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1.TH fio 1 "December 2016" "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 (Current version 3, or older version 2).
47.TP
48.B \-\-help
49Display usage information and exit.
50.TP
51.B \-\-cpuclock-test
52Perform test and validation of internal CPU clock
53.TP
54.BI \-\-crctest[\fR=\fPtest]
55Test the speed of the builtin checksumming functions. If no argument is given,
56all of them are tested. Or a comma separated list can be passed, in which
57case the given ones are tested.
58.TP
59.BI \-\-cmdhelp \fR=\fPcommand
60Print help information for \fIcommand\fR. May be `all' for all commands.
61.TP
62.BI \-\-enghelp \fR=\fPioengine[,command]
63List all commands defined by \fIioengine\fR, or print help for \fIcommand\fR defined by \fIioengine\fR.
64.TP
65.BI \-\-showcmd \fR=\fPjobfile
66Convert \fIjobfile\fR to a set of command-line options.
67.TP
68.BI \-\-eta \fR=\fPwhen
69Specifies when real-time ETA estimate should be printed. \fIwhen\fR may
70be one of `always', `never' or `auto'.
71.TP
72.BI \-\-eta\-newline \fR=\fPtime
73Force an ETA newline for every `time` period passed.
74.TP
75.BI \-\-status\-interval \fR=\fPtime
76Report full output status every `time` period passed.
77.TP
78.BI \-\-readonly
79Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing any attempted write.
80.TP
81.BI \-\-section \fR=\fPsec
82Only run section \fIsec\fR from job file. This option can be used multiple times to add more sections to run.
83.TP
84.BI \-\-alloc\-size \fR=\fPkb
85Set the internal smalloc pool size to \fIkb\fP kilobytes.
86.TP
87.BI \-\-warnings\-fatal
88All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an error.
89.TP
90.BI \-\-max\-jobs \fR=\fPnr
91Set the maximum allowed number of jobs (threads/processes) to support.
92.TP
93.BI \-\-server \fR=\fPargs
94Start a backend server, with \fIargs\fP specifying what to listen to. See client/server section.
95.TP
96.BI \-\-daemonize \fR=\fPpidfile
97Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given pid file.
98.TP
99.BI \-\-client \fR=\fPhost
100Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given host or set of hosts. See client/server section.
101.TP
102.BI \-\-idle\-prof \fR=\fPoption
103Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis (\fIoption\fP=system,percpu) or run unit work calibration only (\fIoption\fP=calibrate).
104.SH "JOB FILE FORMAT"
105Job files are in `ini' format. They consist of one or more
106job definitions, which begin with a job name in square brackets and
107extend to the next job name. The job name can be any ASCII string
108except `global', which has a special meaning. Following the job name is
109a sequence of zero or more parameters, one per line, that define the
110behavior of the job. Any line starting with a `;' or `#' character is
111considered a comment and ignored.
112.P
113If \fIjobfile\fR is specified as `-', the job file will be read from
114standard input.
115.SS "Global Section"
116The global section contains default parameters for jobs specified in the
117job file. A job is only affected by global sections residing above it,
118and there may be any number of global sections. Specific job definitions
119may override any parameter set in global sections.
120.SH "JOB PARAMETERS"
121.SS Types
122Some parameters may take arguments of a specific type.
123Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression may be used,
124provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators are:
125.RS
126.RS
127.TP
128.B addition (+)
129.TP
130.B subtraction (-)
131.TP
132.B multiplication (*)
133.TP
134.B division (/)
135.TP
136.B modulus (%)
137.TP
138.B exponentiation (^)
139.RE
140.RE
141.P
142For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
143different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
144parentheses). The types used are:
145.TP
146.I str
147String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
148.TP
149.I int
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 writes
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 IO buffers with this pattern. If not set, the contents
615of IO buffers is defined by the other options related to buffer contents. The
616setting can be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
617values. It may also be a string, where the string must then be wrapped with
618"", e.g.:
619.RS
620.RS
621\fBbuffer_pattern\fR="abcd"
622.RS
623or
624.RE
625\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=-12
626.RS
627or
628.RE
629\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface
630.RE
631.LP
632Also you can combine everything together in any order:
633.LP
634.RS
635\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface"abcd"-12
636.RE
637.RE
638.TP
639.BI dedupe_percentage \fR=\fPint
640If set, fio will generate this percentage of identical buffers when writing.
641These buffers will be naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend
642on what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's possible to have
643the individual buffers either fully compressible, or not at all. This option
644only controls the distribution of unique buffers.
645.TP
646.BI nrfiles \fR=\fPint
647Number of files to use for this job. Default: 1.
648.TP
649.BI openfiles \fR=\fPint
650Number of files to keep open at the same time. Default: \fBnrfiles\fR.
651.TP
652.BI file_service_type \fR=\fPstr
653Defines how files to service are selected. The following types are defined:
654.RS
655.RS
656.TP
657.B random
658Choose a file at random.
659.TP
660.B roundrobin
661Round robin over opened files (default).
662.TP
663.B sequential
664Do each file in the set sequentially.
665.TP
666.B zipf
667Use a zipfian distribution to decide what file to access.
668.TP
669.B pareto
670Use a pareto distribution to decide what file to access.
671.TP
672.B gauss
673Use a gaussian (normal) distribution to decide what file to access.
674.RE
675.P
676For \fBrandom\fR, \fBroundrobin\fR, and \fBsequential\fR, a postfix can be
677appended to tell fio how many I/Os to issue before switching to a new file.
678For example, specifying \fBfile_service_type=random:8\fR would cause fio to
679issue \fI8\fR I/Os before selecting a new file at random. For the non-uniform
680distributions, a floating point postfix can be given to influence how the
681distribution is skewed. See \fBrandom_distribution\fR for a description of how
682that would work.
683.RE
684.TP
685.BI ioengine \fR=\fPstr
686Defines how the job issues I/O. The following types are defined:
687.RS
688.RS
689.TP
690.B sync
691Basic \fBread\fR\|(2) or \fBwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fBfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
692position the I/O location.
693.TP
694.B psync
695Basic \fBpread\fR\|(2) or \fBpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
696Default on all supported operating systems except for Windows.
697.TP
698.B vsync
699Basic \fBreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
700coalescing adjacent IOs into a single submission.
701.TP
702.B pvsync
703Basic \fBpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
704.TP
705.B pvsync2
706Basic \fBpreadv2\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev2\fR\|(2) I/O.
707.TP
708.B libaio
709Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
710.TP
711.B posixaio
712POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fBaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fBaio_write\fR\|(3).
713.TP
714.B solarisaio
715Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
716.TP
717.B windowsaio
718Windows native asynchronous I/O. Default on Windows.
719.TP
720.B mmap
721File is memory mapped with \fBmmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
722\fBmemcpy\fR\|(3).
723.TP
724.B splice
725\fBsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
726transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
727.TP
728.B sg
729SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May be either synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
730the target is an sg character device, we use \fBread\fR\|(2) and
731\fBwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
732.TP
733.B null
734Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. Mainly used to exercise \fBfio\fR
735itself and for debugging and testing purposes.
736.TP
737.B net
738Transfer over the network. The protocol to be used can be defined with the
739\fBprotocol\fR parameter. Depending on the protocol, \fBfilename\fR,
740\fBhostname\fR, \fBport\fR, or \fBlisten\fR must be specified.
741This ioengine defines engine specific options.
742.TP
743.B netsplice
744Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fBsplice\fR\|(2) and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
745and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
746.TP
747.B cpuio
748Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to \fBcpuload\fR and
749\fBcpuchunks\fR parameters. A job never finishes unless there is at least one
750non-cpuio job.
751.TP
752.B guasi
753The GUASI I/O engine is the Generic Userspace Asynchronous Syscall Interface
754approach to asynchronous I/O.
755.br
756See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
757.TP
758.B rdma
759The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ)
760and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
761.TP
762.B external
763Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
764`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
765.TP
766.B falloc
767 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate call to simulate data
768transfer as fio ioengine
769.br
770 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
771.br
772 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
773.br
774 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE)
775.TP
776.B e4defrag
777IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate defragment activity
778request to DDIR_WRITE event
779.TP
780.B rbd
781IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd
782without the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This ioengine defines engine specific
783options.
784.TP
785.B gfapi
786Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
787having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
788options.
789.TP
790.B gfapi_async
791Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
792having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
793options.
794.TP
795.B libhdfs
796Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS). The \fBfilename\fR option is used to
797specify host,port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This engine interprets
798offsets a little differently. In HDFS, files once created cannot be modified.
799So random writes are not possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine expects
800bunch of small files to be created over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
801file out of those files based on the offset generated by fio backend. (see the
802example job file to create such files, use rw=write option). Please note, you
803might want to set necessary environment variables to work with hdfs/libhdfs
804properly.
805.TP
806.B mtd
807Read, write and erase an MTD character device (e.g., /dev/mtd0). Discards are
808treated as erases. Depending on the underlying device type, the I/O may have
809to go in a certain pattern, e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially to erase blocks
810and discarding before overwriting. The trimwrite mode works well for this
811constraint.
812.TP
813.B pmemblk
814Read and write through the NVML libpmemblk interface.
815.TP
816.B dev-dax
817Read and write through a DAX device exposed from persistent memory.
818.RE
819.P
820.RE
821.TP
822.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
823Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that increasing
824iodepth beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except for small
825degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
826restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved. This may happen on
827Linux when using libaio and not setting \fBdirect\fR=1, since buffered IO is
828not async on that OS. Keep an eye on the IO depth distribution in the
829fio output to verify that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
830.TP
831.BI iodepth_batch \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_submit" \fR=\fPint
832This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once. It defaults to 1
833which means that we submit each IO as soon as it is available, but can
834be raised to submit bigger batches of IO at the time. If it is set to 0
835the \fBiodepth\fR value will be used.
836.TP
837.BI iodepth_batch_complete_min \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_complete" \fR=\fPint
838This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1 which
839 means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from the
840kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
841\fBiodepth_low\fR. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always check for
842completed events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce IO latency, at the
843cost of more retrieval system calls.
844.TP
845.BI iodepth_batch_complete_max \fR=\fPint
846This defines maximum pieces of IO to
847retrieve at once. This variable should be used along with
848\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=int variable, specifying the range
849of min and max amount of IO which should be retrieved. By default
850it is equal to \fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR value.
851
852Example #1:
853.RS
854.RS
855\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=1
856.LP
857\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
858.RE
859
860which means that we will retrieve at least 1 IO and up to the
861whole submitted queue depth. If none of IO has been completed
862yet, we will wait.
863
864Example #2:
865.RS
866\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=0
867.LP
868\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
869.RE
870
871which means that we can retrieve up to the whole submitted
872queue depth, but if none of IO has been completed yet, we will
873NOT wait and immediately exit the system call. In this example
874we simply do polling.
875.RE
876.TP
877.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
878Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
879\fBiodepth\fR.
880.TP
881.BI io_submit_mode \fR=\fPstr
882This option controls how fio submits the IO to the IO engine. The default is
883\fBinline\fR, which means that the fio job threads submit and reap IO directly.
884If set to \fBoffload\fR, the job threads will offload IO submission to a
885dedicated pool of IO threads. This requires some coordination and thus has a
886bit of extra overhead, especially for lower queue depth IO where it can
887increase latencies. The benefit is that fio can manage submission rates
888independently of the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
889reporting if IO gets back up on the device side (the coordinated omission
890problem).
891.TP
892.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
893If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
894.TP
895.BI atomic \fR=\fPbool
896If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic writes are guaranteed
897to be stable once acknowledged by the operating system. Only Linux supports
898O_ATOMIC right now.
899.TP
900.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
901If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
902Default: true.
903.TP
904.BI offset \fR=\fPint
905Offset in the file to start I/O. Data before the offset will not be touched.
906.TP
907.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
908If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
909offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread number is a
910counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for each sub-job (i.e. when
911numjobs option is specified). This option is useful if there are several jobs
912which are intended to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
913even spacing between the starting points.
914.TP
915.BI number_ios \fR=\fPint
916Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size of the region
917set by \fBsize\fR, or if it exhaust the allocated time (or hits an error
918condition). With this setting, the range/size can be set independently of
919the number of IOs to perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit
920normally and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
921of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this condition is met
922before other end-of-job criteria.
923.TP
924.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
925How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
9260, don't sync. Default: 0.
927.TP
928.BI fdatasync \fR=\fPint
929Like \fBfsync\fR, but uses \fBfdatasync\fR\|(2) instead to only sync the
930data parts of the file. Default: 0.
931.TP
932.BI write_barrier \fR=\fPint
933Make every Nth write a barrier write.
934.TP
935.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
936Use \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) for every \fRval\fP number of write operations. Fio will
937track range of writes that have happened since the last \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) call.
938\fRstr\fP can currently be one or more of:
939.RS
940.TP
941.B wait_before
942SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
943.TP
944.B write
945SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
946.TP
947.B wait_after
948SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
949.TP
950.RE
951.P
952So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would use
953\fBSYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE\fP for every 8 writes.
954Also see the \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
955.TP
956.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
957If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
958.TP
959.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
960Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
961.TP
962.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
963If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
964it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
965.TP
966.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
967Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
968.TP
969.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
970Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
971\fBrwmixwrite\fR are given and do not sum to 100%, the latter of the two
972overrides the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is
973asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then
974the distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
975.TP
976.BI random_distribution \fR=\fPstr:float
977By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
978to perform random IO. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
979specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
980Fio includes the following distribution models:
981.RS
982.TP
983.B random
984Uniform random distribution
985.TP
986.B zipf
987Zipf distribution
988.TP
989.B pareto
990Pareto distribution
991.TP
992.B gauss
993Normal (gaussian) distribution
994.TP
995.B zoned
996Zoned random distribution
997.TP
998.RE
999When using a \fBzipf\fR or \fBpareto\fR distribution, an input value is also
1000needed to define the access pattern. For \fBzipf\fR, this is the zipf theta.
1001For \fBpareto\fR, it's the pareto power. Fio includes a test program, genzipf,
1002that can be used visualize what the given input values will yield in terms of
1003hit rates. If you wanted to use \fBzipf\fR with a theta of 1.2, you would use
1004random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
1005fio will disable use of the random map. For the \fBgauss\fR distribution, a
1006normal deviation is supplied as a value between 0 and 100.
1007.P
1008.RS
1009For a \fBzoned\fR distribution, fio supports specifying percentages of IO
1010access that should fall within what range of the file or device. For example,
1011given a criteria of:
1012.P
1013.RS
101460% of accesses should be to the first 10%
1015.RE
1016.RS
101730% of accesses should be to the next 20%
1018.RE
1019.RS
10208% of accesses should be to to the next 30%
1021.RE
1022.RS
10232% of accesses should be to the next 40%
1024.RE
1025.P
1026we can define that through zoning of the random accesses. For the above
1027example, the user would do:
1028.P
1029.RS
1030.B random_distribution=zoned:60/10:30/20:8/30:2/40
1031.RE
1032.P
1033similarly to how \fBbssplit\fR works for setting ranges and percentages of block
1034sizes. Like \fBbssplit\fR, it's possible to specify separate zones for reads,
1035writes, and trims. If just one set is given, it'll apply to all of them.
1036.RE
1037.TP
1038.BI percentage_random \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1039For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This defaults
1040to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set from
1041anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
1042sequential. It is possible to set different values for reads, writes, and
1043trim. To do so, simply use a comma separated list. See \fBblocksize\fR.
1044.TP
1045.B norandommap
1046Normally \fBfio\fR will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
1047this parameter is given, a new offset will be chosen without looking at past
1048I/O history. This parameter is mutually exclusive with \fBverify\fR.
1049.TP
1050.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
1051See \fBnorandommap\fR. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and it
1052fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without a
1053random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps, this
1054option is disabled by default.
1055.TP
1056.BI random_generator \fR=\fPstr
1057Fio supports the following engines for generating IO offsets for random IO:
1058.RS
1059.TP
1060.B tausworthe
1061Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
1062.TP
1063.B lfsr
1064Linear feedback shift register generator
1065.TP
1066.B tausworthe64
1067Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator
1068.TP
1069.RE
1070.P
1071Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking on the
1072side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written once. LFSR
1073guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's also less
1074computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator, however, though
1075for IO purposes it's typically good enough. LFSR only works with single block
1076sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block sizes. If used with such a
1077workload, fio may read or write some blocks multiple times. The default
1078value is tausworthe, unless the required space exceeds 2^32 blocks. If it does,
1079then tausworthe64 is selected automatically.
1080.TP
1081.BI nice \fR=\fPint
1082Run job with given nice value. See \fBnice\fR\|(2).
1083.TP
1084.BI prio \fR=\fPint
1085Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
1086\fBionice\fR\|(1).
1087.TP
1088.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
1089Set I/O priority class. See \fBionice\fR\|(1).
1090.TP
1091.BI thinktime \fR=\fPint
1092Stall job for given number of microseconds between issuing I/Os.
1093.TP
1094.BI thinktime_spin \fR=\fPint
1095Pretend to spend CPU time for given number of microseconds, sleeping the rest
1096of the time specified by \fBthinktime\fR. Only valid if \fBthinktime\fR is set.
1097.TP
1098.BI thinktime_blocks \fR=\fPint
1099Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks to issue, before
1100waiting \fBthinktime\fR microseconds. If not set, defaults to 1 which will
1101make fio wait \fBthinktime\fR microseconds after every block. This
1102effectively makes any queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO
1103will be queued before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In other
1104words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
1105Default: 1.
1106.TP
1107.BI rate \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1108Cap bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal postfix
1109rules apply. You can use \fBrate\fR=500k to limit reads and writes to 500k each,
1110or you can specify reads, write, and trim limits separately.
1111Using \fBrate\fR=1m,500k would
1112limit reads to 1MiB/sec and writes to 500KiB/sec. Capping only reads or writes
1113can be done with \fBrate\fR=,500k or \fBrate\fR=500k,. The former will only
1114limit writes (to 500KiB/sec), the latter will only limit reads.
1115.TP
1116.BI rate_min \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1117Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
1118Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
1119as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write vs trim separation.
1120.TP
1121.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1122Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as rate, just
1123specified independently of bandwidth. The same format as \fBrate\fR is used for
1124read vs write vs trim separation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
1125size is used as the metric.
1126.TP
1127.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint[,int][,int]
1128If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
1129is used for read vs write vs trim separation.
1130.TP
1131.BI rate_process \fR=\fPstr
1132This option controls how fio manages rated IO submissions. The default is
1133\fBlinear\fR, which submits IO in a linear fashion with fixed delays between
1134IOs that gets adjusted based on IO completion rates. If this is set to
1135\fBpoisson\fR, fio will submit IO based on a more real world random request
1136flow, known as the Poisson process
1137(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process). The lambda will be
113810^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
1139.TP
1140.BI rate_cycle \fR=\fPint
1141Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBrate_min\fR over this number of
1142milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
1143.TP
1144.BI latency_target \fR=\fPint
1145If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance point that the given
1146workload will run at while maintaining a latency below this target. The
1147values is given in microseconds. See \fBlatency_window\fR and
1148\fBlatency_percentile\fR.
1149.TP
1150.BI latency_window \fR=\fPint
1151Used with \fBlatency_target\fR to specify the sample window that the job
1152is run at varying queue depths to test the performance. The value is given
1153in microseconds.
1154.TP
1155.BI latency_percentile \fR=\fPfloat
1156The percentage of IOs that must fall within the criteria specified by
1157\fBlatency_target\fR and \fBlatency_window\fR. If not set, this defaults
1158to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal or below to the value set
1159by \fBlatency_target\fR.
1160.TP
1161.BI max_latency \fR=\fPint
1162If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum latency. It will exit
1163with an ETIME error.
1164.TP
1165.BI cpumask \fR=\fPint
1166Set CPU affinity for this job. \fIint\fR is a bitmask of allowed CPUs the job
1167may run on. See \fBsched_setaffinity\fR\|(2).
1168.TP
1169.BI cpus_allowed \fR=\fPstr
1170Same as \fBcpumask\fR, but allows a comma-delimited list of CPU numbers.
1171.TP
1172.BI cpus_allowed_policy \fR=\fPstr
1173Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs specified by \fBcpus_allowed\fR
1174or \fBcpumask\fR. Two policies are supported:
1175.RS
1176.RS
1177.TP
1178.B shared
1179All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1180.TP
1181.B split
1182Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1183.RE
1184.P
1185\fBshared\fR is the default behaviour, if the option isn't specified. If
1186\fBsplit\fR is specified, then fio will assign one cpu per job. If not enough
1187CPUs are given for the jobs listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in
1188the set.
1189.RE
1190.P
1191.TP
1192.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
1193Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
1194comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1195.TP
1196.BI numa_mem_policy \fR=\fPstr
1197Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of
1198the arguments:
1199.RS
1200.TP
1201.B <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1202.TP
1203.B mode
1204is one of the following memory policy:
1205.TP
1206.B default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1207.TP
1208.RE
1209For \fBdefault\fR and \fBlocal\fR memory policy, no \fBnodelist\fR is
1210needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
1211allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
1212comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1213.TP
1214.BI startdelay \fR=\fPirange
1215Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds. Supports all time
1216suffixes to allow specification of hours, minutes, seconds and
1217milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is omitted.
1218Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
1219range.
1220.TP
1221.BI runtime \fR=\fPint
1222Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.
1223.TP
1224.B time_based
1225If given, run for the specified \fBruntime\fR duration even if the files are
1226completely read or written. The same workload will be repeated as many times
1227as \fBruntime\fR allows.
1228.TP
1229.BI ramp_time \fR=\fPint
1230If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
1231logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle before
1232logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
1233that the \fBramp_time\fR is considered lead in time for a job, thus it will
1234increase the total runtime if a special timeout or runtime is specified.
1235.TP
1236.BI steadystate \fR=\fPstr:float "\fR,\fP ss" \fR=\fPstr:float
1237Define the criterion and limit for assessing steady state performance. The
1238first parameter designates the criterion whereas the second parameter sets the
1239threshold. When the criterion falls below the threshold for the specified
1240duration, the job will stop. For example, iops_slope:0.1% will direct fio
1241to terminate the job when the least squares regression slope falls below 0.1%
1242of the mean IOPS. If group_reporting is enabled this will apply to all jobs in
1243the group. All assessments are carried out using only data from the rolling
1244collection window. Threshold limits can be expressed as a fixed value or as a
1245percentage of the mean in the collection window. Below are the available steady
1246state assessment criteria.
1247.RS
1248.RS
1249.TP
1250.B iops
1251Collect IOPS data. Stop the job if all individual IOPS measurements are within
1252the specified limit of the mean IOPS (e.g., iops:2 means that all individual
1253IOPS values must be within 2 of the mean, whereas iops:0.2% means that all
1254individual IOPS values must be within 0.2% of the mean IOPS to terminate the
1255job).
1256.TP
1257.B iops_slope
1258Collect IOPS data and calculate the least squares regression slope. Stop the
1259job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
1260.TP
1261.B bw
1262Collect bandwidth data. Stop the job if all individual bandwidth measurements
1263are within the specified limit of the mean bandwidth.
1264.TP
1265.B bw_slope
1266Collect bandwidth data and calculate the least squares regression slope. Stop
1267the job if the slope falls below the specified limit.
1268.RE
1269.RE
1270.TP
1271.BI steadystate_duration \fR=\fPtime "\fR,\fP ss_dur" \fR=\fPtime
1272A rolling window of this duration will be used to judge whether steady state
1273has been reached. Data will be collected once per second. The default is 0
1274which disables steady state detection.
1275.TP
1276.BI steadystate_ramp_time \fR=\fPtime "\fR,\fP ss_ramp" \fR=\fPtime
1277Allow the job to run for the specified duration before beginning data collection
1278for checking the steady state job termination criterion. The default is 0.
1279.TP
1280.BI invalidate \fR=\fPbool
1281Invalidate buffer-cache for the file prior to starting I/O. Default: true.
1282.TP
1283.BI sync \fR=\fPbool
1284Use synchronous I/O for buffered writes. For the majority of I/O engines,
1285this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
1286.TP
1287.BI iomem \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP mem" \fR=\fPstr
1288Allocation method for I/O unit buffer. Allowed values are:
1289.RS
1290.RS
1291.TP
1292.B malloc
1293Allocate memory with \fBmalloc\fR\|(3). Default memory type.
1294.TP
1295.B shm
1296Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fBshmget\fR\|(2).
1297.TP
1298.B shmhuge
1299Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
1300.TP
1301.B mmap
1302Use \fBmmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
1303is given after the option in the format `:\fIfile\fR'.
1304.TP
1305.B mmaphuge
1306Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use huge files as backing.
1307.TP
1308.B mmapshared
1309Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
1310.RE
1311.P
1312The amount of memory allocated is the maximum allowed \fBblocksize\fR for the
1313job multiplied by \fBiodepth\fR. For \fBshmhuge\fR or \fBmmaphuge\fR to work,
1314the system must have free huge pages allocated. \fBmmaphuge\fR also needs to
1315have hugetlbfs mounted, and \fIfile\fR must point there. At least on Linux,
1316huge pages must be manually allocated. See \fB/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugehages\fR
1317and the documentation for that. Normally you just need to echo an appropriate
1318number, eg echoing 8 will ensure that the OS has 8 huge pages ready for
1319use.
1320.RE
1321.TP
1322.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
1323This indicates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
1324given alignment is applied to the first IO unit buffer, if using \fBiodepth\fR
1325the alignment of the following buffers are given by the \fBbs\fR used. In
1326other words, if using a \fBbs\fR that is a multiple of the page sized in the
1327system, all buffers will be aligned to this value. If using a \fBbs\fR that
1328is not page aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1329sum of the \fBiomem_align\fR and \fBbs\fR used.
1330.TP
1331.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
1332Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
1333Should be a multiple of 1MiB. Default: 4MiB.
1334.TP
1335.B exitall
1336Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
1337.TP
1338.B exitall_on_error \fR=\fPbool
1339Terminate all jobs if one job finishes in error. Default: wait for each job
1340to finish.
1341.TP
1342.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
1343Average bandwidth calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1344also does bandwidth logging through \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, then the minimum of
1345this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1346.TP
1347.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
1348Average IOPS calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1349also does IOPS logging through \fBwrite_iops_log\fR, then the minimum of
1350this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1351.TP
1352.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
1353If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
1354.TP
1355.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
1356\fBfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
1357.TP
1358.BI create_on_open \fR=\fPbool
1359If true, the files are not created until they are opened for IO by the job.
1360.TP
1361.BI create_only \fR=\fPbool
1362If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
1363laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done. The actual job contents
1364are not executed.
1365.TP
1366.BI allow_file_create \fR=\fPbool
1367If true, fio is permitted to create files as part of its workload. This is
1368the default behavior. If this option is false, then fio will error out if the
1369files it needs to use don't already exist. Default: true.
1370.TP
1371.BI allow_mounted_write \fR=\fPbool
1372If this isn't set, fio will abort jobs that are destructive (eg that write)
1373to what appears to be a mounted device or partition. This should help catch
1374creating inadvertently destructive tests, not realizing that the test will
1375destroy data on the mounted file system. Default: false.
1376.TP
1377.BI pre_read \fR=\fPbool
1378If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the given
1379IO operation. This will also clear the \fR \fBinvalidate\fR flag, since it is
1380pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO
1381engines that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1382multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice IO.
1383.TP
1384.BI unlink \fR=\fPbool
1385Unlink job files when done. Default: false.
1386.TP
1387.BI unlink_each_loop \fR=\fPbool
1388Unlink job files after each iteration or loop. Default: false.
1389.TP
1390.BI loops \fR=\fPint
1391Specifies the number of iterations (runs of the same workload) of this job.
1392Default: 1.
1393.TP
1394.BI verify_only \fR=\fPbool
1395Do not perform the specified workload, only verify data still matches previous
1396invocation of this workload. This option allows one to check data multiple
1397times at a later date without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1398workloads that write data, and does not support workloads with the
1399\fBtime_based\fR option set.
1400.TP
1401.BI do_verify \fR=\fPbool
1402Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if \fBverify\fR is set.
1403Default: true.
1404.TP
1405.BI verify \fR=\fPstr
1406Method of verifying file contents after each iteration of the job. Each
1407verification method also implies verification of special header, which is
1408written to the beginning of each block. This header also includes meta
1409information, like offset of the block, block number, timestamp when block
1410was written, etc. \fBverify\fR=str can be combined with \fBverify_pattern\fR=str
1411option. The allowed values are:
1412.RS
1413.RS
1414.TP
1415.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1 xxhash
1416Store appropriate checksum in the header of each block. crc32c-intel is
1417hardware accelerated SSE4.2 driven, falls back to regular crc32c if
1418not supported by the system.
1419.TP
1420.B meta
1421This option is deprecated, since now meta information is included in generic
1422verification header and meta verification happens by default. For detailed
1423information see the description of the \fBverify\fR=str setting. This option
1424is kept because of compatibility's sake with old configurations. Do not use it.
1425.TP
1426.B pattern
1427Verify a strict pattern. Normally fio includes a header with some basic
1428information and checksumming, but if this option is set, only the
1429specific pattern set with \fBverify_pattern\fR is verified.
1430.TP
1431.B null
1432Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
1433.RE
1434
1435This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
1436that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction given
1437is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a previously
1438written file. If the data direction includes any form of write, the verify will
1439be of the newly written data.
1440.RE
1441.TP
1442.BI verifysort \fR=\fPbool
1443If true, written verify blocks are sorted if \fBfio\fR deems it to be faster to
1444read them back in a sorted manner. Default: true.
1445.TP
1446.BI verifysort_nr \fR=\fPint
1447Pre-load and sort verify blocks for a read workload.
1448.TP
1449.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
1450Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
1451writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
1452.TP
1453.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
1454Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
1455\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
1456.TP
1457.BI verify_pattern \fR=\fPstr
1458If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to filling
1459with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1460pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the width of the pattern,
1461fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time(it can be either a
1462decimal or a hex number). The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity
1463has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use with
1464\fBverify\fP=str. Also, verify_pattern supports %o format, which means that for
1465each block offset will be written and then verified back, e.g.:
1466.RS
1467.RS
1468\fBverify_pattern\fR=%o
1469.RE
1470Or use combination of everything:
1471.LP
1472.RS
1473\fBverify_pattern\fR=0xff%o"abcd"-21
1474.RE
1475.RE
1476.TP
1477.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
1478If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
1479false.
1480.TP
1481.BI verify_dump \fR=\fPbool
1482If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block we
1483read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of
1484data corruption occurred. Off by default.
1485.TP
1486.BI verify_async \fR=\fPint
1487Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting thread. This option
1488takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for IO
1489verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
1490to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even sync IO
1491engines can benefit from using an \fBiodepth\fR setting higher than 1, as it
1492allows them to have IO in flight while verifies are running.
1493.TP
1494.BI verify_async_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1495Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async IO verification threads.
1496See \fBcpus_allowed\fP for the format used.
1497.TP
1498.BI verify_backlog \fR=\fPint
1499Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
1500once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
1501everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1502instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with an
1503IO block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would
1504be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
1505only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1506.TP
1507.BI verify_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1508Control how many blocks fio will verify if verify_backlog is set. If not set,
1509will default to the value of \fBverify_backlog\fR (meaning the entire queue is
1510read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
1511\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
1512\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
1513will be verified more than once.
1514.TP
1515.BI trim_percentage \fR=\fPint
1516Number of verify blocks to discard/trim.
1517.TP
1518.BI trim_verify_zero \fR=\fPbool
1519Verify that trim/discarded blocks are returned as zeroes.
1520.TP
1521.BI trim_backlog \fR=\fPint
1522Trim after this number of blocks are written.
1523.TP
1524.BI trim_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1525Trim this number of IO blocks.
1526.TP
1527.BI experimental_verify \fR=\fPbool
1528Enable experimental verification.
1529.TP
1530.BI verify_state_save \fR=\fPbool
1531When a job exits during the write phase of a verify workload, save its
1532current state. This allows fio to replay up until that point, if the
1533verify state is loaded for the verify read phase.
1534.TP
1535.BI verify_state_load \fR=\fPbool
1536If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores the current write
1537state of each thread. This can be used at verification time so that fio
1538knows how far it should verify. Without this information, fio will run
1539a full verification pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
1540.TP
1541.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
1542Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
1543\fBstonewall\fR implies \fBnew_group\fR.
1544.TP
1545.B new_group
1546Start a new reporting group. If not given, all jobs in a file will be part
1547of the same reporting group, unless separated by a stonewall.
1548.TP
1549.BI numjobs \fR=\fPint
1550Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
1551Default: 1.
1552.TP
1553.B group_reporting
1554If set, display per-group reports instead of per-job when \fBnumjobs\fR is
1555specified.
1556.TP
1557.B thread
1558Use threads created with \fBpthread_create\fR\|(3) instead of processes created
1559with \fBfork\fR\|(2).
1560.TP
1561.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
1562Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1563.TP
1564.BI zonerange \fR=\fPint
1565Give size of an IO zone. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1566.TP
1567.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
1568Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
1569read.
1570.TP
1571.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1572Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. Specify a separate file
1573for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be
1574corrupt.
1575.TP
1576.BI read_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1577Replay the I/O patterns contained in the specified file generated by
1578\fBwrite_iolog\fR, or may be a \fBblktrace\fR binary file.
1579.TP
1580.BI replay_no_stall \fR=\fPint
1581While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1582attempts to respect timing information between I/Os. Enabling
1583\fBreplay_no_stall\fR causes I/Os to be replayed as fast as possible while
1584still respecting ordering.
1585.TP
1586.BI replay_redirect \fR=\fPstr
1587While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1588is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
1589from. Setting \fBreplay_redirect\fR causes all IOPS to be replayed onto the
1590single specified device regardless of the device it was recorded from.
1591.TP
1592.BI replay_align \fR=\fPint
1593Force alignment of IO offsets and lengths in a trace to this power of 2 value.
1594.TP
1595.BI replay_scale \fR=\fPint
1596Scale sector offsets down by this factor when replaying traces.
1597.TP
1598.BI per_job_logs \fR=\fPbool
1599If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per file private filenames. If
1600not set, jobs with identical names will share the log filename. Default: true.
1601.TP
1602.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
1603If given, write a bandwidth log for this job. Can be used to store data of the
1604bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots script
1605uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice graphs. See \fBwrite_lat_log\fR
1606for behaviour of given filename. For this option, the postfix is _bw.x.log,
1607where x is the index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). If
1608\fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will not include the job index.
1609See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1610section.
1611.TP
1612.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
1613Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
1614filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1615"jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1616N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still
1617append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will
1618not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1619.TP
1620.BI write_hist_log \fR=\fPstr
1621Same as \fBwrite_lat_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latency histograms. If
1622no filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1623"jobname_clat_hist.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1624N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still append
1625the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will not
1626include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1627.TP
1628.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1629Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
1630option, the default filename of "jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the
1631index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
1632is given, fio will still append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false,
1633then the filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1634section.
1635.TP
1636.BI log_avg_msec \fR=\fPint
1637By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
1638IO that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
1639very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
1640over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
1641\fBlog_max_value\fR as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
1642.TP
1643.BI log_max_value \fR=\fPbool
1644If \fBlog_avg_msec\fR is set, fio logs the average over that window. If you
1645instead want to log the maximum value, set this option to 1. Defaults to
16460, meaning that averaged values are logged.
1647.TP
1648.BI log_hist_msec \fR=\fPint
1649Same as \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, but logs entries for completion latency histograms.
1650Computing latency percentiles from averages of intervals using \fBlog_avg_msec\fR
1651is innacurate. Setting this option makes fio log histogram entries over the
1652specified period of time, reducing log sizes for high IOPS devices while
1653retaining percentile accuracy. See \fBlog_hist_coarseness\fR as well. Defaults
1654to 0, meaning histogram logging is disabled.
1655.TP
1656.BI log_hist_coarseness \fR=\fPint
1657Integer ranging from 0 to 6, defining the coarseness of the resolution of the
1658histogram logs enabled with \fBlog_hist_msec\fR. For each increment in
1659coarseness, fio outputs half as many bins. Defaults to 0, for which histogram
1660logs contain 1216 latency bins. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1661.TP
1662.BI log_offset \fR=\fPbool
1663If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte offset for the IO
1664entry as well as the other data values.
1665.TP
1666.BI log_compression \fR=\fPint
1667If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as it goes, to keep the memory
1668footprint lower. When a log reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed
1669and compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are fairly highly
1670compressible, this yields a nice memory savings for longer runs. The downside
1671is that the compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so it may
1672impact the run. This, however, is also true if the logging ends up consuming
1673most of the system memory. So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved
1674normally at the end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1675in the specified log file. This feature depends on the availability of zlib.
1676.TP
1677.BI log_compression_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1678Define the set of CPUs that are allowed to handle online log compression
1679for the IO jobs. This can provide better isolation between performance
1680sensitive jobs, and background compression work.
1681.TP
1682.BI log_store_compressed \fR=\fPbool
1683If set, fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They can be
1684decompressed with fio, using the \fB\-\-inflate-log\fR command line parameter.
1685The files will be stored with a \fB\.fz\fR suffix.
1686.TP
1687.BI log_unix_epoch \fR=\fPbool
1688If set, fio will log Unix timestamps to the log files produced by enabling
1689\fBwrite_type_log\fR for each log type, instead of the default zero-based
1690timestamps.
1691.TP
1692.BI block_error_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1693If set, record errors in trim block-sized units from writes and trims and output
1694a histogram of how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind of error
1695was encountered.
1696.TP
1697.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
1698Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
1699back the number of calls to \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2), as that does impact performance at
1700really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1701calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and disable_bw as well.
1702.TP
1703.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
1704Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1705.TP
1706.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
1707Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1708.TP
1709.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
1710Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1711.TP
1712.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
1713Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
1714simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1715.TP
1716.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1717Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
1718.RS
1719Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1720.RE
1721.TP
1722.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1723Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
1724.RS
1725Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1726.RE
1727.TP
1728.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1729Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1730.TP
1731.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
1732Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
1733.TP
1734.BI clocksource \fR=\fPstr
1735Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
1736.RS
1737.TP
1738.B gettimeofday
1739\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2)
1740.TP
1741.B clock_gettime
1742\fBclock_gettime\fR\|(2)
1743.TP
1744.B cpu
1745Internal CPU clock source
1746.TP
1747.RE
1748.P
1749\fBcpu\fR is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast
1750(and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource
1751if it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
1752unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
1753means supporting TSC Invariant.
1754.TP
1755.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
1756Enable all of the \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
1757disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
1758\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
1759the gtod() calls we would have done if all time keeping was enabled.
1760.TP
1761.BI gtod_cpu \fR=\fPint
1762Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just getting
1763the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very intensive on
1764\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
1765nothing but logging current time to a shared memory location. Then the other
1766threads/processes that run IO workloads need only copy that segment, instead of
1767entering the kernel with a \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call. The CPU set aside for doing
1768these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1769from the CPU mask of other jobs.
1770.TP
1771.BI ignore_error \fR=\fPstr
1772Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can specify
1773error list for each error type.
1774.br
1775ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1776.br
1777errors for given error type is separated with ':'.
1778Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or an integer.
1779.br
1780Example: ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122 .
1781.br
1782This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
1783.TP
1784.BI error_dump \fR=\fPbool
1785If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If disabled
1786only fatal error will be dumped
1787.TP
1788.BI profile \fR=\fPstr
1789Select a specific builtin performance test.
1790.TP
1791.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1792Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
1793The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
1794your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with:
1795
1796# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
1797.TP
1798.BI cgroup_weight \fR=\fPint
1799Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
1800with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
1801.TP
1802.BI cgroup_nodelete \fR=\fPbool
1803Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job completion.
1804To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the job completion,
1805set cgroup_nodelete=1. This can be useful if one wants to inspect various
1806cgroup files after job completion. Default: false
1807.TP
1808.BI uid \fR=\fPint
1809Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value before
1810the thread/process does any work.
1811.TP
1812.BI gid \fR=\fPint
1813Set group ID, see \fBuid\fR.
1814.TP
1815.BI unit_base \fR=\fPint
1816Base unit for reporting. Allowed values are:
1817.RS
1818.TP
1819.B 0
1820Use auto-detection (default).
1821.TP
1822.B 8
1823Byte based.
1824.TP
1825.B 1
1826Bit based.
1827.RE
1828.P
1829.TP
1830.BI flow_id \fR=\fPint
1831The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global flow. See
1832\fBflow\fR.
1833.TP
1834.BI flow \fR=\fPint
1835Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then there is a
1836\fBflow counter\fR which is used to regulate the proportion of activity between
1837two or more jobs. fio attempts to keep this flow counter near zero. The
1838\fBflow\fR parameter stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the
1839flow counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if one job has
1840\fBflow=8\fR and another job has \fBflow=-1\fR, then there will be a roughly
18411:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1842.TP
1843.BI flow_watermark \fR=\fPint
1844The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow counter is allowed to
1845reach before the job must wait for a lower value of the counter.
1846.TP
1847.BI flow_sleep \fR=\fPint
1848The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow watermark has been
1849exceeded before retrying operations
1850.TP
1851.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1852Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1853.TP
1854.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
1855Overwrite the default list of percentiles for completion latencies and the
1856block error histogram. Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
1857and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the
1858numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
1859report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1860the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1861.SS "Ioengine Parameters List"
1862Some parameters are only valid when a specific ioengine is in use. These are
1863used identically to normal parameters, with the caveat that when used on the
1864command line, they must come after the ioengine.
1865.TP
1866.BI (cpuio)cpuload \fR=\fPint
1867Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1868.TP
1869.BI (cpuio)cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1870Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
1871.TP
1872.BI (cpuio)exit_on_io_done \fR=\fPbool
1873Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1874.TP
1875.BI (libaio)userspace_reap
1876Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1877the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1878With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1879from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1880enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1881iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1882.TP
1883.BI (pvsync2)hipri
1884Set RWF_HIPRI on IO, indicating to the kernel that it's of
1885higher priority than normal.
1886.TP
1887.BI (net,netsplice)hostname \fR=\fPstr
1888The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1889If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1890used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
1891.TP
1892.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
1893The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used with
1894\fBnumjobs\fR to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then
1895this will be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
1896.TP
1897.BI (net,netsplice)interface \fR=\fPstr
1898The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP multicast
1899packets.
1900.TP
1901.BI (net,netsplice)ttl \fR=\fPint
1902Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1
1903.TP
1904.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1905Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1906.TP
1907.BI (net,netsplice)protocol \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP proto" \fR=\fPstr
1908The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1909.RS
1910.RS
1911.TP
1912.B tcp
1913Transmission control protocol
1914.TP
1915.B tcpv6
1916Transmission control protocol V6
1917.TP
1918.B udp
1919User datagram protocol
1920.TP
1921.B udpv6
1922User datagram protocol V6
1923.TP
1924.B unix
1925UNIX domain socket
1926.RE
1927.P
1928When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1929as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1930reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1931used and the port is invalid.
1932.RE
1933.TP
1934.BI (net,netsplice)listen
1935For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1936connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1937hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1938.TP
1939.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
1940Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
1941will just consume packets. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
1942payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the same payload back.
1943This allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission and completion
1944latencies then measure local time spent sending or receiving, and the
1945completion latency measures how long it took for the other end to receive and
1946send back. For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a single
1947reader when multiple readers are listening to the same address.
1948.TP
1949.BI (net, window_size) \fR=\fPint
1950Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1951.TP
1952.BI (net, mss) \fR=\fPint
1953Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1954.TP
1955.BI (e4defrag,donorname) \fR=\fPstr
1956File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files)
1957.TP
1958.BI (e4defrag,inplace) \fR=\fPint
1959Configure donor file block allocation strategy
1960.RS
1961.BI 0(default) :
1962Preallocate donor's file on init
1963.TP
1964.BI 1:
1965allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right after event
1966.RE
1967.TP
1968.BI (rbd)clustername \fR=\fPstr
1969Specifies the name of the ceph cluster.
1970.TP
1971.BI (rbd)rbdname \fR=\fPstr
1972Specifies the name of the RBD.
1973.TP
1974.BI (rbd)pool \fR=\fPstr
1975Specifies the name of the Ceph pool containing the RBD.
1976.TP
1977.BI (rbd)clientname \fR=\fPstr
1978Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the Ceph
1979cluster. If the clustername is specified, the clientname shall be the full
1980type.id string. If no type. prefix is given, fio will add 'client.' by default.
1981.TP
1982.BI (mtd)skipbad \fR=\fPbool
1983Skip operations against known bad blocks.
1984.SH OUTPUT
1985While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
1986example:
1987.RS
1988.P
1989Jobs: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
1990.RE
1991.P
1992The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
1993threads. The possible values are:
1994.P
1995.PD 0
1996.RS
1997.TP
1998.B P
1999Setup but not started.
2000.TP
2001.B C
2002Thread created.
2003.TP
2004.B I
2005Initialized, waiting.
2006.TP
2007.B R
2008Running, doing sequential reads.
2009.TP
2010.B r
2011Running, doing random reads.
2012.TP
2013.B W
2014Running, doing sequential writes.
2015.TP
2016.B w
2017Running, doing random writes.
2018.TP
2019.B M
2020Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
2021.TP
2022.B m
2023Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
2024.TP
2025.B F
2026Running, currently waiting for \fBfsync\fR\|(2).
2027.TP
2028.B V
2029Running, verifying written data.
2030.TP
2031.B E
2032Exited, not reaped by main thread.
2033.TP
2034.B \-
2035Exited, thread reaped.
2036.RE
2037.PD
2038.P
2039The second set of brackets shows the estimated completion percentage of
2040the current group. The third set shows the read and write I/O rate,
2041respectively. Finally, the estimated run time of the job is displayed.
2042.P
2043When \fBfio\fR completes (or is interrupted by Ctrl-C), it will show data
2044for each thread, each group of threads, and each disk, in that order.
2045.P
2046Per-thread statistics first show the threads client number, group-id, and
2047error code. The remaining figures are as follows:
2048.RS
2049.TP
2050.B io
2051Number of megabytes of I/O performed.
2052.TP
2053.B bw
2054Average data rate (bandwidth).
2055.TP
2056.B runt
2057Threads run time.
2058.TP
2059.B slat
2060Submission latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This is
2061the time it took to submit the I/O.
2062.TP
2063.B clat
2064Completion latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This
2065is the time between submission and completion.
2066.TP
2067.B bw
2068Bandwidth minimum, maximum, percentage of aggregate bandwidth received, average
2069and standard deviation.
2070.TP
2071.B cpu
2072CPU usage statistics. Includes user and system time, number of context switches
2073this thread went through and number of major and minor page faults. The CPU
2074utilization numbers are averages for the jobs in that reporting group, while
2075the context and fault counters are summed.
2076.TP
2077.B IO depths
2078Distribution of I/O depths. Each depth includes everything less than (or equal)
2079to it, but greater than the previous depth.
2080.TP
2081.B IO issued
2082Number of read/write requests issued, and number of short read/write requests.
2083.TP
2084.B IO latencies
2085Distribution of I/O completion latencies. The numbers follow the same pattern
2086as \fBIO depths\fR.
2087.RE
2088.P
2089The group statistics show:
2090.PD 0
2091.RS
2092.TP
2093.B io
2094Number of megabytes I/O performed.
2095.TP
2096.B aggrb
2097Aggregate bandwidth of threads in the group.
2098.TP
2099.B minb
2100Minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
2101.TP
2102.B maxb
2103Maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
2104.TP
2105.B mint
2106Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
2107.TP
2108.B maxt
2109Longest runtime of threads in the group.
2110.RE
2111.PD
2112.P
2113Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
2114.PD 0
2115.RS
2116.TP
2117.B ios
2118Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
2119.TP
2120.B merge
2121Number of merges in the I/O scheduler.
2122.TP
2123.B ticks
2124Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
2125.TP
2126.B io_queue
2127Total time spent in the disk queue.
2128.TP
2129.B util
2130Disk utilization.
2131.RE
2132.PD
2133.P
2134It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
2135running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the \fBUSR1\fR
2136signal.
2137.SH TERSE OUTPUT
2138If the \fB\-\-minimal\fR / \fB\-\-append-terse\fR options are given, the
2139results will be printed/appended in a semicolon-delimited format suitable for
2140scripted use.
2141A job description (if provided) follows on a new line. Note that the first
2142number in the line is the version number. If the output has to be changed
2143for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
2144change. The fields are:
2145.P
2146.RS
2147.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
2148.P
2149Read status:
2150.RS
2151.B Total I/O \fR(KiB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KiB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
2152.P
2153Submission latency:
2154.RS
2155.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2156.RE
2157Completion latency:
2158.RS
2159.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2160.RE
2161Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2162.RS
2163.B Xth percentile=usec
2164.RE
2165Total latency:
2166.RS
2167.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2168.RE
2169Bandwidth:
2170.RS
2171.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2172.RE
2173.RE
2174.P
2175Write status:
2176.RS
2177.B Total I/O \fR(KiB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KiB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
2178.P
2179Submission latency:
2180.RS
2181.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2182.RE
2183Completion latency:
2184.RS
2185.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2186.RE
2187Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2188.RS
2189.B Xth percentile=usec
2190.RE
2191Total latency:
2192.RS
2193.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2194.RE
2195Bandwidth:
2196.RS
2197.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2198.RE
2199.RE
2200.P
2201CPU usage:
2202.RS
2203.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
2204.RE
2205.P
2206IO depth distribution:
2207.RS
2208.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
2209.RE
2210.P
2211IO latency distribution:
2212.RS
2213Microseconds:
2214.RS
2215.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
2216.RE
2217Milliseconds:
2218.RS
2219.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
2220.RE
2221.RE
2222.P
2223Disk utilization (1 for each disk used):
2224.RS
2225.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
2226.RE
2227.P
2228Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
2229.RS
2230.B total # errors, first error code
2231.RE
2232.P
2233.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
2234.RE
2235.SH TRACE FILE FORMAT
2236There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
2237is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
2238below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
2239
2240In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
2241
2242.P
2243.B Trace file format v1
2244.RS
2245Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
2246
2247rw, offset, length
2248
2249where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
2250
2251This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
2252
2253.RE
2254.P
2255.B Trace file format v2
2256.RS
2257The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
2258It allows one to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
2259possible file actions.
2260
2261The first line of the trace file has to be:
2262
2263\fBfio version 2 iolog\fR
2264
2265Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
2266The file management format:
2267
2268\fBfilename action\fR
2269
2270The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
2271
2272.P
2273.PD 0
2274.RS
2275.TP
2276.B add
2277Add the given filename to the trace
2278.TP
2279.B open
2280Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have been previously
2281added with the \fBadd\fR action.
2282.TP
2283.B close
2284Close the file with the given filename. The file must have previously been
2285opened.
2286.RE
2287.PD
2288.P
2289
2290The file io action format:
2291
2292\fBfilename action offset length\fR
2293
2294The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
2295before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
2296bytes. The action can be one of these:
2297
2298.P
2299.PD 0
2300.RS
2301.TP
2302.B wait
2303Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded. The time is
2304relative to the previous wait statement.
2305.TP
2306.B read
2307Read \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2308.TP
2309.B write
2310Write \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2311.TP
2312.B sync
2313fsync() the file
2314.TP
2315.B datasync
2316fdatasync() the file
2317.TP
2318.B trim
2319trim the given file from the given \fBoffset\fR for \fBlength\fR bytes
2320.RE
2321.PD
2322.P
2323
2324.SH CPU IDLENESS PROFILING
2325In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
2326we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
2327fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
2328idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
2329By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
2330CPU can be derived accordingly.
2331
2332An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
2333and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
2334work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
2335overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
2336
2337.SH VERIFICATION AND TRIGGERS
2338Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
2339first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
2340write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
2341it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
2342on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
2343same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
2344on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
2345data was written.
2346
2347With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
2348to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
2349and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
2350power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
2351
2352A verification trigger consists of two things:
2353
2354.RS
2355Storing the write state of each job
2356.LP
2357Executing a trigger command
2358.RE
2359
2360The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
2361to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
2362done, the last X completions, etc.
2363
2364A trigger is invoked either through creation (\fBtouch\fR) of a specified
2365file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
2366\fB\-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/trigger-file\fR, then it will continually check for
2367the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
2368fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
2369command).
2370
2371For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
2372fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
2373to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
2374specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
2375back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
2376
2377.RE
2378.P
2379.B Verification trigger example
2380.RS
2381
2382Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
2383Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
2384at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
2385or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
2386backend normally:
2387
2388server# \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2389
2390and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
2391
2392localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger-remote="bash \-c "echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger""\fR
2393
2394We set \fB/tmp/my-trigger\fR as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
2395
2396\fBecho b > /proc/sysrq-trigger\fR
2397
2398on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
2399state. This will work, but it's not \fIreally\fR cutting power to the server,
2400it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
2401power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
2402a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
2403IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
2404then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
2405
2406localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger="ipmi-reboot server"\fR
2407
2408For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
2409then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
2410
2411.RE
2412.P
2413.B Loading verify state
2414.RS
2415To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
2416the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
2417stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
2418and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
2419the files over and load them from there.
2420
2421.RE
2422
2423.SH LOG FILE FORMATS
2424
2425Fio supports a variety of log file formats, for logging latencies, bandwidth,
2426and IOPS. The logs share a common format, which looks like this:
2427
2428.B time (msec), value, data direction, offset
2429
2430Time for the log entry is always in milliseconds. The value logged depends
2431on the type of log, it will be one of the following:
2432
2433.P
2434.PD 0
2435.TP
2436.B Latency log
2437Value is in latency in usecs
2438.TP
2439.B Bandwidth log
2440Value is in KiB/sec
2441.TP
2442.B IOPS log
2443Value is in IOPS
2444.PD
2445.P
2446
2447Data direction is one of the following:
2448
2449.P
2450.PD 0
2451.TP
2452.B 0
2453IO is a READ
2454.TP
2455.B 1
2456IO is a WRITE
2457.TP
2458.B 2
2459IO is a TRIM
2460.PD
2461.P
2462
2463The \fIoffset\fR is the offset, in bytes, from the start of the file, for that
2464particular IO. The logging of the offset can be toggled with \fBlog_offset\fR.
2465
2466If windowed logging is enabled through \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, then fio doesn't log
2467individual IOs. Instead of logs the average values over the specified
2468period of time. Since \fIdata direction\fR and \fIoffset\fR are per-IO values,
2469they aren't applicable if windowed logging is enabled. If windowed logging
2470is enabled and \fBlog_max_value\fR is set, then fio logs maximum values in
2471that window instead of averages.
2472
2473For histogram logging the logs look like this:
2474
2475.B time (msec), data direction, block-size, bin 0, bin 1, ..., bin 1215
2476
2477Where 'bin i' gives the frequency of IO requests with a latency falling in
2478the i-th bin. See \fBlog_hist_coarseness\fR for logging fewer bins.
2479
2480.RE
2481
2482.SH CLIENT / SERVER
2483Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
2484where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
2485run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
2486have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
2487be running, while controlling it from another machine.
2488
2489To start the server, you would do:
2490
2491\fBfio \-\-server=args\fR
2492
2493on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
2494are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
2495for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain
2496socket. 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
2497listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
2498
24991) \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2500
2501 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
2502
25032) \fBfio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444\fR
2504
2505 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
2506
25073) \fBfio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444\fR
2508
2509 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
2510
25114) \fBfio \-\-server=,4444\fR
2512
2513 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
2514
25155) \fBfio \-\-server=1.2.3.4\fR
2516
2517 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
2518
25196) \fBfio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock\fR
2520
2521 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
2522
2523When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
2524is run with:
2525
2526\fBfio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>\fR
2527
2528where \-\-local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
2529running, 'server' is the connect string, and \-\-remote-args and <job file(s)>
2530are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
2531does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
2532You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
2533
2534\fBfio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>\fR
2535
2536If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
2537to load a local file as well. This is done by using \-\-remote-config:
2538
2539\fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-remote-config /path/to/file.fio\fR
2540
2541Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
2542of being passed one from the client.
2543
2544If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
2545of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter value for the \-\-client option.
2546For example, here is an example "host.list" file containing 2 hostnames:
2547
2548host1.your.dns.domain
2549.br
2550host2.your.dns.domain
2551
2552The fio command would then be:
2553
2554\fBfio \-\-client=host.list <job file>\fR
2555
2556In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files, and all
2557servers receive the same job file.
2558
2559In order to enable fio \-\-client runs utilizing a shared filesystem from multiple hosts,
2560fio \-\-client now prepends the IP address of the server to the filename. For example,
2561if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio and is writing filename fileio.tmp,
2562with a \-\-client hostfile
2563containing two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and 192.168.10.121, then
2564fio will create two files:
2565
2566/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
2567.br
2568/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
2569
2570.SH AUTHORS
2571
2572.B fio
2573was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
2574now Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>.
2575.br
2576This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
2577on documentation by Jens Axboe.
2578.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
2579Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
2580See \fBREADME\fR.
2581.SH "SEE ALSO"
2582For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
2583.br
2584Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.