zipf/pareto/gauss: add option to disable hashing
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1.TH fio 1 "December 2014" "User Manual"
2.SH NAME
3fio \- flexible I/O tester
4.SH SYNOPSIS
5.B fio
6[\fIoptions\fR] [\fIjobfile\fR]...
7.SH DESCRIPTION
8.B fio
9is a tool that will spawn a number of threads or processes doing a
10particular type of I/O action as specified by the user.
11The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching the I/O load
12one wants to simulate.
13.SH OPTIONS
14.TP
15.BI \-\-debug \fR=\fPtype
16Enable verbose tracing of various fio actions. May be `all' for all types
17or individual types separated by a comma (eg \-\-debug=io,file). `help' will
18list all available tracing options.
19.TP
20.BI \-\-output \fR=\fPfilename
21Write output to \fIfilename\fR.
22.TP
23.BI \-\-output-format \fR=\fPformat
24Set the reporting format to \fInormal\fR, \fIterse\fR, \fIjson\fR, or
25\fIjson+\fR. Multiple formats can be selected, separate by a comma. \fIterse\fR
26is a CSV based format. \fIjson+\fR is like \fIjson\fR, except it adds a full
27dump of the latency buckets.
28.TP
29.BI \-\-runtime \fR=\fPruntime
30Limit run time to \fIruntime\fR seconds.
31.TP
32.B \-\-bandwidth\-log
33Generate per-job bandwidth logs.
34.TP
35.B \-\-minimal
36Print statistics in a terse, semicolon-delimited format.
37.TP
38.B \-\-append-terse
39Print statistics in selected mode AND terse, semicolon-delimited format.
40Deprecated, use \-\-output-format instead to select multiple formats.
41.TP
42.B \-\-version
43Display version information and exit.
44.TP
45.BI \-\-terse\-version \fR=\fPversion
46Set terse version output format (Current version 3, or older version 2).
47.TP
48.B \-\-help
49Display usage information and exit.
50.TP
51.B \-\-cpuclock-test
52Perform test and validation of internal CPU clock
53.TP
54.BI \-\-crctest[\fR=\fPtest]
55Test the speed of the builtin checksumming functions. If no argument is given,
56all of them are tested. Or a comma separated list can be passed, in which
57case the given ones are tested.
58.TP
59.BI \-\-cmdhelp \fR=\fPcommand
60Print help information for \fIcommand\fR. May be `all' for all commands.
61.TP
62.BI \-\-enghelp \fR=\fPioengine[,command]
63List all commands defined by \fIioengine\fR, or print help for \fIcommand\fR defined by \fIioengine\fR.
64.TP
65.BI \-\-showcmd \fR=\fPjobfile
66Convert \fIjobfile\fR to a set of command-line options.
67.TP
68.BI \-\-eta \fR=\fPwhen
69Specifies when real-time ETA estimate should be printed. \fIwhen\fR may
70be one of `always', `never' or `auto'.
71.TP
72.BI \-\-eta\-newline \fR=\fPtime
73Force an ETA newline for every `time` period passed.
74.TP
75.BI \-\-status\-interval \fR=\fPtime
76Report full output status every `time` period passed.
77.TP
78.BI \-\-readonly
79Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing any attempted write.
80.TP
81.BI \-\-section \fR=\fPsec
82Only run section \fIsec\fR from job file. This option can be used multiple times to add more sections to run.
83.TP
84.BI \-\-alloc\-size \fR=\fPkb
85Set the internal smalloc pool size to \fIkb\fP kilobytes.
86.TP
87.BI \-\-warnings\-fatal
88All fio parser warnings are fatal, causing fio to exit with an error.
89.TP
90.BI \-\-max\-jobs \fR=\fPnr
91Set the maximum allowed number of jobs (threads/processes) to support.
92.TP
93.BI \-\-server \fR=\fPargs
94Start a backend server, with \fIargs\fP specifying what to listen to. See client/server section.
95.TP
96.BI \-\-daemonize \fR=\fPpidfile
97Background a fio server, writing the pid to the given pid file.
98.TP
99.BI \-\-client \fR=\fPhost
100Instead of running the jobs locally, send and run them on the given host or set of hosts. See client/server section.
101.TP
102.BI \-\-idle\-prof \fR=\fPoption
103Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis (\fIoption\fP=system,percpu) or run unit work calibration only (\fIoption\fP=calibrate).
104.SH "JOB FILE FORMAT"
105Job files are in `ini' format. They consist of one or more
106job definitions, which begin with a job name in square brackets and
107extend to the next job name. The job name can be any ASCII string
108except `global', which has a special meaning. Following the job name is
109a sequence of zero or more parameters, one per line, that define the
110behavior of the job. Any line starting with a `;' or `#' character is
111considered a comment and ignored.
112.P
113If \fIjobfile\fR is specified as `-', the job file will be read from
114standard input.
115.SS "Global Section"
116The global section contains default parameters for jobs specified in the
117job file. A job is only affected by global sections residing above it,
118and there may be any number of global sections. Specific job definitions
119may override any parameter set in global sections.
120.SH "JOB PARAMETERS"
121.SS Types
122Some parameters may take arguments of a specific type.
123Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression may be used,
124provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators are:
125.RS
126.RS
127.TP
128.B addition (+)
129.TP
130.B subtraction (-)
131.TP
132.B multiplication (*)
133.TP
134.B division (/)
135.TP
136.B modulus (%)
137.TP
138.B exponentiation (^)
139.RE
140.RE
141.P
142For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
143different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
144parentheses). The types used are:
145.TP
146.I str
147String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
148.TP
149.I int
150SI integer: a whole number, possibly containing a suffix denoting the base unit
151of the value. Accepted suffixes are `k', 'M', 'G', 'T', and 'P', denoting
152kilo (1024), mega (1024^2), giga (1024^3), tera (1024^4), and peta (1024^5)
153respectively. If prefixed with '0x', the value is assumed to be base 16
154(hexadecimal). A suffix may include a trailing 'b', for instance 'kb' is
155identical to 'k'. You can specify a base 10 value by using 'KiB', 'MiB','GiB',
156etc. This is useful for disk drives where values are often given in base 10
157values. Specifying '30GiB' will get you 30*1000^3 bytes.
158When specifying times the default suffix meaning changes, still denoting the
159base unit of the value, but accepted suffixes are 'D' (days), 'H' (hours), 'M'
160(minutes), 'S' Seconds, 'ms' (or msec) milli seconds, 'us' (or 'usec') micro
161seconds. Time values without a unit specify seconds.
162The suffixes are not case sensitive.
163.TP
164.I bool
165Boolean: a true or false value. `0' denotes false, `1' denotes true.
166.TP
167.I irange
168Integer range: a range of integers specified in the format
169\fIlower\fR:\fIupper\fR or \fIlower\fR\-\fIupper\fR. \fIlower\fR and
170\fIupper\fR may contain a suffix as described above. If an option allows two
171sets of ranges, they are separated with a `,' or `/' character. For example:
172`8\-8k/8M\-4G'.
173.TP
174.I float_list
175List of floating numbers: A list of floating numbers, separated by
176a ':' character.
177.SS "Parameter List"
178.TP
179.BI name \fR=\fPstr
180May be used to override the job name. On the command line, this parameter
181has the special purpose of signalling the start of a new job.
182.TP
183.BI wait_for \fR=\fPstr
184Specifies the name of the already defined job to wait for. Single waitee name
185only may be specified. If set, the job won't be started until all workers of
186the waitee job are done. Wait_for operates on the job name basis, so there are
187a few limitations. First, the waitee must be defined prior to the waiter job
188(meaning no forward references). Second, if a job is being referenced as a
189waitee, it must have a unique name (no duplicate waitees).
190.TP
191.BI description \fR=\fPstr
192Human-readable description of the job. It is printed when the job is run, but
193otherwise has no special purpose.
194.TP
195.BI directory \fR=\fPstr
196Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files in a location other
197than `./'.
198You can specify a number of directories by separating the names with a ':'
199character. These directories will be assigned equally distributed to job clones
200creates with \fInumjobs\fR as long as they are using generated filenames.
201If specific \fIfilename(s)\fR are set fio will use the first listed directory,
202and thereby matching the \fIfilename\fR semantic which generates a file each
203clone if not specified, but let all clones use the same if set. See
204\fIfilename\fR for considerations regarding escaping certain characters on
205some platforms.
206.TP
207.BI filename \fR=\fPstr
208.B fio
209normally makes up a file name based on the job name, thread number, and file
210number. If you want to share files between threads in a job or several jobs,
211specify a \fIfilename\fR for each of them to override the default.
212If the I/O engine is file-based, you can specify
213a number of files by separating the names with a `:' character. `\-' is a
214reserved name, meaning stdin or stdout, depending on the read/write direction
215set. On Windows, disk devices are accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first
216device, \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and FreeBSD
217prevent write access to areas of the disk containing in-use data
218(e.g. filesystems). If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
219escape that with a '\\' character. For instance, if the filename is
220"/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\\:c".
221.TP
222.BI filename_format \fR=\fPstr
223If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary to have
224fio generate the exact names that you want. By default, fio will name a file
225based on the default file format specification of
226\fBjobname.jobnumber.filenumber\fP. With this option, that can be
227customized. Fio will recognize and replace the following keywords in this
228string:
229.RS
230.RS
231.TP
232.B $jobname
233The name of the worker thread or process.
234.TP
235.B $jobnum
236The incremental number of the worker thread or process.
237.TP
238.B $filenum
239The incremental number of the file for that worker thread or process.
240.RE
241.P
242To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can be set to
243have fio generate filenames that are shared between the two. For instance,
244if \fBtestfiles.$filenum\fR is specified, file number 4 for any job will
245be named \fBtestfiles.4\fR. The default of \fB$jobname.$jobnum.$filenum\fR
246will be used if no other format specifier is given.
247.RE
248.P
249.TP
250.BI lockfile \fR=\fPstr
251Fio defaults to not locking any files before it does IO to them. If a file or
252file descriptor is shared, fio can serialize IO to that file to make the end
253result consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that share files.
254The lock modes are:
255.RS
256.RS
257.TP
258.B none
259No locking. This is the default.
260.TP
261.B exclusive
262Only one thread or process may do IO at a time, excluding all others.
263.TP
264.B readwrite
265Read-write locking on the file. Many readers may access the file at the same
266time, but writes get exclusive access.
267.RE
268.RE
269.P
270.BI opendir \fR=\fPstr
271Recursively open any files below directory \fIstr\fR.
272.TP
273.BI readwrite \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP rw" \fR=\fPstr
274Type of I/O pattern. Accepted values are:
275.RS
276.RS
277.TP
278.B read
279Sequential reads.
280.TP
281.B write
282Sequential writes.
283.TP
284.B trim
285Sequential trim (Linux block devices only).
286.TP
287.B randread
288Random reads.
289.TP
290.B randwrite
291Random writes.
292.TP
293.B randtrim
294Random trim (Linux block devices only).
295.TP
296.B rw, readwrite
297Mixed sequential reads and writes.
298.TP
299.B randrw
300Mixed random reads and writes.
301.TP
302.B trimwrite
303Trim and write mixed workload. Blocks will be trimmed first, then the same
304blocks will be written to.
305.RE
306.P
307For mixed I/O, the default split is 50/50. For certain types of io the result
308may still be skewed a bit, since the speed may be different. It is possible to
309specify a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is done by
310appending a `:\fI<nr>\fR to the end of the string given. For a random read, it
311would look like \fBrw=randread:8\fR for passing in an offset modifier with a
312value of 8. If the postfix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
313specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO. For instance,
314using \fBrw=write:4k\fR will skip 4k for every write. It turns sequential IO
315into sequential IO with holes. See the \fBrw_sequencer\fR option.
316.RE
317.TP
318.BI rw_sequencer \fR=\fPstr
319If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to the \fBrw=<str>\fR line,
320then this option controls how that number modifies the IO offset being
321generated. Accepted values are:
322.RS
323.RS
324.TP
325.B sequential
326Generate sequential offset
327.TP
328.B identical
329Generate the same offset
330.RE
331.P
332\fBsequential\fR is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
333generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append eg 8 to randread, you
334would get a new random offset for every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for
335only every 8 IO's, instead of for every IO. Use \fBrw=randread:8\fR to specify
336that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting \fBsequential\fR for that
337would not result in any differences. \fBidentical\fR behaves in a similar
338fashion, except it sends the same offset 8 number of times before generating a
339new offset.
340.RE
341.P
342.TP
343.BI kb_base \fR=\fPint
344The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024. Storage
345manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base ten unit instead, for obvious
346reasons. Allowed values are 1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
347.TP
348.BI unified_rw_reporting \fR=\fPbool
349Fio normally reports statistics on a per data direction basis, meaning that
350read, write, and trim are accounted and reported separately. If this option is
351set fio sums the results and reports them as "mixed" instead.
352.TP
353.BI randrepeat \fR=\fPbool
354Seed the random number generator used for random I/O patterns in a predictable
355way so the pattern is repeatable across runs. Default: true.
356.TP
357.BI allrandrepeat \fR=\fPbool
358Seed all random number generators in a predictable way so results are
359repeatable across runs. Default: false.
360.TP
361.BI randseed \fR=\fPint
362Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to be able to
363control what sequence of output is being generated. If not set, the random
364sequence depends on the \fBrandrepeat\fR setting.
365.TP
366.BI fallocate \fR=\fPstr
367Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files. Accepted values
368are:
369.RS
370.RS
371.TP
372.B none
373Do not pre-allocate space.
374.TP
375.B posix
376Pre-allocate via \fBposix_fallocate\fR\|(3).
377.TP
378.B keep
379Pre-allocate via \fBfallocate\fR\|(2) with FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set.
380.TP
381.B 0
382Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
383.TP
384.B 1
385Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'.
386.RE
387.P
388May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
389available on Linux. If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to 'none'
390because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
391.RE
392.TP
393.BI fadvise_hint \fR=\fPbool
394Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what I/O patterns
395are likely to be issued. Default: true.
396.TP
397.BI fadvise_stream \fR=\fPint
398Use \fBposix_fadvise\fR\|(2) to advise the kernel what stream ID the
399writes issued belong to. Only supported on Linux. Note, this option
400may change going forward.
401.TP
402.BI size \fR=\fPint
403Total size of I/O for this job. \fBfio\fR will run until this many bytes have
404been transferred, unless limited by other options (\fBruntime\fR, for instance,
405or increased/descreased by \fBio_size\fR). Unless \fBnrfiles\fR and
406\fBfilesize\fR options are given, this amount will be divided between the
407available files for the job. If not set, fio will use the full size of the
408given files or devices. If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is
409also possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20% is
410given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given files or devices.
411.TP
412.BI io_size \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fB io_limit \fR=\fPint
413Normally fio operates within the region set by \fBsize\fR, which means that
414the \fBsize\fR option sets both the region and size of IO to be performed.
415Sometimes that is not what you want. With this option, it is possible to
416define just the amount of IO that fio should do. For instance, if \fBsize\fR
417is set to 20G and \fBio_limit\fR is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within
418the first 20G but exit when 5G have been done. The opposite is also
419possible - if \fBsize\fR is set to 20G, and \fBio_size\fR is set to 40G, then
420fio will do 40G of IO within the 0..20G region.
421.TP
422.BI fill_device \fR=\fPbool "\fR,\fB fill_fs" \fR=\fPbool
423Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no space left on
424device) as the terminating condition. Only makes sense with sequential write.
425For a read workload, the mount point will be filled first then IO started on
426the result. This option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
427since the size of that is already known by the file system. Additionally,
428writing beyond end-of-device will not return ENOSPC there.
429.TP
430.BI filesize \fR=\fPirange
431Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case \fBfio\fR will select sizes
432for files at random within the given range, limited to \fBsize\fR in total (if
433that is given). If \fBfilesize\fR is not specified, each created file is the
434same size.
435.TP
436.BI file_append \fR=\fPbool
437Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will operate within the
438size of a file. If this option is set, then fio will append to the file
439instead. This has identical behavior to setting \fRoffset\fP to the size
440of a file. This option is ignored on non-regular files.
441.TP
442.BI blocksize \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB bs" \fR=\fPint[,int]
443Block size for I/O units. Default: 4k. Values for reads, writes, and trims
444can be specified separately in the format \fIread\fR,\fIwrite\fR,\fItrim\fR
445either of which may be empty to leave that value at its default. If a trailing
446comma isn't given, the remainder will inherit the last value set.
447.TP
448.BI blocksize_range \fR=\fPirange[,irange] "\fR,\fB bsrange" \fR=\fPirange[,irange]
449Specify a range of I/O block sizes. The issued I/O unit will always be a
450multiple of the minimum size, unless \fBblocksize_unaligned\fR is set. Applies
451to both reads and writes if only one range is given, but can be specified
452separately with a comma separating the values. Example: bsrange=1k-4k,2k-8k.
453Also (see \fBblocksize\fR).
454.TP
455.BI bssplit \fR=\fPstr
456This option allows even finer grained control of the block sizes issued,
457not just even splits between them. With this option, you can weight various
458block sizes for exact control of the issued IO for a job that has mixed
459block sizes. The format of the option is bssplit=blocksize/percentage,
460optionally adding as many definitions as needed separated by a colon.
461Example: bssplit=4k/10:64k/50:32k/40 would issue 50% 64k blocks, 10% 4k
462blocks and 40% 32k blocks. \fBbssplit\fR also supports giving separate
463splits to reads and writes. The format is identical to what the
464\fBbs\fR option accepts, the read and write parts are separated with a
465comma.
466.TP
467.B blocksize_unaligned\fR,\fP bs_unaligned
468If set, any size in \fBblocksize_range\fR may be used. This typically won't
469work with direct I/O, as that normally requires sector alignment.
470.TP
471.BI blockalign \fR=\fPint[,int] "\fR,\fB ba" \fR=\fPint[,int]
472At what boundary to align random IO offsets. Defaults to the same as 'blocksize'
473the minimum blocksize given. Minimum alignment is typically 512b
474for using direct IO, though it usually depends on the hardware block size.
475This option is mutually exclusive with using a random map for files, so it
476will turn off that option.
477.TP
478.BI bs_is_seq_rand \fR=\fPbool
479If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write blocksize settings as
480sequential,random instead. Any random read or write will use the WRITE
481blocksize settings, and any sequential read or write will use the READ
482blocksize setting.
483.TP
484.B zero_buffers
485Initialize buffers with all zeros. Default: fill buffers with random data.
486.TP
487.B refill_buffers
488If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers on every submit. The
489default is to only fill it at init time and reuse that data. Only makes sense
490if zero_buffers isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
491refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
492.TP
493.BI scramble_buffers \fR=\fPbool
494If \fBrefill_buffers\fR is too costly and the target is using data
495deduplication, then setting this option will slightly modify the IO buffer
496contents to defeat normal de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat
497more clever block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe
498of blocks. Default: true.
499.TP
500.BI buffer_compress_percentage \fR=\fPint
501If this is set, then fio will attempt to provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs)
502that compress to the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
503random data and a fixed pattern. The fixed pattern is either zeroes, or the
504pattern specified by \fBbuffer_pattern\fR. If the pattern option is used, it
505might skew the compression ratio slightly. Note that this is per block size
506unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches this setting. Note
507that this is per block size unit, for file/disk wide compression level that
508matches this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
509.TP
510.BI buffer_compress_chunk \fR=\fPint
511See \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR. This setting allows fio to manage how
512big the ranges of random data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
513provide \fBbuffer_compress_percentage\fR of blocksize random data, followed by
514the remaining zeroed. With this set to some chunk size smaller than the block
515size, fio can alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO buffer.
516.TP
517.BI buffer_pattern \fR=\fPstr
518If set, fio will fill the IO buffers with this pattern. If not set, the contents
519of IO buffers is defined by the other options related to buffer contents. The
520setting can be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
521values. It may also be a string, where the string must then be wrapped with
522"", e.g.:
523.RS
524.RS
525\fBbuffer_pattern\fR="abcd"
526.RS
527or
528.RE
529\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=-12
530.RS
531or
532.RE
533\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface
534.RE
535.LP
536Also you can combine everything together in any order:
537.LP
538.RS
539\fBbuffer_pattern\fR=0xdeadface"abcd"-12
540.RE
541.RE
542.TP
543.BI dedupe_percentage \fR=\fPint
544If set, fio will generate this percentage of identical buffers when writing.
545These buffers will be naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend
546on what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's possible to have
547the individual buffers either fully compressible, or not at all. This option
548only controls the distribution of unique buffers.
549.TP
550.BI nrfiles \fR=\fPint
551Number of files to use for this job. Default: 1.
552.TP
553.BI openfiles \fR=\fPint
554Number of files to keep open at the same time. Default: \fBnrfiles\fR.
555.TP
556.BI file_service_type \fR=\fPstr
557Defines how files to service are selected. The following types are defined:
558.RS
559.RS
560.TP
561.B random
562Choose a file at random.
563.TP
564.B roundrobin
565Round robin over opened files (default).
566.TP
567.B sequential
568Do each file in the set sequentially.
569.RE
570.P
571The number of I/Os to issue before switching to a new file can be specified by
572appending `:\fIint\fR' to the service type.
573.RE
574.TP
575.BI ioengine \fR=\fPstr
576Defines how the job issues I/O. The following types are defined:
577.RS
578.RS
579.TP
580.B sync
581Basic \fBread\fR\|(2) or \fBwrite\fR\|(2) I/O. \fBfseek\fR\|(2) is used to
582position the I/O location.
583.TP
584.B psync
585Basic \fBpread\fR\|(2) or \fBpwrite\fR\|(2) I/O.
586.TP
587.B vsync
588Basic \fBreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBwritev\fR\|(2) I/O. Will emulate queuing by
589coalescing adjacent IOs into a single submission.
590.TP
591.B pvsync
592Basic \fBpreadv\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev\fR\|(2) I/O.
593.TP
594.B pvsync2
595Basic \fBpreadv2\fR\|(2) or \fBpwritev2\fR\|(2) I/O.
596.TP
597.B libaio
598Linux native asynchronous I/O. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
599.TP
600.B posixaio
601POSIX asynchronous I/O using \fBaio_read\fR\|(3) and \fBaio_write\fR\|(3).
602.TP
603.B solarisaio
604Solaris native asynchronous I/O.
605.TP
606.B windowsaio
607Windows native asynchronous I/O.
608.TP
609.B mmap
610File is memory mapped with \fBmmap\fR\|(2) and data copied using
611\fBmemcpy\fR\|(3).
612.TP
613.B splice
614\fBsplice\fR\|(2) is used to transfer the data and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to
615transfer data from user-space to the kernel.
616.TP
617.B syslet-rw
618Use the syslet system calls to make regular read/write asynchronous.
619.TP
620.B sg
621SCSI generic sg v3 I/O. May be either synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
622the target is an sg character device, we use \fBread\fR\|(2) and
623\fBwrite\fR\|(2) for asynchronous I/O.
624.TP
625.B null
626Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends to. Mainly used to exercise \fBfio\fR
627itself and for debugging and testing purposes.
628.TP
629.B net
630Transfer over the network. The protocol to be used can be defined with the
631\fBprotocol\fR parameter. Depending on the protocol, \fBfilename\fR,
632\fBhostname\fR, \fBport\fR, or \fBlisten\fR must be specified.
633This ioengine defines engine specific options.
634.TP
635.B netsplice
636Like \fBnet\fR, but uses \fBsplice\fR\|(2) and \fBvmsplice\fR\|(2) to map data
637and send/receive. This ioengine defines engine specific options.
638.TP
639.B cpuio
640Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU cycles according to \fBcpuload\fR and
641\fBcpucycles\fR parameters.
642.TP
643.B guasi
644The GUASI I/O engine is the Generic Userspace Asynchronous Syscall Interface
645approach to asynchronous I/O.
646.br
647See <http://www.xmailserver.org/guasi\-lib.html>.
648.TP
649.B rdma
650The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ)
651and channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
652.TP
653.B external
654Loads an external I/O engine object file. Append the engine filename as
655`:\fIenginepath\fR'.
656.TP
657.B falloc
658 IO engine that does regular linux native fallocate call to simulate data
659transfer as fio ioengine
660.br
661 DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE,)
662.br
663 DIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
664.br
665 DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE|FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE)
666.TP
667.B e4defrag
668IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT ioctls to simulate defragment activity
669request to DDIR_WRITE event
670.TP
671.B rbd
672IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd
673without the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This ioengine defines engine specific
674options.
675.TP
676.B gfapi
677Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
678having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
679options.
680.TP
681.B gfapi_async
682Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
683having to go through FUSE. This ioengine defines engine specific
684options.
685.TP
686.B libhdfs
687Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS). The \fBfilename\fR option is used to
688specify host,port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This engine interprets
689offsets a little differently. In HDFS, files once created cannot be modified.
690So random writes are not possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine expects
691bunch of small files to be created over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
692file out of those files based on the offset generated by fio backend. (see the
693example job file to create such files, use rw=write option). Please note, you
694might want to set necessary environment variables to work with hdfs/libhdfs
695properly.
696.TP
697.B mtd
698Read, write and erase an MTD character device (e.g., /dev/mtd0). Discards are
699treated as erases. Depending on the underlying device type, the I/O may have
700to go in a certain pattern, e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially to erase blocks
701and discarding before overwriting. The writetrim mode works well for this
702constraint.
703.TP
704.B pmemblk
705Read and write through the NVML libpmemblk interface.
706.RE
707.P
708.RE
709.TP
710.BI iodepth \fR=\fPint
711Number of I/O units to keep in flight against the file. Note that increasing
712iodepth beyond 1 will not affect synchronous ioengines (except for small
713degress when verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
714restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved. This may happen on
715Linux when using libaio and not setting \fBdirect\fR=1, since buffered IO is
716not async on that OS. Keep an eye on the IO depth distribution in the
717fio output to verify that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
718.TP
719.BI iodepth_batch \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_submit" \fR=\fPint
720This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once. It defaults to 1
721which means that we submit each IO as soon as it is available, but can
722be raised to submit bigger batches of IO at the time. If it is set to 0
723the \fBiodepth\fR value will be used.
724.TP
725.BI iodepth_batch_complete_min \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP iodepth_batch_complete" \fR=\fPint
726This defines how many pieces of IO to retrieve at once. It defaults to 1 which
727 means that we'll ask for a minimum of 1 IO in the retrieval process from the
728kernel. The IO retrieval will go on until we hit the limit set by
729\fBiodepth_low\fR. If this variable is set to 0, then fio will always check for
730completed events before queuing more IO. This helps reduce IO latency, at the
731cost of more retrieval system calls.
732.TP
733.BI iodepth_batch_complete_max \fR=\fPint
734This defines maximum pieces of IO to
735retrieve at once. This variable should be used along with
736\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=int variable, specifying the range
737of min and max amount of IO which should be retrieved. By default
738it is equal to \fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR value.
739
740Example #1:
741.RS
742.RS
743\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=1
744.LP
745\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
746.RE
747
748which means that we will retrieve at leat 1 IO and up to the
749whole submitted queue depth. If none of IO has been completed
750yet, we will wait.
751
752Example #2:
753.RS
754\fBiodepth_batch_complete_min\fR=0
755.LP
756\fBiodepth_batch_complete_max\fR=<iodepth>
757.RE
758
759which means that we can retrieve up to the whole submitted
760queue depth, but if none of IO has been completed yet, we will
761NOT wait and immediately exit the system call. In this example
762we simply do polling.
763.RE
764.TP
765.BI iodepth_low \fR=\fPint
766Low watermark indicating when to start filling the queue again. Default:
767\fBiodepth\fR.
768.TP
769.BI io_submit_mode \fR=\fPstr
770This option controls how fio submits the IO to the IO engine. The default is
771\fBinline\fR, which means that the fio job threads submit and reap IO directly.
772If set to \fBoffload\fR, the job threads will offload IO submission to a
773dedicated pool of IO threads. This requires some coordination and thus has a
774bit of extra overhead, especially for lower queue depth IO where it can
775increase latencies. The benefit is that fio can manage submission rates
776independently of the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
777reporting if IO gets back up on the device side (the coordinated omission
778problem).
779.TP
780.BI direct \fR=\fPbool
781If true, use non-buffered I/O (usually O_DIRECT). Default: false.
782.TP
783.BI atomic \fR=\fPbool
784If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic writes are guaranteed
785to be stable once acknowledged by the operating system. Only Linux supports
786O_ATOMIC right now.
787.TP
788.BI buffered \fR=\fPbool
789If true, use buffered I/O. This is the opposite of the \fBdirect\fR parameter.
790Default: true.
791.TP
792.BI offset \fR=\fPint
793Offset in the file to start I/O. Data before the offset will not be touched.
794.TP
795.BI offset_increment \fR=\fPint
796If this is provided, then the real offset becomes the
797offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread number is a
798counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for each sub-job (i.e. when
799numjobs option is specified). This option is useful if there are several jobs
800which are intended to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
801even spacing between the starting points.
802.TP
803.BI number_ios \fR=\fPint
804Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size of the region
805set by \fBsize\fR, or if it exhaust the allocated time (or hits an error
806condition). With this setting, the range/size can be set independently of
807the number of IOs to perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit
808normally and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
809of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this condition is met
810before other end-of-job criteria.
811.TP
812.BI fsync \fR=\fPint
813How many I/Os to perform before issuing an \fBfsync\fR\|(2) of dirty data. If
8140, don't sync. Default: 0.
815.TP
816.BI fdatasync \fR=\fPint
817Like \fBfsync\fR, but uses \fBfdatasync\fR\|(2) instead to only sync the
818data parts of the file. Default: 0.
819.TP
820.BI write_barrier \fR=\fPint
821Make every Nth write a barrier write.
822.TP
823.BI sync_file_range \fR=\fPstr:int
824Use \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) for every \fRval\fP number of write operations. Fio will
825track range of writes that have happened since the last \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) call.
826\fRstr\fP can currently be one or more of:
827.RS
828.TP
829.B wait_before
830SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
831.TP
832.B write
833SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
834.TP
835.B wait_after
836SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
837.TP
838.RE
839.P
840So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would use
841\fBSYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE\fP for every 8 writes.
842Also see the \fBsync_file_range\fR\|(2) man page. This option is Linux specific.
843.TP
844.BI overwrite \fR=\fPbool
845If writing, setup the file first and do overwrites. Default: false.
846.TP
847.BI end_fsync \fR=\fPbool
848Sync file contents when a write stage has completed. Default: false.
849.TP
850.BI fsync_on_close \fR=\fPbool
851If true, sync file contents on close. This differs from \fBend_fsync\fR in that
852it will happen on every close, not just at the end of the job. Default: false.
853.TP
854.BI rwmixread \fR=\fPint
855Percentage of a mixed workload that should be reads. Default: 50.
856.TP
857.BI rwmixwrite \fR=\fPint
858Percentage of a mixed workload that should be writes. If \fBrwmixread\fR and
859\fBrwmixwrite\fR are given and do not sum to 100%, the latter of the two
860overrides the first. This may interfere with a given rate setting, if fio is
861asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate. If that is the case, then
862the distribution may be skewed. Default: 50.
863.TP
864.BI random_distribution \fR=\fPstr:float
865By default, fio will use a completely uniform random distribution when asked
866to perform random IO. Sometimes it is useful to skew the distribution in
867specific ways, ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
868Fio includes the following distribution models:
869.RS
870.TP
871.B random
872Uniform random distribution
873.TP
874.B zipf
875Zipf distribution
876.TP
877.B pareto
878Pareto distribution
879.TP
880.B gauss
881Normal (gaussian) distribution
882.TP
883.B zoned
884Zoned random distribution
885.TP
886.RE
887When using a \fBzipf\fR or \fBpareto\fR distribution, an input value is also
888needed to define the access pattern. For \fBzipf\fR, this is the zipf theta.
889For \fBpareto\fR, it's the pareto power. Fio includes a test program, genzipf,
890that can be used visualize what the given input values will yield in terms of
891hit rates. If you wanted to use \fBzipf\fR with a theta of 1.2, you would use
892random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform model is used,
893fio will disable use of the random map. For the \fBgauss\fR distribution, a
894normal deviation is supplied as a value between 0 and 100.
895.P
896.RS
897For a \fBzoned\fR distribution, fio supports specifying percentages of IO
898access that should fall within what range of the file or device. For example,
899given a criteria of:
900.P
901.RS
90260% of accesses should be to the first 10%
903.RE
904.RS
90530% of accesses should be to the next 20%
906.RE
907.RS
9088% of accesses should be to to the next 30%
909.RE
910.RS
9112% of accesses should be to the next 40%
912.RE
913.P
914we can define that through zoning of the random accesses. For the above
915example, the user would do:
916.P
917.RS
918.B random_distribution=zoned:60/10:30/20:8/30:2/40
919.RE
920.P
921similarly to how \fBbssplit\fR works for setting ranges and percentages of block
922sizes. Like \fBbssplit\fR, it's possible to specify separate zones for reads,
923writes, and trims. If just one set is given, it'll apply to all of them.
924.RE
925.TP
926.BI percentage_random \fR=\fPint
927For a random workload, set how big a percentage should be random. This defaults
928to 100%, in which case the workload is fully random. It can be set from
929anywhere from 0 to 100. Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully
930sequential. It is possible to set different values for reads, writes, and
931trim. To do so, simply use a comma separated list. See \fBblocksize\fR.
932.TP
933.B norandommap
934Normally \fBfio\fR will cover every block of the file when doing random I/O. If
935this parameter is given, a new offset will be chosen without looking at past
936I/O history. This parameter is mutually exclusive with \fBverify\fR.
937.TP
938.BI softrandommap \fR=\fPbool
939See \fBnorandommap\fR. If fio runs with the random block map enabled and it
940fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it will continue without a
941random block map. As coverage will not be as complete as with random maps, this
942option is disabled by default.
943.TP
944.BI random_generator \fR=\fPstr
945Fio supports the following engines for generating IO offsets for random IO:
946.RS
947.TP
948.B tausworthe
949Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
950.TP
951.B lfsr
952Linear feedback shift register generator
953.TP
954.B tausworthe64
955Strong 64-bit 2^258 cycle random number generator
956.TP
957.RE
958.P
959Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it requires tracking on the
960side if we want to ensure that blocks are only read or written once. LFSR
961guarantees that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's also less
962computationally expensive. It's not a true random generator, however, though
963for IO purposes it's typically good enough. LFSR only works with single block
964sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block sizes. If used with such a
965workload, fio may read or write some blocks multiple times. The default
966value is tausworthe, unless the required space exceeds 2^32 blocks. If it does,
967then tausworthe64 is selected automatically.
968.TP
969.BI nice \fR=\fPint
970Run job with given nice value. See \fBnice\fR\|(2).
971.TP
972.BI prio \fR=\fPint
973Set I/O priority value of this job between 0 (highest) and 7 (lowest). See
974\fBionice\fR\|(1).
975.TP
976.BI prioclass \fR=\fPint
977Set I/O priority class. See \fBionice\fR\|(1).
978.TP
979.BI thinktime \fR=\fPint
980Stall job for given number of microseconds between issuing I/Os.
981.TP
982.BI thinktime_spin \fR=\fPint
983Pretend to spend CPU time for given number of microseconds, sleeping the rest
984of the time specified by \fBthinktime\fR. Only valid if \fBthinktime\fR is set.
985.TP
986.BI thinktime_blocks \fR=\fPint
987Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks to issue, before
988waiting \fBthinktime\fR microseconds. If not set, defaults to 1 which will
989make fio wait \fBthinktime\fR microseconds after every block. This
990effectively makes any queue depth setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO
991will be queued before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In other
992words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth if the latter is larger.
993Default: 1.
994.TP
995.BI rate \fR=\fPint
996Cap bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec, the normal postfix
997rules apply. You can use \fBrate\fR=500k to limit reads and writes to 500k each,
998or you can specify read and writes separately. Using \fBrate\fR=1m,500k would
999limit reads to 1MB/sec and writes to 500KB/sec. Capping only reads or writes
1000can be done with \fBrate\fR=,500k or \fBrate\fR=500k,. The former will only
1001limit writes (to 500KB/sec), the latter will only limit reads.
1002.TP
1003.BI rate_min \fR=\fPint
1004Tell \fBfio\fR to do whatever it can to maintain at least the given bandwidth.
1005Failing to meet this requirement will cause the job to exit. The same format
1006as \fBrate\fR is used for read vs write separation.
1007.TP
1008.BI rate_iops \fR=\fPint
1009Cap the bandwidth to this number of IOPS. Basically the same as rate, just
1010specified independently of bandwidth. The same format as \fBrate\fR is used for
1011read vs write separation. If \fBblocksize\fR is a range, the smallest block
1012size is used as the metric.
1013.TP
1014.BI rate_iops_min \fR=\fPint
1015If this rate of I/O is not met, the job will exit. The same format as \fBrate\fR
1016is used for read vs write separation.
1017.TP
1018.BI rate_process \fR=\fPstr
1019This option controls how fio manages rated IO submissions. The default is
1020\fBlinear\fR, which submits IO in a linear fashion with fixed delays between
1021IOs that gets adjusted based on IO completion rates. If this is set to
1022\fBpoisson\fR, fio will submit IO based on a more real world random request
1023flow, known as the Poisson process
1024(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_process). The lambda will be
102510^6 / IOPS for the given workload.
1026.TP
1027.BI rate_cycle \fR=\fPint
1028Average bandwidth for \fBrate\fR and \fBrate_min\fR over this number of
1029milliseconds. Default: 1000ms.
1030.TP
1031.BI latency_target \fR=\fPint
1032If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance point that the given
1033workload will run at while maintaining a latency below this target. The
1034values is given in microseconds. See \fBlatency_window\fR and
1035\fBlatency_percentile\fR.
1036.TP
1037.BI latency_window \fR=\fPint
1038Used with \fBlatency_target\fR to specify the sample window that the job
1039is run at varying queue depths to test the performance. The value is given
1040in microseconds.
1041.TP
1042.BI latency_percentile \fR=\fPfloat
1043The percentage of IOs that must fall within the criteria specified by
1044\fBlatency_target\fR and \fBlatency_window\fR. If not set, this defaults
1045to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal or below to the value set
1046by \fBlatency_target\fR.
1047.TP
1048.BI max_latency \fR=\fPint
1049If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum latency. It will exit
1050with an ETIME error.
1051.TP
1052.BI cpumask \fR=\fPint
1053Set CPU affinity for this job. \fIint\fR is a bitmask of allowed CPUs the job
1054may run on. See \fBsched_setaffinity\fR\|(2).
1055.TP
1056.BI cpus_allowed \fR=\fPstr
1057Same as \fBcpumask\fR, but allows a comma-delimited list of CPU numbers.
1058.TP
1059.BI cpus_allowed_policy \fR=\fPstr
1060Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs specified by \fBcpus_allowed\fR
1061or \fBcpumask\fR. Two policies are supported:
1062.RS
1063.RS
1064.TP
1065.B shared
1066All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
1067.TP
1068.B split
1069Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
1070.RE
1071.P
1072\fBshared\fR is the default behaviour, if the option isn't specified. If
1073\fBsplit\fR is specified, then fio will assign one cpu per job. If not enough
1074CPUs are given for the jobs listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in
1075the set.
1076.RE
1077.P
1078.TP
1079.BI numa_cpu_nodes \fR=\fPstr
1080Set this job running on specified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The arguments allow
1081comma delimited list of cpu numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1082.TP
1083.BI numa_mem_policy \fR=\fPstr
1084Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA nodes. Format of
1085the arguments:
1086.RS
1087.TP
1088.B <mode>[:<nodelist>]
1089.TP
1090.B mode
1091is one of the following memory policy:
1092.TP
1093.B default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
1094.TP
1095.RE
1096For \fBdefault\fR and \fBlocal\fR memory policy, no \fBnodelist\fR is
1097needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
1098allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
1099comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
1100.TP
1101.BI startdelay \fR=\fPirange
1102Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds. Supports all time
1103suffixes to allow specification of hours, minutes, seconds and
1104milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is omitted.
1105Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
1106range.
1107.TP
1108.BI runtime \fR=\fPint
1109Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.
1110.TP
1111.B time_based
1112If given, run for the specified \fBruntime\fR duration even if the files are
1113completely read or written. The same workload will be repeated as many times
1114as \fBruntime\fR allows.
1115.TP
1116.BI ramp_time \fR=\fPint
1117If set, fio will run the specified workload for this amount of time before
1118logging any performance numbers. Useful for letting performance settle before
1119logging results, thus minimizing the runtime required for stable results. Note
1120that the \fBramp_time\fR is considered lead in time for a job, thus it will
1121increase the total runtime if a special timeout or runtime is specified.
1122.TP
1123.BI invalidate \fR=\fPbool
1124Invalidate buffer-cache for the file prior to starting I/O. Default: true.
1125.TP
1126.BI sync \fR=\fPbool
1127Use synchronous I/O for buffered writes. For the majority of I/O engines,
1128this means using O_SYNC. Default: false.
1129.TP
1130.BI iomem \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP mem" \fR=\fPstr
1131Allocation method for I/O unit buffer. Allowed values are:
1132.RS
1133.RS
1134.TP
1135.B malloc
1136Allocate memory with \fBmalloc\fR\|(3).
1137.TP
1138.B shm
1139Use shared memory buffers allocated through \fBshmget\fR\|(2).
1140.TP
1141.B shmhuge
1142Same as \fBshm\fR, but use huge pages as backing.
1143.TP
1144.B mmap
1145Use \fBmmap\fR\|(2) for allocation. Uses anonymous memory unless a filename
1146is given after the option in the format `:\fIfile\fR'.
1147.TP
1148.B mmaphuge
1149Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use huge files as backing.
1150.TP
1151.B mmapshared
1152Same as \fBmmap\fR, but use a MMAP_SHARED mapping.
1153.RE
1154.P
1155The amount of memory allocated is the maximum allowed \fBblocksize\fR for the
1156job multiplied by \fBiodepth\fR. For \fBshmhuge\fR or \fBmmaphuge\fR to work,
1157the system must have free huge pages allocated. \fBmmaphuge\fR also needs to
1158have hugetlbfs mounted, and \fIfile\fR must point there. At least on Linux,
1159huge pages must be manually allocated. See \fB/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugehages\fR
1160and the documentation for that. Normally you just need to echo an appropriate
1161number, eg echoing 8 will ensure that the OS has 8 huge pages ready for
1162use.
1163.RE
1164.TP
1165.BI iomem_align \fR=\fPint "\fR,\fP mem_align" \fR=\fPint
1166This indicates the memory alignment of the IO memory buffers. Note that the
1167given alignment is applied to the first IO unit buffer, if using \fBiodepth\fR
1168the alignment of the following buffers are given by the \fBbs\fR used. In
1169other words, if using a \fBbs\fR that is a multiple of the page sized in the
1170system, all buffers will be aligned to this value. If using a \fBbs\fR that
1171is not page aligned, the alignment of subsequent IO memory buffers is the
1172sum of the \fBiomem_align\fR and \fBbs\fR used.
1173.TP
1174.BI hugepage\-size \fR=\fPint
1175Defines the size of a huge page. Must be at least equal to the system setting.
1176Should be a multiple of 1MB. Default: 4MB.
1177.TP
1178.B exitall
1179Terminate all jobs when one finishes. Default: wait for each job to finish.
1180.TP
1181.B exitall_on_error \fR=\fPbool
1182Terminate all jobs if one job finishes in error. Default: wait for each job
1183to finish.
1184.TP
1185.BI bwavgtime \fR=\fPint
1186Average bandwidth calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1187also does bandwidth logging through \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, then the minimum of
1188this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1189.TP
1190.BI iopsavgtime \fR=\fPint
1191Average IOPS calculations over the given time in milliseconds. If the job
1192also does IOPS logging through \fBwrite_iops_log\fR, then the minimum of
1193this option and \fBlog_avg_msec\fR will be used. Default: 500ms.
1194.TP
1195.BI create_serialize \fR=\fPbool
1196If true, serialize file creation for the jobs. Default: true.
1197.TP
1198.BI create_fsync \fR=\fPbool
1199\fBfsync\fR\|(2) data file after creation. Default: true.
1200.TP
1201.BI create_on_open \fR=\fPbool
1202If true, the files are not created until they are opened for IO by the job.
1203.TP
1204.BI create_only \fR=\fPbool
1205If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job. If files need to be
1206laid out or updated on disk, only that will be done. The actual job contents
1207are not executed.
1208.TP
1209.BI allow_file_create \fR=\fPbool
1210If true, fio is permitted to create files as part of its workload. This is
1211the default behavior. If this option is false, then fio will error out if the
1212files it needs to use don't already exist. Default: true.
1213.TP
1214.BI allow_mounted_write \fR=\fPbool
1215If this isn't set, fio will abort jobs that are destructive (eg that write)
1216to what appears to be a mounted device or partition. This should help catch
1217creating inadvertently destructive tests, not realizing that the test will
1218destroy data on the mounted file system. Default: false.
1219.TP
1220.BI pre_read \fR=\fPbool
1221If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before starting the given
1222IO operation. This will also clear the \fR \fBinvalidate\fR flag, since it is
1223pointless to pre-read and then drop the cache. This will only work for IO
1224engines that are seekable, since they allow you to read the same data
1225multiple times. Thus it will not work on eg network or splice IO.
1226.TP
1227.BI unlink \fR=\fPbool
1228Unlink job files when done. Default: false.
1229.TP
1230.BI loops \fR=\fPint
1231Specifies the number of iterations (runs of the same workload) of this job.
1232Default: 1.
1233.TP
1234.BI verify_only \fR=\fPbool
1235Do not perform the specified workload, only verify data still matches previous
1236invocation of this workload. This option allows one to check data multiple
1237times at a later date without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
1238workloads that write data, and does not support workloads with the
1239\fBtime_based\fR option set.
1240.TP
1241.BI do_verify \fR=\fPbool
1242Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only valid if \fBverify\fR is set.
1243Default: true.
1244.TP
1245.BI verify \fR=\fPstr
1246Method of verifying file contents after each iteration of the job. Each
1247verification method also implies verification of special header, which is
1248written to the beginning of each block. This header also includes meta
1249information, like offset of the block, block number, timestamp when block
1250was written, etc. \fBverify\fR=str can be combined with \fBverify_pattern\fR=str
1251option. The allowed values are:
1252.RS
1253.RS
1254.TP
1255.B md5 crc16 crc32 crc32c crc32c-intel crc64 crc7 sha256 sha512 sha1 xxhash
1256Store appropriate checksum in the header of each block. crc32c-intel is
1257hardware accelerated SSE4.2 driven, falls back to regular crc32c if
1258not supported by the system.
1259.TP
1260.B meta
1261This option is deprecated, since now meta information is included in generic
1262verification header and meta verification happens by default. For detailed
1263information see the description of the \fBverify\fR=str setting. This option
1264is kept because of compatibility's sake with old configurations. Do not use it.
1265.TP
1266.B pattern
1267Verify a strict pattern. Normally fio includes a header with some basic
1268information and checksumming, but if this option is set, only the
1269specific pattern set with \fBverify_pattern\fR is verified.
1270.TP
1271.B null
1272Pretend to verify. Used for testing internals.
1273.RE
1274
1275This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a system to make sure
1276that the written data is also correctly read back. If the data direction given
1277is a read or random read, fio will assume that it should verify a previously
1278written file. If the data direction includes any form of write, the verify will
1279be of the newly written data.
1280.RE
1281.TP
1282.BI verifysort \fR=\fPbool
1283If true, written verify blocks are sorted if \fBfio\fR deems it to be faster to
1284read them back in a sorted manner. Default: true.
1285.TP
1286.BI verifysort_nr \fR=\fPint
1287Pre-load and sort verify blocks for a read workload.
1288.TP
1289.BI verify_offset \fR=\fPint
1290Swap the verification header with data somewhere else in the block before
1291writing. It is swapped back before verifying.
1292.TP
1293.BI verify_interval \fR=\fPint
1294Write the verification header for this number of bytes, which should divide
1295\fBblocksize\fR. Default: \fBblocksize\fR.
1296.TP
1297.BI verify_pattern \fR=\fPstr
1298If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern. Fio defaults to filling
1299with totally random bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
1300pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the width of the pattern,
1301fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the buffer at the time(it can be either a
1302decimal or a hex number). The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity
1303has to be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use with
1304\fBverify\fP=str. Also, verify_pattern supports %o format, which means that for
1305each block offset will be written and then verifyied back, e.g.:
1306.RS
1307.RS
1308\fBverify_pattern\fR=%o
1309.RE
1310Or use combination of everything:
1311.LP
1312.RS
1313\fBverify_pattern\fR=0xff%o"abcd"-21
1314.RE
1315.RE
1316.TP
1317.BI verify_fatal \fR=\fPbool
1318If true, exit the job on the first observed verification failure. Default:
1319false.
1320.TP
1321.BI verify_dump \fR=\fPbool
1322If set, dump the contents of both the original data block and the data block we
1323read off disk to files. This allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of
1324data corruption occurred. Off by default.
1325.TP
1326.BI verify_async \fR=\fPint
1327Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting thread. This option
1328takes an integer describing how many async offload threads to create for IO
1329verification instead, causing fio to offload the duty of verifying IO contents
1330to one or more separate threads. If using this offload option, even sync IO
1331engines can benefit from using an \fBiodepth\fR setting higher than 1, as it
1332allows them to have IO in flight while verifies are running.
1333.TP
1334.BI verify_async_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1335Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the async IO verification threads.
1336See \fBcpus_allowed\fP for the format used.
1337.TP
1338.BI verify_backlog \fR=\fPint
1339Fio will normally verify the written contents of a job that utilizes verify
1340once that job has completed. In other words, everything is written then
1341everything is read back and verified. You may want to verify continually
1342instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data associated with an
1343IO block in memory, so for large verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would
1344be used up holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio will write
1345only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
1346.TP
1347.BI verify_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1348Control how many blocks fio will verify if verify_backlog is set. If not set,
1349will default to the value of \fBverify_backlog\fR (meaning the entire queue is
1350read back and verified). If \fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is less than
1351\fBverify_backlog\fR then not all blocks will be verified, if
1352\fBverify_backlog_batch\fR is larger than \fBverify_backlog\fR, some blocks
1353will be verified more than once.
1354.TP
1355.BI trim_percentage \fR=\fPint
1356Number of verify blocks to discard/trim.
1357.TP
1358.BI trim_verify_zero \fR=\fPbool
1359Verify that trim/discarded blocks are returned as zeroes.
1360.TP
1361.BI trim_backlog \fR=\fPint
1362Trim after this number of blocks are written.
1363.TP
1364.BI trim_backlog_batch \fR=\fPint
1365Trim this number of IO blocks.
1366.TP
1367.BI experimental_verify \fR=\fPbool
1368Enable experimental verification.
1369.TP
1370.BI verify_state_save \fR=\fPbool
1371When a job exits during the write phase of a verify workload, save its
1372current state. This allows fio to replay up until that point, if the
1373verify state is loaded for the verify read phase.
1374.TP
1375.BI verify_state_load \fR=\fPbool
1376If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores the current write
1377state of each thread. This can be used at verification time so that fio
1378knows how far it should verify. Without this information, fio will run
1379a full verification pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
1380.TP
1381.B stonewall "\fR,\fP wait_for_previous"
1382Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit before starting this one.
1383\fBstonewall\fR implies \fBnew_group\fR.
1384.TP
1385.B new_group
1386Start a new reporting group. If not given, all jobs in a file will be part
1387of the same reporting group, unless separated by a stonewall.
1388.TP
1389.BI numjobs \fR=\fPint
1390Number of clones (processes/threads performing the same workload) of this job.
1391Default: 1.
1392.TP
1393.B group_reporting
1394If set, display per-group reports instead of per-job when \fBnumjobs\fR is
1395specified.
1396.TP
1397.B thread
1398Use threads created with \fBpthread_create\fR\|(3) instead of processes created
1399with \fBfork\fR\|(2).
1400.TP
1401.BI zonesize \fR=\fPint
1402Divide file into zones of the specified size in bytes. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1403.TP
1404.BI zonerange \fR=\fPint
1405Give size of an IO zone. See \fBzoneskip\fR.
1406.TP
1407.BI zoneskip \fR=\fPint
1408Skip the specified number of bytes when \fBzonesize\fR bytes of data have been
1409read.
1410.TP
1411.BI write_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1412Write the issued I/O patterns to the specified file. Specify a separate file
1413for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be
1414corrupt.
1415.TP
1416.BI read_iolog \fR=\fPstr
1417Replay the I/O patterns contained in the specified file generated by
1418\fBwrite_iolog\fR, or may be a \fBblktrace\fR binary file.
1419.TP
1420.BI replay_no_stall \fR=\fPint
1421While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1422attempts to respect timing information between I/Os. Enabling
1423\fBreplay_no_stall\fR causes I/Os to be replayed as fast as possible while
1424still respecting ordering.
1425.TP
1426.BI replay_redirect \fR=\fPstr
1427While replaying I/O patterns using \fBread_iolog\fR the default behavior
1428is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor device that each IOP was recorded
1429from. Setting \fBreplay_redirect\fR causes all IOPS to be replayed onto the
1430single specified device regardless of the device it was recorded from.
1431.TP
1432.BI replay_align \fR=\fPint
1433Force alignment of IO offsets and lengths in a trace to this power of 2 value.
1434.TP
1435.BI replay_scale \fR=\fPint
1436Scale sector offsets down by this factor when replaying traces.
1437.TP
1438.BI per_job_logs \fR=\fPbool
1439If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per file private filenames. If
1440not set, jobs with identical names will share the log filename. Default: true.
1441.TP
1442.BI write_bw_log \fR=\fPstr
1443If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job file. Can be used to
1444store data of the bandwidth of the jobs in their lifetime. The included
1445fio_generate_plots script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
1446graphs. See \fBwrite_lat_log\fR for behaviour of given filename. For this
1447option, the postfix is _bw.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
1448where N is the number of jobs). If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the
1449filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1450section.
1451.TP
1452.BI write_lat_log \fR=\fPstr
1453Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes I/O completion latencies. If no
1454filename is given with this option, the default filename of
1455"jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the index of the job (1..N, where
1456N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename is given, fio will still
1457append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false, then the filename will
1458not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR section.
1459.TP
1460.BI write_iops_log \fR=\fPstr
1461Same as \fBwrite_bw_log\fR, but writes IOPS. If no filename is given with this
1462option, the default filename of "jobname_type.x.log" is used, where x is the
1463index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
1464is given, fio will still append the type of log. If \fBper_job_logs\fR is false,
1465then the filename will not include the job index. See the \fBLOG FILE FORMATS\fR
1466section.
1467.TP
1468.BI log_avg_msec \fR=\fPint
1469By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency, or bw log for every
1470IO that completes. When writing to the disk log, that can quickly grow to a
1471very large size. Setting this option makes fio average the each log entry
1472over the specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log. See
1473\fBlog_max_value\fR as well. Defaults to 0, logging all entries.
1474.TP
1475.BI log_max_value \fR=\fPbool
1476If \fBlog_avg_msec\fR is set, fio logs the average over that window. If you
1477instead want to log the maximum value, set this option to 1. Defaults to
14780, meaning that averaged values are logged.
1479.TP
1480.BI log_offset \fR=\fPbool
1481If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte offset for the IO
1482entry as well as the other data values.
1483.TP
1484.BI log_compression \fR=\fPint
1485If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as it goes, to keep the memory
1486footprint lower. When a log reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed
1487and compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are fairly highly
1488compressible, this yields a nice memory savings for longer runs. The downside
1489is that the compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so it may
1490impact the run. This, however, is also true if the logging ends up consuming
1491most of the system memory. So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved
1492normally at the end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
1493in the specified log file. This feature depends on the availability of zlib.
1494.TP
1495.BI log_compression_cpus \fR=\fPstr
1496Define the set of CPUs that are allowed to handle online log compression
1497for the IO jobs. This can provide better isolation between performance
1498sensitive jobs, and background compression work.
1499.TP
1500.BI log_store_compressed \fR=\fPbool
1501If set, fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They can be
1502decompressed with fio, using the \fB\-\-inflate-log\fR command line parameter.
1503The files will be stored with a \fB\.fz\fR suffix.
1504.TP
1505.BI block_error_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1506If set, record errors in trim block-sized units from writes and trims and output
1507a histogram of how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind of error
1508was encountered.
1509.TP
1510.BI disable_lat \fR=\fPbool
1511Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful only for cutting
1512back the number of calls to \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2), as that does impact performance at
1513really high IOPS rates. Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
1514calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and disable_bw as well.
1515.TP
1516.BI disable_clat \fR=\fPbool
1517Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1518.TP
1519.BI disable_slat \fR=\fPbool
1520Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1521.TP
1522.BI disable_bw_measurement \fR=\fPbool
1523Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See \fBdisable_lat\fR.
1524.TP
1525.BI lockmem \fR=\fPint
1526Pin the specified amount of memory with \fBmlock\fR\|(2). Can be used to
1527simulate a smaller amount of memory. The amount specified is per worker.
1528.TP
1529.BI exec_prerun \fR=\fPstr
1530Before running the job, execute the specified command with \fBsystem\fR\|(3).
1531.RS
1532Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.prerun.txt\fR
1533.RE
1534.TP
1535.BI exec_postrun \fR=\fPstr
1536Same as \fBexec_prerun\fR, but the command is executed after the job completes.
1537.RS
1538Output is redirected in a file called \fBjobname.postrun.txt\fR
1539.RE
1540.TP
1541.BI ioscheduler \fR=\fPstr
1542Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified I/O scheduler.
1543.TP
1544.BI disk_util \fR=\fPbool
1545Generate disk utilization statistics if the platform supports it. Default: true.
1546.TP
1547.BI clocksource \fR=\fPstr
1548Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The supported options are:
1549.RS
1550.TP
1551.B gettimeofday
1552\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2)
1553.TP
1554.B clock_gettime
1555\fBclock_gettime\fR\|(2)
1556.TP
1557.B cpu
1558Internal CPU clock source
1559.TP
1560.RE
1561.P
1562\fBcpu\fR is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it is very fast
1563(and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will automatically use this clocksource
1564if it's supported and considered reliable on the system it is running on,
1565unless another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs, this
1566means supporting TSC Invariant.
1567.TP
1568.BI gtod_reduce \fR=\fPbool
1569Enable all of the \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) reducing options (disable_clat, disable_slat,
1570disable_bw) plus reduce precision of the timeout somewhat to really shrink the
1571\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call count. With this option enabled, we only do about 0.4% of
1572the gtod() calls we would have done if all time keeping was enabled.
1573.TP
1574.BI gtod_cpu \fR=\fPint
1575Sometimes it's cheaper to dedicate a single thread of execution to just getting
1576the current time. Fio (and databases, for instance) are very intensive on
1577\fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) calls. With this option, you can set one CPU aside for doing
1578nothing but logging current time to a shared memory location. Then the other
1579threads/processes that run IO workloads need only copy that segment, instead of
1580entering the kernel with a \fBgettimeofday\fR\|(2) call. The CPU set aside for doing
1581these time calls will be excluded from other uses. Fio will manually clear it
1582from the CPU mask of other jobs.
1583.TP
1584.BI ignore_error \fR=\fPstr
1585Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can specify
1586error list for each error type.
1587.br
1588ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
1589.br
1590errors for given error type is separated with ':'.
1591Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or an integer.
1592.br
1593Example: ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122 .
1594.br
1595This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
1596.TP
1597.BI error_dump \fR=\fPbool
1598If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true by default. If disabled
1599only fatal error will be dumped
1600.TP
1601.BI profile \fR=\fPstr
1602Select a specific builtin performance test.
1603.TP
1604.BI cgroup \fR=\fPstr
1605Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will be created.
1606The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio mount point for this to work. If
1607your system doesn't have it mounted, you can do so with:
1608
1609# mount \-t cgroup \-o blkio none /cgroup
1610.TP
1611.BI cgroup_weight \fR=\fPint
1612Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See the documentation that comes
1613with the kernel, allowed values are in the range of 100..1000.
1614.TP
1615.BI cgroup_nodelete \fR=\fPbool
1616Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after the job completion.
1617To override this behavior and to leave cgroups around after the job completion,
1618set cgroup_nodelete=1. This can be useful if one wants to inspect various
1619cgroup files after job completion. Default: false
1620.TP
1621.BI uid \fR=\fPint
1622Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to this value before
1623the thread/process does any work.
1624.TP
1625.BI gid \fR=\fPint
1626Set group ID, see \fBuid\fR.
1627.TP
1628.BI unit_base \fR=\fPint
1629Base unit for reporting. Allowed values are:
1630.RS
1631.TP
1632.B 0
1633Use auto-detection (default).
1634.TP
1635.B 8
1636Byte based.
1637.TP
1638.B 1
1639Bit based.
1640.RE
1641.P
1642.TP
1643.BI flow_id \fR=\fPint
1644The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a global flow. See
1645\fBflow\fR.
1646.TP
1647.BI flow \fR=\fPint
1648Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then there is a
1649\fBflow counter\fR which is used to regulate the proportion of activity between
1650two or more jobs. fio attempts to keep this flow counter near zero. The
1651\fBflow\fR parameter stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the
1652flow counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if one job has
1653\fBflow=8\fR and another job has \fBflow=-1\fR, then there will be a roughly
16541:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
1655.TP
1656.BI flow_watermark \fR=\fPint
1657The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow counter is allowed to
1658reach before the job must wait for a lower value of the counter.
1659.TP
1660.BI flow_sleep \fR=\fPint
1661The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow watermark has been
1662exceeded before retrying operations
1663.TP
1664.BI clat_percentiles \fR=\fPbool
1665Enable the reporting of percentiles of completion latencies.
1666.TP
1667.BI percentile_list \fR=\fPfloat_list
1668Overwrite the default list of percentiles for completion latencies and the
1669block error histogram. Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
1670and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the
1671numbers. For example, \-\-percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to
1672report the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and 99.9% of
1673the observed latencies fell, respectively.
1674.SS "Ioengine Parameters List"
1675Some parameters are only valid when a specific ioengine is in use. These are
1676used identically to normal parameters, with the caveat that when used on the
1677command line, they must come after the ioengine.
1678.TP
1679.BI (cpu)cpuload \fR=\fPint
1680Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
1681.TP
1682.BI (cpu)cpuchunks \fR=\fPint
1683Split the load into cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
1684.TP
1685.BI (cpu)exit_on_io_done \fR=\fPbool
1686Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
1687.TP
1688.BI (libaio)userspace_reap
1689Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
1690the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
1691With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
1692from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
1693enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
1694iodepth_batch_complete=0).
1695.TP
1696.BI (psyncv2)hipri
1697Set RWF_HIPRI on IO, indicating to the kernel that it's of
1698higher priority than normal.
1699.TP
1700.BI (net,netsplice)hostname \fR=\fPstr
1701The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
1702If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
1703used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast address.
1704.TP
1705.BI (net,netsplice)port \fR=\fPint
1706The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used with
1707\fBnumjobs\fR to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then
1708this will be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
1709.TP
1710.BI (net,netsplice)interface \fR=\fPstr
1711The IP address of the network interface used to send or receive UDP multicast
1712packets.
1713.TP
1714.BI (net,netsplice)ttl \fR=\fPint
1715Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets. Default: 1
1716.TP
1717.BI (net,netsplice)nodelay \fR=\fPbool
1718Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
1719.TP
1720.BI (net,netsplice)protocol \fR=\fPstr "\fR,\fP proto" \fR=\fPstr
1721The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
1722.RS
1723.RS
1724.TP
1725.B tcp
1726Transmission control protocol
1727.TP
1728.B tcpv6
1729Transmission control protocol V6
1730.TP
1731.B udp
1732User datagram protocol
1733.TP
1734.B udpv6
1735User datagram protocol V6
1736.TP
1737.B unix
1738UNIX domain socket
1739.RE
1740.P
1741When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
1742as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
1743reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
1744used and the port is invalid.
1745.RE
1746.TP
1747.BI (net,netsplice)listen
1748For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
1749connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
1750hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
1751.TP
1752.BI (net, pingpong) \fR=\fPbool
1753Normally a network writer will just continue writing data, and a network reader
1754will just consume packets. If pingpong=1 is set, a writer will send its normal
1755payload to the reader, then wait for the reader to send the same payload back.
1756This allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission and completion
1757latencies then measure local time spent sending or receiving, and the
1758completion latency measures how long it took for the other end to receive and
1759send back. For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a single
1760reader when multiple readers are listening to the same address.
1761.TP
1762.BI (net, window_size) \fR=\fPint
1763Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
1764.TP
1765.BI (net, mss) \fR=\fPint
1766Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
1767.TP
1768.BI (e4defrag,donorname) \fR=\fPstr
1769File will be used as a block donor (swap extents between files)
1770.TP
1771.BI (e4defrag,inplace) \fR=\fPint
1772Configure donor file block allocation strategy
1773.RS
1774.BI 0(default) :
1775Preallocate donor's file on init
1776.TP
1777.BI 1:
1778allocate space immediately inside defragment event, and free right after event
1779.RE
1780.TP
1781.BI (rbd)clustername \fR=\fPstr
1782Specifies the name of the ceph cluster.
1783.TP
1784.BI (rbd)rbdname \fR=\fPstr
1785Specifies the name of the RBD.
1786.TP
1787.BI (rbd)pool \fR=\fPstr
1788Specifies the name of the Ceph pool containing the RBD.
1789.TP
1790.BI (rbd)clientname \fR=\fPstr
1791Specifies the username (without the 'client.' prefix) used to access the Ceph
1792cluster. If the clustername is specified, the clientname shall be the full
1793type.id string. If no type. prefix is given, fio will add 'client.' by default.
1794.TP
1795.BI (mtd)skipbad \fR=\fPbool
1796Skip operations against known bad blocks.
1797.SH OUTPUT
1798While running, \fBfio\fR will display the status of the created jobs. For
1799example:
1800.RS
1801.P
1802Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
1803.RE
1804.P
1805The characters in the first set of brackets denote the current status of each
1806threads. The possible values are:
1807.P
1808.PD 0
1809.RS
1810.TP
1811.B P
1812Setup but not started.
1813.TP
1814.B C
1815Thread created.
1816.TP
1817.B I
1818Initialized, waiting.
1819.TP
1820.B R
1821Running, doing sequential reads.
1822.TP
1823.B r
1824Running, doing random reads.
1825.TP
1826.B W
1827Running, doing sequential writes.
1828.TP
1829.B w
1830Running, doing random writes.
1831.TP
1832.B M
1833Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
1834.TP
1835.B m
1836Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
1837.TP
1838.B F
1839Running, currently waiting for \fBfsync\fR\|(2).
1840.TP
1841.B V
1842Running, verifying written data.
1843.TP
1844.B E
1845Exited, not reaped by main thread.
1846.TP
1847.B \-
1848Exited, thread reaped.
1849.RE
1850.PD
1851.P
1852The second set of brackets shows the estimated completion percentage of
1853the current group. The third set shows the read and write I/O rate,
1854respectively. Finally, the estimated run time of the job is displayed.
1855.P
1856When \fBfio\fR completes (or is interrupted by Ctrl-C), it will show data
1857for each thread, each group of threads, and each disk, in that order.
1858.P
1859Per-thread statistics first show the threads client number, group-id, and
1860error code. The remaining figures are as follows:
1861.RS
1862.TP
1863.B io
1864Number of megabytes of I/O performed.
1865.TP
1866.B bw
1867Average data rate (bandwidth).
1868.TP
1869.B runt
1870Threads run time.
1871.TP
1872.B slat
1873Submission latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This is
1874the time it took to submit the I/O.
1875.TP
1876.B clat
1877Completion latency minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation. This
1878is the time between submission and completion.
1879.TP
1880.B bw
1881Bandwidth minimum, maximum, percentage of aggregate bandwidth received, average
1882and standard deviation.
1883.TP
1884.B cpu
1885CPU usage statistics. Includes user and system time, number of context switches
1886this thread went through and number of major and minor page faults. The CPU
1887utilization numbers are averages for the jobs in that reporting group, while
1888the context and fault counters are summed.
1889.TP
1890.B IO depths
1891Distribution of I/O depths. Each depth includes everything less than (or equal)
1892to it, but greater than the previous depth.
1893.TP
1894.B IO issued
1895Number of read/write requests issued, and number of short read/write requests.
1896.TP
1897.B IO latencies
1898Distribution of I/O completion latencies. The numbers follow the same pattern
1899as \fBIO depths\fR.
1900.RE
1901.P
1902The group statistics show:
1903.PD 0
1904.RS
1905.TP
1906.B io
1907Number of megabytes I/O performed.
1908.TP
1909.B aggrb
1910Aggregate bandwidth of threads in the group.
1911.TP
1912.B minb
1913Minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1914.TP
1915.B maxb
1916Maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
1917.TP
1918.B mint
1919Shortest runtime of threads in the group.
1920.TP
1921.B maxt
1922Longest runtime of threads in the group.
1923.RE
1924.PD
1925.P
1926Finally, disk statistics are printed with reads first:
1927.PD 0
1928.RS
1929.TP
1930.B ios
1931Number of I/Os performed by all groups.
1932.TP
1933.B merge
1934Number of merges in the I/O scheduler.
1935.TP
1936.B ticks
1937Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
1938.TP
1939.B io_queue
1940Total time spent in the disk queue.
1941.TP
1942.B util
1943Disk utilization.
1944.RE
1945.PD
1946.P
1947It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
1948running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the \fBUSR1\fR
1949signal.
1950.SH TERSE OUTPUT
1951If the \fB\-\-minimal\fR / \fB\-\-append-terse\fR options are given, the
1952results will be printed/appended in a semicolon-delimited format suitable for
1953scripted use.
1954A job description (if provided) follows on a new line. Note that the first
1955number in the line is the version number. If the output has to be changed
1956for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to signify that
1957change. The fields are:
1958.P
1959.RS
1960.B terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
1961.P
1962Read status:
1963.RS
1964.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
1965.P
1966Submission latency:
1967.RS
1968.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1969.RE
1970Completion latency:
1971.RS
1972.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1973.RE
1974Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
1975.RS
1976.B Xth percentile=usec
1977.RE
1978Total latency:
1979.RS
1980.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1981.RE
1982Bandwidth:
1983.RS
1984.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
1985.RE
1986.RE
1987.P
1988Write status:
1989.RS
1990.B Total I/O \fR(KB)\fP, bandwidth \fR(KB/s)\fP, IOPS, runtime \fR(ms)\fP
1991.P
1992Submission latency:
1993.RS
1994.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1995.RE
1996Completion latency:
1997.RS
1998.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
1999.RE
2000Completion latency percentiles (20 fields):
2001.RS
2002.B Xth percentile=usec
2003.RE
2004Total latency:
2005.RS
2006.B min, max, mean, standard deviation
2007.RE
2008Bandwidth:
2009.RS
2010.B min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, standard deviation
2011.RE
2012.RE
2013.P
2014CPU usage:
2015.RS
2016.B user, system, context switches, major page faults, minor page faults
2017.RE
2018.P
2019IO depth distribution:
2020.RS
2021.B <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
2022.RE
2023.P
2024IO latency distribution:
2025.RS
2026Microseconds:
2027.RS
2028.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
2029.RE
2030Milliseconds:
2031.RS
2032.B <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
2033.RE
2034.RE
2035.P
2036Disk utilization (1 for each disk used):
2037.RS
2038.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
2039.RE
2040.P
2041Error Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off):
2042.RS
2043.B total # errors, first error code
2044.RE
2045.P
2046.B text description (if provided in config - appears on newline)
2047.RE
2048.SH TRACE FILE FORMAT
2049There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
2050is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
2051below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
2052
2053In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
2054
2055.P
2056.B Trace file format v1
2057.RS
2058Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
2059
2060rw, offset, length
2061
2062where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
2063
2064This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
2065
2066.RE
2067.P
2068.B Trace file format v2
2069.RS
2070The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
2071It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
2072possible file actions.
2073
2074The first line of the trace file has to be:
2075
2076\fBfio version 2 iolog\fR
2077
2078Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
2079The file management format:
2080
2081\fBfilename action\fR
2082
2083The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
2084
2085.P
2086.PD 0
2087.RS
2088.TP
2089.B add
2090Add the given filename to the trace
2091.TP
2092.B open
2093Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have been previously
2094added with the \fBadd\fR action.
2095.TP
2096.B close
2097Close the file with the given filename. The file must have previously been
2098opened.
2099.RE
2100.PD
2101.P
2102
2103The file io action format:
2104
2105\fBfilename action offset length\fR
2106
2107The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
2108before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
2109bytes. The action can be one of these:
2110
2111.P
2112.PD 0
2113.RS
2114.TP
2115.B wait
2116Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded. The time is
2117relative to the previous wait statement.
2118.TP
2119.B read
2120Read \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2121.TP
2122.B write
2123Write \fBlength\fR bytes beginning from \fBoffset\fR
2124.TP
2125.B sync
2126fsync() the file
2127.TP
2128.B datasync
2129fdatasync() the file
2130.TP
2131.B trim
2132trim the given file from the given \fBoffset\fR for \fBlength\fR bytes
2133.RE
2134.PD
2135.P
2136
2137.SH CPU IDLENESS PROFILING
2138In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
2139we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
2140fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
2141idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
2142By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
2143CPU can be derived accordingly.
2144
2145An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
2146and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
2147work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
2148overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
2149
2150.SH VERIFICATION AND TRIGGERS
2151Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
2152first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
2153write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
2154it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
2155on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
2156same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
2157on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
2158data was written.
2159
2160With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
2161to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
2162and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
2163power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
2164
2165A verification trigger consists of two things:
2166
2167.RS
2168Storing the write state of each job
2169.LP
2170Executing a trigger command
2171.RE
2172
2173The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
2174to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
2175done, the last X completions, etc.
2176
2177A trigger is invoked either through creation (\fBtouch\fR) of a specified
2178file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
2179\fB\-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/trigger-file\fR, then it will continually check for
2180the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
2181fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
2182command).
2183
2184For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
2185fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
2186to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
2187specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
2188back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
2189
2190.RE
2191.P
2192.B Verification trigger example
2193.RS
2194
2195Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
2196Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
2197at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
2198or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
2199backend normally:
2200
2201server# \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2202
2203and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
2204
2205localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger-remote="bash \-c "echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger""\fR
2206
2207We set \fB/tmp/my-trigger\fR as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
2208
2209\fBecho b > /proc/sysrq-trigger\fR
2210
2211on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
2212state. This will work, but it's not \fIreally\fR cutting power to the server,
2213it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
2214power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
2215a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
2216IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
2217then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
2218
2219localbox$ \fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-trigger\-file=/tmp/my\-trigger \-\-trigger="ipmi-reboot server"\fR
2220
2221For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
2222then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
2223
2224.RE
2225.P
2226.B Loading verify state
2227.RS
2228To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
2229the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
2230stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
2231and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
2232the files over and load them from there.
2233
2234.RE
2235
2236.SH LOG FILE FORMATS
2237
2238Fio supports a variety of log file formats, for logging latencies, bandwidth,
2239and IOPS. The logs share a common format, which looks like this:
2240
2241.B time (msec), value, data direction, offset
2242
2243Time for the log entry is always in milliseconds. The value logged depends
2244on the type of log, it will be one of the following:
2245
2246.P
2247.PD 0
2248.TP
2249.B Latency log
2250Value is in latency in usecs
2251.TP
2252.B Bandwidth log
2253Value is in KB/sec
2254.TP
2255.B IOPS log
2256Value is in IOPS
2257.PD
2258.P
2259
2260Data direction is one of the following:
2261
2262.P
2263.PD 0
2264.TP
2265.B 0
2266IO is a READ
2267.TP
2268.B 1
2269IO is a WRITE
2270.TP
2271.B 2
2272IO is a TRIM
2273.PD
2274.P
2275
2276The \fIoffset\fR is the offset, in bytes, from the start of the file, for that
2277particular IO. The logging of the offset can be toggled with \fBlog_offset\fR.
2278
2279If windowed logging is enabled though \fBlog_avg_msec\fR, then fio doesn't log
2280individual IOs. Instead of logs the average values over the specified
2281period of time. Since \fIdata direction\fR and \fIoffset\fR are per-IO values,
2282they aren't applicable if windowed logging is enabled. If windowed logging
2283is enabled and \fBlog_max_value\fR is set, then fio logs maximum values in
2284that window instead of averages.
2285
2286.RE
2287
2288.SH CLIENT / SERVER
2289Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
2290where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
2291run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
2292have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
2293be running, while controlling it from another machine.
2294
2295To start the server, you would do:
2296
2297\fBfio \-\-server=args\fR
2298
2299on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
2300are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4)
2301for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain
2302socket. 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
2303listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
2304
23051) \fBfio \-\-server\fR
2306
2307 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
2308
23092) \fBfio \-\-server=ip:hostname,4444\fR
2310
2311 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
2312
23133) \fBfio \-\-server=ip6:::1,4444\fR
2314
2315 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
2316
23174) \fBfio \-\-server=,4444\fR
2318
2319 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
2320
23215) \fBfio \-\-server=1.2.3.4\fR
2322
2323 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
2324
23256) \fBfio \-\-server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock\fR
2326
2327 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
2328
2329When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
2330is run with:
2331
2332\fBfio \-\-local-args \-\-client=server \-\-remote-args <job file(s)>\fR
2333
2334where \-\-local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
2335running, 'server' is the connect string, and \-\-remote-args and <job file(s)>
2336are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
2337does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
2338You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
2339
2340\fBfio \-\-client=server2 \-\-client=server2 <job file(s)>\fR
2341
2342If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
2343to load a local file as well. This is done by using \-\-remote-config:
2344
2345\fBfio \-\-client=server \-\-remote-config /path/to/file.fio\fR
2346
2347Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
2348of being passed one from the client.
2349
2350If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), you can input a pathname
2351of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter value for the \-\-client option.
2352For example, here is an example "host.list" file containing 2 hostnames:
2353
2354host1.your.dns.domain
2355.br
2356host2.your.dns.domain
2357
2358The fio command would then be:
2359
2360\fBfio \-\-client=host.list <job file>\fR
2361
2362In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files, and all
2363servers receive the same job file.
2364
2365In order to enable fio \-\-client runs utilizing a shared filesystem from multiple hosts,
2366fio \-\-client now prepends the IP address of the server to the filename. For example,
2367if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio and is writing filename fileio.tmp,
2368with a \-\-client hostfile
2369containing two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and 192.168.10.121, then
2370fio will create two files:
2371
2372/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
2373.br
2374/mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
2375
2376.SH AUTHORS
2377
2378.B fio
2379was written by Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>,
2380now Jens Axboe <axboe@fb.com>.
2381.br
2382This man page was written by Aaron Carroll <aaronc@cse.unsw.edu.au> based
2383on documentation by Jens Axboe.
2384.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
2385Report bugs to the \fBfio\fR mailing list <fio@vger.kernel.org>.
2386See \fBREADME\fR.
2387.SH "SEE ALSO"
2388For further documentation see \fBHOWTO\fR and \fBREADME\fR.
2389.br
2390Sample jobfiles are available in the \fBexamples\fR directory.