.RE
1038.P
1039we can define that through zoning of the random accesses. For the above
1040example, the user would do:
1041.P
1042.RS
1043.B random_distribution=zoned:60/10:30/20:8/30:2/40
1044.RE
1045.P
1046similarly to how \fBbssplit\fR works for setting ranges and percentages of block
1047sizes. Like \fBbssplit\fR, it's possible to specify separate zones for reads,
1048writes, and trims. If just one set is given, it'll apply to all of them.
1049.RE
1050.TP
1051.BI percentage_random \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1052For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This defaults
1053to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set from
1054anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
1055sequential. It is possible to set different values for reads, writes, and
1056trim. To do so, simply use a comma separated list. See \fBblocksize\fR.
1057.TP
1058.B norandommap
1059Normally \fBfio\fR will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
1060this parameter is given, a new offset will be chosen without looking at past
1061I/O history. This parameter is mutually exclusive with \fBverify\fR.
1062.TP
1063.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
1064See \fBnorandommap\fR. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and it
1065fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without a
1066random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps, this
1067option is disabled by default.
1068.TP
1069.BI random_generator \fR=\fPstr
1070Fio supports the following engines for generating IO offsets for random IO:
1071.RS
1072.TP
1073.B tausworthe
1074Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
1075.TP
1076.B lfsr
1077Linear feedback shift register generator
1078.TP
1079.B tausworthe64
1080Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator
1081.TP
1082.RE
1083.P
1084Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking on the
1085side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written once. LFSR
1086guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's also less
1087computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator, however, though
1088for IO purposes it's typically good enough. LFSR only works with single block
1089sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block sizes. If used with such a
1090workload, fio may read or write some blocks multiple times. The default
1091value is tausworthe, unless the required space exceeds 2^32 blocks. If it does,
1092then tausworthe64 is selected automatically.
1093.TP
1094.BI nice \fR=\fPint
1095Run job with given nice value. See \fBnice\fR\|(2).
1096.TP
1097.BI prio \fR=\fPint
1098Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
1099\fBionice\fR\|(1).
1100.TP
1101.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
1102Set I/O priority class. See \fBionice\fR\|(1).
1103.TP
1104.BI thinktime \fR=\fPint
1105Stall job for given number of microseconds between issuing I/Os.
1106.TP
1107.BI thinktime_spin \fR=\fPint
1108Pretend to spend CPU time for given number of microseconds, sleeping the rest
1109of the time specified by \fBthinktime\fR. Only valid if \fBthinktime\fR is set.
1110.TP
1111.BI thinktime_blocks \fR=\fPint
1112Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks to issue, before
1113waiting \fBthinktime\fR microseconds. If not set, defaults to 1 which will
1114make fio wait \fBthinktime\fR microseconds after every block. This
1115effectively makes any queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO
1116will be queued before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In other
1117words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
1118Default: 1.
1119.TP
1120.BI rate \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1121Cap bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal postfix
1122rules apply. You can use \fBrate\fR=500k to limit reads and writes to 500k each,
1123or you can specify reads, write, and trim limits separately.
1124Using \fBrate\fR=1m,500k would
1125limit reads to 1MiB/sec and writes to 500KiB/sec. Capping only reads or writes
1126can be done with \fBrate\fR=,500k or \fBrate\fR=500k,. The former will only
1127limit writes (to 500KiB/sec), the latter will only limit reads.
1128.TP
1129.BI rate_min \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1130Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
1131Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
1132as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write vs trim separation.
1133.TP
1134.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1135Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as rate, just
1136specified independently of bandwidth. The same format as \fBrate\fR is used for
1137read vs write vs trim separation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
1138size is used as the metric.
1139.TP
1140.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1141If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
1142is used for read vs write vs trim separation.
1143.TP
1144.BI rate_process \fR=\fPstr
1145This option controls how fio manages rated IO submissions. The default is
1146\fBlinear\fR, which submits IO in a linear fashion with fixed delays between
1147IOs that gets adjusted based on IO completion rates. If this is set to
1148\fBpoisson\fR, fio will submit IO based on a more real world random request
1149flow, known as the Poisson process
1150(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process). The lambda will be
115110^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
1152.TP
1153.BI rate_cycle \fR=\fPint
1154Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBrate_min\fR over this number of
1155milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
1156.TP
1157.BI latency_target \fR=\fPint
1158If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance point that the given
1159workload will run at while maintaining a latency below this target. The
1160values is given in microseconds. See \fBlatency_window\fR and
1161\fBlatency_percentile\fR.
1162.TP
1163.BI latency_window \fR=\fPint
1164Used with \fBlatency_target\fR to specify the sample window that the job
1165is run at varying queue depths to test the performance. The value is given
1166in microseconds.
1167.TP
1168.BI latency_percentile \fR=\fPfloat
1169The percentage of IOs that must fall within the criteria specified by
1170\fBlatency_target\fR and \fBlatency_window\fR. If not set, this defaults
1171to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal or below to the value set
1172by \fBlatency_target\fR.
1173.TP
1174.BI max_latency \fR=\fPint
1175If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum latency. It will exit
1176with an ETIME error.
1177.TP
1178.BI cpumask \fR=\fPint
1179Set CPU affinity for this job. \fIint\fR is a bitmask of allowed CPUs the job
1180may run on. See \fBsched_setaffinity\fR\|(2).
1181.TP
1182.BI cpus_allowed \fR=\fPstr
1183Same as \fBcpumask\fR, but allows a comma-delimited list of CPU numbers.
1184.TP
1185.BI cpus_allowed_policy \fR=\fPstr
1186Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs specified by \fBcpus_allowed\fR
1187or \fBcpumask\fR. Two policies are supported:
1188.RS
1189.RS
1190.TP
1191.B shared
1192All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1193.TP
1194.B split
1195Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1196.RE
1197.P
1198\fBshared\fR is the default behaviour, if the option isn't specified. If
1199\fBsplit\fR is specified, then fio will assign one cpu per job. If not enough
1200CPUs are given for the jobs listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in
1201the set.
1202.RE
1203.P
1204.TP
1205.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
1206Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
1207comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1208.TP
1209.BI numa_mem_policy \fR=\fPstr
1210Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of
1211the arguments:
1212.RS
1213.TP
1214.B <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1215.TP
1216.B mode
1217is one of the following memory policy:
1218.TP
1219.B default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1220.TP
1221.RE
1222For \fBdefault\fR and \fBlocal\fR memory policy, no \fBnodelist\fR is
1223needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
1224allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
1225comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1226.TP
1227.BI startdelay \fR=\fPirange
1228Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds. Supports all time
1229suffixes to allow specification of hours, minutes, seconds and
1230milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is omitted.
1231Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
1232range.
1233.TP
1234.BI runtime \fR=\fPint
1235Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.
1236.TP
1237.B time_based
1238If given, run for the specified \fBruntime\fR duration even if the files are
1239completely read or written. The same workload will be repeated as many times
1240as \fBruntime\fR allows.
1241.TP
1242.BI ramp_time \fR=\fPint
1243If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
1244logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle before
1245logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
1246that the \fBramp_time\fR is considered lead in time for a job, thus it will
1247increase the total runtime if a special timeout or runtime is specified.
1248.TP
1249.BI steadystate \fR=\fPstr:float "\fR,\fP ss" \fR=\fPstr:float
1250Define the criterion and limit for assessing steady state performance. The
1251first parameter designates the criterion whereas the second parameter sets the
1252threshold. When the criterion falls below the threshold for the specified
1253duration, the job will stop. For example, iops_slope:0.1% will direct fio
1254to terminate the job when the least squares regression slope falls below 0.1%
1255of the mean IOPS. If group_reporting is enabled this will apply to all jobs in
1256the group. All assessments are carried out using only data from the rolling
1257collection window. Threshold limits can be expressed as a fixed value or as a
1258percentage of the mean in the collection window. Below are the available steady
1259state assessment criteria.
1260.RS
1261.RS
1262.TP
1263.B iops
1264Collect IOPS data. Stop the job if all individual IOPS measurements are within
1265the specified limit of the mean IOPS (e.g., iops:2 means that all individual
1266IOPS values must be within 2 of the mean, whereas iops:0.2% means that all
1267individual IOPS values must be within 0.2% of the mean IOPS to terminate the
1268job).
1269.TP
1270.B iops_slope
1271Collect IOPS data and calculate the least squares regression slope. Stop the
1272job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
1273.TP
1274.B bw
1275Collect bandwidth data. Stop the job if all individual bandwidth measurements
1276are within the specified limit of the mean bandwidth.
1277.TP
1278.B bw_slope
1279Collect bandwidth data and calculate the least squares regression slope. Stop
1280the job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
1281.RE
1282.RE
1283.TP
1284.BI steadystate_duration \fR=\fPtime "\fR,\fP ss_dur" \fR=\fPtime
1285A rolling window of this duration will be used to judge whether steady state
1286has been reached. Data will be collected once per second. The default is 0
1287which disables steady state detection.
1288.TP
1289.BI steadystate_ramp_time \fR=\fPtime "\fR,\fP ss_ramp" \fR=\fPtime
1290Allow the job to run for the specified duration before beginning data collection
1291for checking the steady state job termination criterion. The default is 0.
1292.TP
1293.BI invalidate \fR=\fPbool
1294Invalidate buffer-cache for the file prior to starting I/O. Default: true.
1295.TP
1296.BI sync \fR=\fPbool
1297Use synchronous I/O for buffered writes. For the majority of I/O engines,
1298this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
1299.TP
1300.BI iomem \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP mem" \fR=\fPstr
1301Allocation method for I/O unit buffer. Allowed values are:
1302.RS
1303.RS
1304.TP
1305.B malloc
1306Allocate memory with \fBmalloc\fR\|(3). Default memory type.
1307.TP
1308.B shm
1309Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fBshmget\fR\|(2).
1310.TP
1311.B shmhuge
1312Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
1313.TP
1314.B mmap
1315Use \fBmmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
1316is given after the option in the format `:\fIfile\fR'.
1317.TP
1318.B mmaphuge
1319Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use huge files as backing.
1320.TP
1321.B mmapshared
1322Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
1323.TP
1324.B cudamalloc
1325Use GPU memory as the buffers for GPUDirect RDMA benchmark. The ioengine must be \fBrdma\fR.
1326.RE
1327.P
1328The amount of memory allocated is the maximum allowed \fBblocksize\fR for the
1329job multiplied by \fBiodepth\fR. For \fBshmhuge\fR or \fBmmaphuge\fR to work,
1330the system must have free huge pages allocated. \fBmmaphuge\fR also needs to
1331have hugetlbfs mounted, and \fIfile\fR must point there. At least on Linux,
1332huge pages must be manually allocated. See \fB/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugehages\fR
1333and the documentation for that. Normally you just need to echo an appropriate
1334number, eg echoing 8 will ensure that the OS has 8 huge pages ready for
1335use.
1336.RE
1337.TP
1338.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
1339This indicates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
1340given alignment is applied to the first IO unit buffer, if using \fBiodepth\fR
1341the alignment of the following buffers are given by the \fBbs\fR used. In
1342other words, if using a \fBbs\fR that is a multiple of the page sized in the
1343system, all buffers will be aligned to this value. If using a \fBbs\fR that
1344is not page aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1345sum of the \fBiomem_align\fR and \fBbs\fR used.
1346.TP
1347.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
1348Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
1349Should be a multiple of 1MiB. Default: 4MiB.
1350.TP
1351.B exitall
1352Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
1353.TP
1354.B exitall_on_error \fR=\fPbool
1355Terminate all jobs if one job finishes in error. Default: wait for each job
1356to finish.
1357.TP
1358.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
1359Average bandwidth calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1360also does bandwidth logging through \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, then the minimum of
1361this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1362.TP
1363.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
1364Average IOPS calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1365also does IOPS logging through \fBwrite_iops_log\fR, then the minimum of
1366this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1367.TP
1368.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
1369If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
1370.TP
1371.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
1372\fBfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
1373.TP
1374.BI create_on_open \fR=\fPbool
1375If true, the files are not created until they are opened for IO by the job.
1376.TP
1377.BI create_only \fR=\fPbool
1378If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
1379laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done. The actual job contents
1380are not executed.
1381.TP
1382.BI allow_file_create \fR=\fPbool
1383If true, fio is permitted to create files as part of its workload. This is
1384the default behavior. If this option is false, then fio will error out if the
1385files it needs to use don't already exist. Default: true.
1386.TP
1387.BI allow_mounted_write \fR=\fPbool
1388If this isn't set, fio will abort jobs that are destructive (eg that write)
1389to what appears to be a mounted device or partition. This should help catch
1390creating inadvertently destructive tests, not realizing that the test will
1391destroy data on the mounted file system. Default: false.
1392.TP
1393.BI pre_read \fR=\fPbool
1394If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the given
1395IO operation. This will also clear the \fR \fBinvalidate\fR flag, since it is
1396pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO
1397engines that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1398multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice IO.
1399.TP
1400.BI unlink \fR=\fPbool
1401Unlink job files when done. Default: false.
1402.TP
1403.BI unlink_each_loop \fR=\fPbool
1404Unlink job files after each iteration or loop. Default: false.
1405.TP
1406.BI loops \fR=\fPint
1407Specifies the number of iterations (runs of the same workload) of this job.
1408Default: 1.
1409.TP
1410.BI verify_only \fR=\fPbool
1411Do not perform the specified workload, only verify data still matches previous
1412invocation of this workload. This option allows one to check data multiple
1413times at a later date without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1414workloads that write data, and does not support workloads with the
1415\fBtime_based\fR option set.
1416.TP
1417.BI do_verify \fR=\fPbool
1418Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if \fBverify\fR is set.
1419Default: true.
1420.TP
1421.BI verify \fR=\fPstr
1422Method of verifying file contents after each iteration of the job. Each
1423verification method also implies verification of special header, which is
1424written to the beginning of each block. This header also includes meta
1425information, like offset of the block, block number, timestamp when block
1426was written, etc. \fBverify\fR=str can be combined with \fBverify_pattern\fR=str
1427option. The allowed values are:
1428.RS
1429.RS
1430.TP
1431.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1 sha3-224 sha3-256 sha3-384 sha3-512 xxhash
1432Store appropriate checksum in the header of each block. crc32c-intel is
1433hardware accelerated SSE4.2 driven, falls back to regular crc32c if
1434not supported by the system.
1435.TP
1436.B meta
1437This option is deprecated, since now meta information is included in generic
1438verification header and meta verification happens by default. For detailed
1439information see the description of the \fBverify\fR=str setting. This option
1440is kept because of compatibility's sake with old configurations. Do not use it.
1441.TP
1442.B pattern
1443Verify a strict pattern. Normally fio includes a header with some basic
1444information and checksumming, but if this option is set, only the
1445specific pattern set with \fBverify_pattern\fR is verified.
1446.TP
1447.B null
1448Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
1449.RE
1450
1451This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
1452that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction given
1453is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a previously
1454written file. If the data direction includes any form of write, the verify will
1455be of the newly written data.
1456.RE
1457.TP
1458.BI verifysort \fR=\fPbool
1459If true, written verify blocks are sorted if \fBfio\fR deems it to be faster to
1460read them back in a sorted manner. Default: true.
1461.TP
1462.BI verifysort_nr \fR=\fPint
1463Pre-load and sort verify blocks for a read workload.
1464.TP
1465.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
1466Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
1467writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
1468.TP
1469.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
1470Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
1471\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
1472.TP
1473.BI verify_pattern \fR=\fPstr
1474If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to filling
1475with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1476pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the width of the pattern,
1477fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time(it can be either a
1478decimal or a hex number). The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity
1479has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use with
1480\fBverify\fP=str. Also, verify_pattern supports %o format, which means that for
1481each block offset will be written and then verified back, e.g.:
1482.RS
1483.RS
1484\fBverify_pattern\fR=%o
1485.RE
1486Or use combination of everything:
1487.LP
1488.RS
1489\fBverify_pattern\fR=0xff%o"abcd"-21
1490.RE
1491.RE
1492.TP
1493.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
1494If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
1495false.
1496.TP
1497.BI verify_dump \fR=\fPbool
1498If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block we
1499read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of
1500data corruption occurred. Off by default.
1501.TP
1502.BI verify_async \fR=\fPint
1503Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting thread. This option
1504takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for IO
1505verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
1506to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even sync IO
1507engines can benefit from using an \fBiodepth\fR setting higher than 1, as it
1508allows them to have IO in flight while verifies are running.
1509.TP
1510.BI verify_async_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1511Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async IO verification threads.
1512See \fBcpus_allowed\fP for the format used.
1513.TP
1514.BI verify_backlog \fR=\fPint
1515Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
1516once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
1517everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1518instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with an
1519IO block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would
1520be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
1521only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1522.TP
1523.BI verify_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1524Control how many blocks fio will verify if verify_backlog is set. If not set,
1525will default to the value of \fBverify_backlog\fR (meaning the entire queue is
1526read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
1527\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
1528\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
1529will be verified more than once.
1530.TP
1531.BI trim_percentage \fR=\fPint
1532Number of verify blocks to discard/trim.
1533.TP
1534.BI trim_verify_zero \fR=\fPbool
1535Verify that trim/discarded blocks are returned as zeroes.
1536.TP
1537.BI trim_backlog \fR=\fPint
1538Trim after this number of blocks are written.
1539.TP
1540.BI trim_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1541Trim this number of IO blocks.
1542.TP
1543.BI experimental_verify \fR=\fPbool
1544Enable experimental verification.
1545.TP
1546.BI verify_state_save \fR=\fPbool
1547When a job exits during the write phase of a verify workload, save its
1548current state. This allows fio to replay up until that point, if the
1549verify state is loaded for the verify read phase.
1550.TP
1551.BI verify_state_load \fR=\fPbool
1552If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores the current write
1553state of each thread. This can be used at verification time so that fio
1554knows how far it should verify. Without this information, fio will run
1555a full verification pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
1556.TP
1557.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
1558Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
1559\fBstonewall\fR implies \fBnew_group\fR.
1560.TP
1561.B new_group
1562Start a new reporting group. If not given, all jobs in a file will be part
1563of the same reporting group, unless separated by a stonewall.
1564.TP
1565.BI stats \fR=\fPbool
1566By default, fio collects and shows final output results for all jobs that run.
1567If this option is set to 0, then fio will ignore it in the final stat output.
1568.TP
1569.BI numjobs \fR=\fPint
1570Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
1571Default: 1.
1572.TP
1573.B group_reporting
1574If set, display per-group reports instead of per-job when \fBnumjobs\fR is
1575specified.
1576.TP
1577.B thread
1578Use threads created with \fBpthread_create\fR\|(3) instead of processes created
1579with \fBfork\fR\|(2).
1580.TP
1581.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
1582Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1583.TP
1584.BI zonerange \fR=\fPint
1585Give size of an IO zone. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1586.TP
1587.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
1588Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
1589read.
1590.TP
1591.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1592Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. Specify a separate file
1593for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be
1594corrupt.
1595.TP
1596.BI read_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1597Replay the I/O patterns contained in the specified file generated by
1598\fBwrite_iolog\fR, or may be a \fBblktrace\fR binary file.
1599.TP
1600.BI replay_no_stall \fR=\fPint
1601While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1602attempts to respect timing information between I/Os. Enabling
1603\fBreplay_no_stall\fR causes I/Os to be replayed as fast as possible while
1604still respecting ordering.
1605.TP
1606.BI replay_redirect \fR=\fPstr
1607While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1608is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
1609from. Setting \fBreplay_redirect\fR causes all IOPS to be replayed onto the
1610single specified device regardless of the device it was recorded from.
1611.TP
1612.BI replay_align \fR=\fPint
1613Force alignment of IO offsets and lengths in a trace to this power of 2 value.
1614.TP
1615.BI replay_scale \fR=\fPint
1616Scale sector offsets down by this factor when replaying traces.
1617.TP
1618.BI per_job_logs \fR=\fPbool
1619If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per file private filenames. If
1620not set, jobs with identical names will share the log filename. Default: true.
1621.TP
1622.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
1623If given, write a bandwidth log for this job. Can be used to store data of the
1624bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots script
1625uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice graphs. See \fBwrite_lat_log\fR
1626for behaviour of given filename. For this option, the postfix is _bw.x.log,
1627where x is the index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). If
1628\fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will not include the job index.
1629See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1630section.
1631.TP
1632.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
1633Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
1634filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1635"jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1636N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still
1637append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will
1638not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1639.TP
1640.BI write_hist_log \fR=\fPstr
1641Same as \fBwrite_lat_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latency histograms. If
1642no filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1643"jobname_clat_hist.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1644N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still append
1645the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will not
1646include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1647.TP
1648.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1649Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
1650option, the default filename of "jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the
1651index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
1652is given, fio will still append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false,
1653then the filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1654section.
1655.TP
1656.BI log_avg_msec \fR=\fPint
1657By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
1658IO that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
1659very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
1660over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
1661\fBlog_max_value\fR as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
1662.TP
1663.BI log_max_value \fR=\fPbool
1664If \fBlog_avg_msec\fR is set, fio logs the average over that window. If you
1665instead want to log the maximum value, set this option to 1. Defaults to
16660, meaning that averaged values are logged.
1667.TP
1668.BI log_hist_msec \fR=\fPint
1669Same as \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, but logs entries for completion latency histograms.
1670Computing latency percentiles from averages of intervals using \fBlog_avg_msec\fR
1671is innacurate. Setting this option makes fio log histogram entries over the
1672specified period of time, reducing log sizes for high IOPS devices while
1673retaining percentile accuracy. See \fBlog_hist_coarseness\fR as well. Defaults
1674to 0, meaning histogram logging is disabled.
1675.TP
1676.BI log_hist_coarseness \fR=\fPint
1677Integer ranging from 0 to 6, defining the coarseness of the resolution of the
1678histogram logs enabled with \fBlog_hist_msec\fR. For each increment in
1679coarseness, fio outputs half as many bins. Defaults to 0, for which histogram
1680logs contain 1216 latency bins. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1681.TP
1682.BI log_offset \fR=\fPbool
1683If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte offset for the IO
1684entry as well as the other data values.
1685.TP
1686.BI log_compression \fR=\fPint
1687If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as it goes, to keep the memory
1688footprint lower. When a log reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed
1689and compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are fairly highly
1690compressible, this yields a nice memory savings for longer runs. The downside
1691is that the compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so it may
1692impact the run. This, however, is also true if the logging ends up consuming
1693most of the system memory. So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved
1694normally at the end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1695in the specified log file. This feature depends on the availability of zlib.
1696.TP
1697.BI log_compression_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1698Define the set of CPUs that are allowed to handle online log compression
1699for the IO jobs. This can provide better isolation between performance
1700sensitive jobs, and background compression work.
1701.TP
1702.BI log_store_compressed \fR=\fPbool
1703If set, fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They can be
1704decompressed with fio, using the \fB\-\-inflate-log\fR command line parameter.
1705The files will be stored with a \fB\.fz\fR suffix.
1706.TP
1707.BI log_unix_epoch \fR=\fPbool
1708If set, fio will log Unix timestamps to the log files produced by enabling
1709\fBwrite_type_log\fR for each log type, instead of the default zero-based
1710timestamps.
1711.TP
1712.BI block_error_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1713If set, record errors in trim block-sized units from writes and trims and output
1714a histogram of how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind of error
1715was encountered.
1716.TP
1717.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
1718Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
1719back the number of calls to \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2), as that does impact performance at
1720really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1721calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and disable_bw as well.
1722.TP
1723.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
1724Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1725.TP
1726.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
1727Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1728.TP
1729.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
1730Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1731.TP
1732.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
1733Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
1734simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1735.TP
1736.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1737Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
1738.RS
1739Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1740.RE
1741.TP
1742.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1743Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
1744.RS
1745Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1746.RE
1747.TP
1748.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1749Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1750.TP
1751.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
1752Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
1753.TP
1754.BI clocksource \fR=\fPstr
1755Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
1756.RS
1757.TP
1758.B gettimeofday
1759\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2)
1760.TP
1761.B clock_gettime
1762\fBclock_gettime\fR\|(2)
1763.TP
1764.B cpu
1765Internal CPU clock source
1766.TP
1767.RE
1768.P
1769\fBcpu\fR is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast
1770(and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource
1771if it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
1772unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
1773means supporting TSC Invariant.
1774.TP
1775.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
1776Enable all of the \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
1777disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
1778\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
1779the gtod() calls we would have done if all time keeping was enabled.
1780.TP
1781.BI gtod_cpu \fR=\fPint
1782Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just getting
1783the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very intensive on
1784\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
1785nothing but logging current time to a shared memory location. Then the other
1786threads/processes that run IO workloads need only copy that segment, instead of
1787entering the kernel with a \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call. The CPU set aside for doing
1788these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1789from the CPU mask of other jobs.
1790.TP
1791.BI ignore_error \fR=\fPstr
1792Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can specify
1793error list for each error type.
1794.br
1795ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1796.br
1797errors for given error type is separated with ':'.
1798Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or an integer.
1799.br
1800Example: ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122 .
1801.br
1802This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
1803.TP
1804.BI error_dump \fR=\fPbool
1805If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If disabled
1806only fatal error will be dumped
1807.TP
1808.BI profile \fR=\fPstr
1809Select a specific builtin performance test.
1810.TP
1811.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1812Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
1813The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
1814your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with:
1815
1816# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
1817.TP
1818.BI cgroup_weight \fR=\fPint
1819Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
1820with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
1821.TP
1822.BI cgroup_nodelete \fR=\fPbool
1823Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job completion.
1824To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the job completion,
1825set cgroup_nodelete=1. This can be useful if one wants to inspect various
1826cgroup files after job completion. Default: false
1827.TP
1828.BI uid \fR=\fPint
1829Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value before
1830the thread/process does any work.
1831.TP
1832.BI gid \fR=\fPint
1833Set group ID, see \fBuid\fR.
1834.TP
1835.BI unit_base \fR=\fPint
1836Base unit for reporting. Allowed values are:
1837.RS
1838.TP
1839.B 0
1840Use auto-detection (default).
1841.TP
1842.B 8
1843Byte based.
1844.TP
1845.B 1
1846Bit based.
1847.RE
1848.P
1849.TP
1850.BI flow_id \fR=\fPint
1851The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global flow. See
1852\fBflow\fR.
1853.TP
1854.BI flow \fR=\fPint
1855Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then there is a
1856\fBflow counter\fR which is used to regulate the proportion of activity between
1857two or more jobs. fio attempts to keep this flow counter near zero. The
1858\fBflow\fR parameter stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the
1859flow counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if one job has
1860\fBflow=8\fR and another job has \fBflow=-1\fR, then there will be a roughly
18611:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1862.TP
1863.BI flow_watermark \fR=\fPint
1864The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow counter is allowed to
1865reach before the job must wait for a lower value of the counter.
1866.TP
1867.BI flow_sleep \fR=\fPint
1868The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow watermark has been
1869exceeded before retrying operations
1870.TP
1871.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1872Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1873.TP
1874.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
1875Overwrite the default list of percentiles for completion latencies and the
1876block error histogram. Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
1877and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the
1878numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
1879report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1880the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1881.SS "Ioengine Parameters List"
1882Some parameters are only valid when a specific ioengine is in use. These are
1883used identically to normal parameters, with the caveat that when used on the
1884command line, they must come after the ioengine.
1885.TP
1886.BI (cpuio)cpuload \fR=\fPint
1887Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1888.TP
1889.BI (cpuio)cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1890Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
1891.TP
1892.BI (cpuio)exit_on_io_done \fR=\fPbool
1893Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1894.TP
1895.BI (libaio)userspace_reap
1896Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1897the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1898With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1899from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1900enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1901iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1902.TP
1903.BI (pvsync2)hipri
1904Set RWF_HIPRI on IO, indicating to the kernel that it's of
1905higher priority than normal.
1906.TP
1907.BI (net,netsplice)hostname \fR=\fPstr
1908The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1909If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1910used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
1911.TP
1912.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
1913The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used with
1914\fBnumjobs\fR to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then
1915this will be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
1916.TP
1917.BI (net,netsplice)interface \fR=\fPstr
1918The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP multicast
1919packets.
1920.TP
1921.BI (net,netsplice)ttl \fR=\fPint
1922Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1
1923.TP
1924.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1925Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1926.TP
1927.BI (net,netsplice)protocol \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP proto" \fR=\fPstr
1928The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1929.RS
1930.RS
1931.TP
1932.B tcp
1933Transmission control protocol
1934.TP
1935.B tcpv6
1936Transmission control protocol V6
1937.TP
1938.B udp
1939User datagram protocol
1940.TP
1941.B udpv6
1942User datagram protocol V6
1943.TP
1944.B unix
1945UNIX domain socket
1946.RE
1947.P
1948When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1949as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1950reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1951used and the port is invalid.
1952.RE
1953.TP
1954.BI (net,netsplice)listen
1955For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1956connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1957hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1958.TP
1959.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
1960Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
1961will just consume packets. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
1962payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the same payload back.
1963This allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission and completion
1964latencies then measure local time spent sending or receiving, and the
1965completion latency measures how long it took for the other end to receive and
1966send back. For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a single
1967reader when multiple readers are listening to the same address.
1968.TP
1969.BI (net, window_size) \fR=\fPint
1970Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1971.TP
1972.BI (net, mss) \fR=\fPint
1973Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1974.TP
1975.BI (e4defrag,donorname) \fR=\fPstr
1976File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files)
1977.TP
1978.BI (e4defrag,inplace) \fR=\fPint
1979Configure donor file block allocation strategy
1980.RS
1981.BI 0(default) :
1982Preallocate donor's file on init
1983.TP
1984.BI 1:
1985allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right after event
1986.RE
1987.TP
1988.BI (rbd)clustername \fR=\fPstr
1989Specifies the name of the ceph cluster.
1990.TP
1991.BI (rbd)rbdname \fR=\fPstr
1992Specifies the name of the RBD.
1993.TP
1994.BI (rbd)pool \fR=\fPstr
1995Specifies the name of the Ceph pool containing the RBD.
1996.TP
1997.BI (rbd)clientname \fR=\fPstr
1998Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the Ceph
1999cluster. If the clustername is specified, the clientname shall be the full
2000type.id string. If no type. prefix is given, fio will add 'client.' by default.
2001.TP
2002.BI (mtd)skipbad \fR=\fPbool
2003Skip operations against known bad blocks.
2004.SH OUTPUT
2005While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
2006example:
2007.RS
2008.P
2009Jobs: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
2010.RE
2011.P
2012The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
2013threads. The possible values are:
2014.P
2015.PD 0
2016.RS
2017.TP
2018.B P
2019Setup but not started.
2020.TP
2021.B C
2022Thread created.
2023.TP
2024.B I
2025Initialized, waiting.
2026.TP
2027.B R
2028Running, doing sequential reads.
2029.TP
2030.B r
2031Running, doing random reads.
2032.TP
2033.B W
2034Running, doing sequential writes.
2035.TP
2036.B w
2037Running, doing random writes.
2038.TP
2039.B M
2040Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
2041.TP
2042.B m
2043Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
2044.TP
2045.B F
2046Running, currently waiting for \fBfsync\fR\|(2).
2047.TP
2048.B V
2049Running, verifying written data.
2050.TP
2051.B E
2052Exited, not reaped by main thread.
2053.TP
2054.B \-
2055Exited, thread reaped.
2056.RE
2057.PD
2058.P
2059The second set of brackets shows the estimated completion percentage of
2060the current group. The third set shows the read and write I/O rate,
2061respectively. Finally, the estimated run time of the job is displayed.
2062.P
2063When \fBfio\fR completes (or is interrupted by Ctrl-C), it will show data
2064for each thread, each group of threads, and each disk, in that order.
2065.P
2066Per-thread statistics first show the threads client number, group-id, and
2067error code. The remaining figures are as follows:
2068.RS
2069.TP
2070.B io
2071Number of megabytes of I/O performed.
2072.TP
2073.B bw
2074Average data rate (bandwidth).
2075.TP
2076.B runt
2077Threads run time.
2078.TP
2079.B slat
2080Submission latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This is
2081the time it took to submit the I/O.
2082.TP
2083.B clat
2084Completion latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This
2085is the time between submission and completion.
2086.TP
2087.B bw
2088Bandwidth minimum, maximum, percentage of aggregate bandwidth received, average
2089and standard deviation.
2090.TP
2091.B cpu
2092CPU usage statistics. Includes user and system time, number of context switches
2093this thread went through and number of major and minor page faults. The CPU
2094utilization numbers are averages for the jobs in that reporting group, while
2095the context and fault counters are summed.
2096.TP
2097.B IO depths
2098Distribution of I/O depths. Each depth includes everything less than (or equal)
2099to it, but greater than the previous depth.
2100.TP
2101.B IO issued
2102Number of read/write requests issued, and number of short read/write requests.
2103.TP
2104.B IO latencies
2105Distribution of I/O completion latencies. The numbers follow the same pattern
2106as \fBIO depths\fR.
2107.RE
2108.P
2109The group statistics show:
2110.PD 0
2111.RS
2112.TP
2113.B io
2114Number of megabytes I/O performed.
2115.TP
2116.B aggrb
2117Aggregate bandwidth of threads in the group.
2118.TP
2119.B minb
2120Minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
2121.TP
2122.B maxb
2123Maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
2124.TP
2125.B mint
2126Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
2127.TP
2128.B maxt
2129Longest runtime of threads in the group.
2130.RE
2131.PD
2132.P
2133Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
2134.PD 0
2135.RS
2136.TP
2137.B ios
2138Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
2139.TP
2140.B merge
2141Number of merges in the I/O scheduler.
2142.TP
2143.B ticks
2144Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
2145.TP
2146.B io_queue
2147Total time spent in the disk queue.
2148.TP
2149.B util
2150Disk utilization.
2151.RE
2152.PD
2153.P
2154It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
2155running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the \fBUSR1\fR
2156signal.
2157.SH TERSE OUTPUT
2158If the \fB\-\-minimal\fR / \fB\-\-append-terse\fR options are given, the
2159results will be printed/appended in a semicolon-delimited format suitable for
2160scripted use.
2161A job description (if provided) follows on a new line. Note that the first
2162number in the line is the version number. If the output has to be changed
2163for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
2164change. The fields are:
2165.P
2166.RS
2167.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
2168.P
2169Read status:
2170.RS
2171.B Total I/O \fR(KiB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KiB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
2172.P
2173Submission latency:
2174.RS
2175.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2176.RE
2177Completion latency:
2178.RS
2179.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2180.RE
2181Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2182.RS
2183.B Xth percentile=usec
2184.RE
2185Total latency:
2186.RS
2187.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2188.RE
2189Bandwidth:
2190.RS
2191.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2192.RE
2193.RE
2194.P
2195Write status:
2196.RS
2197.B Total I/O \fR(KiB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KiB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
2198.P
2199Submission latency:
2200.RS
2201.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2202.RE
2203Completion latency:
2204.RS
2205.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2206.RE
2207Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2208.RS
2209.B Xth percentile=usec
2210.RE
2211Total latency:
2212.RS
2213.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2214.RE
2215Bandwidth:
2216.RS
2217.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2218.RE
2219.RE
2220.P
2221CPU usage:
2222.RS
2223.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
2224.RE
2225.P
2226IO depth distribution:
2227.RS
2228.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
2229.RE
2230.P
2231IO latency distribution:
2232.RS
2233Microseconds:
2234.RS
2235.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
2236.RE
2237Milliseconds:
2238.RS
2239.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
2240.RE
2241.RE
2242.P
2243Disk utilization (1 for each disk used):
2244.RS
2245.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
2246.RE
2247.P
2248Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
2249.RS
2250.B total # errors, first error code
2251.RE
2252.P
2253.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
2254.RE
2255.P
2256Below is a single line containing short names for each of the fields in
2257the minimal output v3, separated by semicolons:
2258.RS
2259.P
2260.nf
2261terse_version_3;fio_version;jobname;groupid;error;read_kb;read_bandwidth;read_iops;read_runtime_ms;read_slat_min;read_slat_max;read_slat_mean;read_slat_dev;read_clat_max;read_clat_min;read_clat_mean;read_clat_dev;read_clat_pct01;read_clat_pct02;read_clat_pct03;read_clat_pct04;read_clat_pct05;read_clat_pct06;read_clat_pct07;read_clat_pct08;read_clat_pct09;read_clat_pct10;read_clat_pct11;read_clat_pct12;read_clat_pct13;read_clat_pct14;read_clat_pct15;read_clat_pct16;read_clat_pct17;read_clat_pct18;read_clat_pct19;read_clat_pct20;read_tlat_min;read_lat_max;read_lat_mean;read_lat_dev;read_bw_min;read_bw_max;read_bw_agg_pct;read_bw_mean;read_bw_dev;write_kb;write_bandwidth;write_iops;write_runtime_ms;write_slat_min;write_slat_max;write_slat_mean;write_slat_dev;write_clat_max;write_clat_min;write_clat_mean;write_clat_dev;write_clat_pct01;write_clat_pct02;write_clat_pct03;write_clat_pct04;write_clat_pct05;write_clat_pct06;write_clat_pct07;write_clat_pct08;write_clat_pct09;write_clat_pct10;write_clat_pct11;write_clat_pct12;write_clat_pct13;write_clat_pct14;write_clat_pct15;write_clat_pct16;write_clat_pct17;write_clat_pct18;write_clat_pct19;write_clat_pct20;write_tlat_min;write_lat_max;write_lat_mean;write_lat_dev;write_bw_min;write_bw_max;write_bw_agg_pct;write_bw_mean;write_bw_dev;cpu_user;cpu_sys;cpu_csw;cpu_mjf;pu_minf;iodepth_1;iodepth_2;iodepth_4;iodepth_8;iodepth_16;iodepth_32;iodepth_64;lat_2us;lat_4us;lat_10us;lat_20us;lat_50us;lat_100us;lat_250us;lat_500us;lat_750us;lat_1000us;lat_2ms;lat_4ms;lat_10ms;lat_20ms;lat_50ms;lat_100ms;lat_250ms;lat_500ms;lat_750ms;lat_1000ms;lat_2000ms;lat_over_2000ms;disk_name;disk_read_iops;disk_write_iops;disk_read_merges;disk_write_merges;disk_read_ticks;write_ticks;disk_queue_time;disk_util
2262.fi
2263.RE
2264.SH TRACE FILE FORMAT
2265There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
2266is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
2267below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
2268
2269In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
2270
2271.P
2272.B Trace file format v1
2273.RS
2274Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
2275
2276rw, offset, length
2277
2278where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
2279
2280This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
2281
2282.RE
2283.P
2284.B Trace file format v2
2285.RS
2286The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
2287It allows one to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
2288possible file actions.
2289
2290The first line of the trace file has to be:
2291
2292\fBfio version 2 iolog\fR
2293
2294Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
2295The file management format:
2296
2297\fBfilename action\fR
2298
2299The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
2300
2301.P
2302.PD 0
2303.RS
2304.TP
2305.B add
2306Add the given filename to the trace
2307.TP
2308.B open
2309Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have been previously
2310added with the \fBadd\fR action.
2311.TP
2312.B close
2313Close the file with the given filename. The file must have previously been
2314opened.
2315.RE
2316.PD
2317.P
2318
2319The file io action format:
2320
2321\fBfilename action offset length\fR
2322
2323The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
2324before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
2325bytes. The action can be one of these:
2326
2327.P
2328.PD 0
2329.RS
2330.TP
2331.B wait
2332Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded. The time is
2333relative to the previous wait statement.
2334.TP
2335.B read
2336Read \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2337.TP
2338.B write
2339Write \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2340.TP
2341.B sync
2342fsync() the file
2343.TP
2344.B datasync
2345fdatasync() the file
2346.TP
2347.B trim
2348trim the given file from the given \fBoffset\fR for \fBlength\fR bytes
2349.RE
2350.PD
2351.P
2352
2353.SH CPU IDLENESS PROFILING
2354In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
2355we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
2356fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
2357idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
2358By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
2359CPU can be derived accordingly.
2360
2361An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
2362and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
2363work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
2364overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
2365
2366.SH VERIFICATION AND TRIGGERS
2367Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
2368first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
2369write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
2370it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
2371on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
2372same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
2373on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
2374data was written.
2375
2376With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
2377to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
2378and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
2379power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
2380
2381A verification trigger consists of two things:
2382
2383.RS
2384Storing the write state of each job
2385.LP
2386Executing a trigger command
2387.RE
2388
2389The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
2390to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
2391done, the last X completions, etc.
2392
2393A trigger is invoked either through creation (\fBtouch\fR) of a specified
2394file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
2395\fB\-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/trigger-file\fR, then it will continually check for
2396the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
2397fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
2398command).
2399
2400For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
2401fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
2402to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
2403specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
2404back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
2405
2406.RE
2407.P
2408.B Verification trigger example
2409.RS
2410
2411Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
2412Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
2413at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
2414or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
2415backend normally:
2416
2417server# \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2418
2419and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
2420
2421localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger-remote="bash \-c "echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger""\fR
2422
2423We set \fB/tmp/my-trigger\fR as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
2424
2425\fBecho b > /proc/sysrq-trigger\fR
2426
2427on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
2428state. This will work, but it's not \fIreally\fR cutting power to the server,
2429it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
2430power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
2431a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
2432IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
2433then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
2434
2435localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger="ipmi-reboot server"\fR
2436
2437For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
2438then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
2439
2440.RE
2441.P
2442.B Loading verify state
2443.RS
2444To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
2445the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
2446stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
2447and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
2448the files over and load them from there.
2449
2450.RE
2451
2452.SH LOG FILE FORMATS
2453
2454Fio supports a variety of log file formats, for logging latencies, bandwidth,
2455and IOPS. The logs share a common format, which looks like this:
2456
2457.B time (msec), value, data direction, offset
2458
2459Time for the log entry is always in milliseconds. The value logged depends
2460on the type of log, it will be one of the following:
2461
2462.P
2463.PD 0
2464.TP
2465.B Latency log
2466Value is in latency in usecs
2467.TP
2468.B Bandwidth log
2469Value is in KiB/sec
2470.TP
2471.B IOPS log
2472Value is in IOPS
2473.PD
2474.P
2475
2476Data direction is one of the following:
2477
2478.P
2479.PD 0
2480.TP
2481.B 0
2482IO is a READ
2483.TP
2484.B 1
2485IO is a WRITE
2486.TP
2487.B 2
2488IO is a TRIM
2489.PD
2490.P
2491
2492The \fIoffset\fR is the offset, in bytes, from the start of the file, for that
2493particular IO. The logging of the offset can be toggled with \fBlog_offset\fR.
2494
2495If windowed logging is enabled through \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, then fio doesn't log
2496individual IOs. Instead of logs the average values over the specified
2497period of time. Since \fIdata direction\fR and \fIoffset\fR are per-IO values,
2498they aren't applicable if windowed logging is enabled. If windowed logging
2499is enabled and \fBlog_max_value\fR is set, then fio logs maximum values in
2500that window instead of averages.
2501
2502For histogram logging the logs look like this:
2503
2504.B time (msec), data direction, block-size, bin 0, bin 1, ..., bin 1215
2505
2506Where 'bin i' gives the frequency of IO requests with a latency falling in
2507the i-th bin. See \fBlog_hist_coarseness\fR for logging fewer bins.
2508
2509.RE
2510
2511.SH CLIENT / SERVER
2512Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
2513where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
2514run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
2515have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
2516be running, while controlling it from another machine.
2517
2518To start the server, you would do:
2519
2520\fBfio \-\-server=args\fR
2521
2522on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
2523are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
2524for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain
2525socket. 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
2526listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
2527
25281) \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2529
2530 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
2531
25322) \fBfio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444\fR
2533
2534 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
2535
25363) \fBfio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444\fR
2537
2538 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
2539
25404) \fBfio \-\-server=,4444\fR
2541
2542 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
2543
25445) \fBfio \-\-server=1.2.3.4\fR
2545
2546 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
2547
25486) \fBfio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock\fR
2549
2550 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
2551
2552When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
2553is run with:
2554
2555\fBfio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>\fR
2556
2557where \-\-local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
2558running, 'server' is the connect string, and \-\-remote-args and <job file(s)>
2559are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
2560does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
2561You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
2562
2563\fBfio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>\fR
2564
2565If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
2566to load a local file as well. This is done by using \-\-remote-config:
2567
2568\fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-remote-config /path/to/file.fio\fR
2569
2570Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
2571of being passed one from the client.
2572
2573If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
2574of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter value for the \-\-client option.
2575For example, here is an example "host.list" file containing 2 hostnames:
2576
2577host1.your.dns.domain
2578.br
2579host2.your.dns.domain
2580
2581The fio command would then be:
2582
2583\fBfio \-\-client=host.list <job file>\fR
2584
2585In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files, and all
2586servers receive the same job file.
2587
2588In order to enable fio \-\-client runs utilizing a shared filesystem from multiple hosts,
2589fio \-\-client now prepends the IP address of the server to the filename. For example,
2590if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio and is writing filename fileio.tmp,
2591with a \-\-client hostfile
2592containing two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and 192.168.10.121, then
2593fio will create two files:
2594
2595/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
2596.br
2597/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
2598
2599.SH AUTHORS
2600
2601.B fio
2602was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
2603now Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>.
2604.br
2605This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
2606on documentation by Jens Axboe.
2607.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
2608Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
2609See \fBREADME\fR.
2610.SH "SEE ALSO"
2611For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
2612.br
2613Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.
2614.br
2615These are typically located under /usr/share/doc/fio.
2616
2617\fBHOWTO\fR: http://git.kernel.dk/cgit/fio/plain/HOWTO
2618.br
2619\fBREADME\fR: http://git.kernel.dk/cgit/fio/plain/README
2620.br