and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
-parameter described the the parameter section.
+parameter described in the parameter section.
If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
+When fio is utilized as a basis of any reasonably large test suite, it might be
+desirable to share a set of standardized settings across multiple job files.
+Instead of copy/pasting such settings, any section may pull in an external
+.fio file with 'include filename' directive, as in the following example:
+
+; -- start job file including.fio --
+[global]
+filename=/tmp/test
+filesize=1m
+include glob-include.fio
+
+[test]
+rw=randread
+bs=4k
+time_based=1
+runtime=10
+include test-include.fio
+; -- end job file including.fio --
+
+; -- start job file glob-include.fio --
+thread=1
+group_reporting=1
+; -- end job file glob-include.fio --
+
+; -- start job file test-include.fio --
+ioengine=libaio
+iodepth=4
+; -- end job file test-include.fio --
+
+Settings pulled into a section apply to that section only (except global
+section). Include directives may be nested in that any included file may
+contain further include directive(s). Include files may not contain []
+sections.
+
+
4.1 Environment variables
-------------------------
This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
-a string. The following types are used:
+a string. Anywhere a numeric value is required, an arithmetic expression
+may be used, provided it is surrounded by parentheses. Supported operators
+are:
+
+ addition (+)
+ subtraction (-)
+ multiplication (*)
+ division (/)
+ modulus (%)
+ exponentiation (^)
+
+For time values in expressions, units are microseconds by default. This is
+different than for time values not in expressions (not enclosed in
+parentheses). The following types are used:
str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
- minutes, and hours.
+ minutes, and hours, and accepts 'ms' (or 'msec') for milliseconds,
+ and 'us' (or 'usec') for microseconds.
int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
not parsed.
directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
- in a different location than "./".
+ in a different location than "./". See the 'filename' option
+ for escaping certain characters.
filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
thread number, and file number. If you want to share
randread Random reads
rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
randrw Random mixed reads and writes
+ trimwrite Mixed trims and writes. Blocks will be
+ trimmed first, then written to.
For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
- one by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
+ done by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
+ Defaults to true.
-use_os_rand=bool Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS
- to generator random offsets, or it can use it's own internal
- generator (based on Tausworthe). Default is to use the
- internal generator, which is often of better quality and
- faster.
+randseed=int Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to
+ be able to control what sequence of output is being generated.
+ If not set, the random sequence depends on the randrepeat
+ setting.
fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
Accepted values are:
If set, fio will use POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL for sequential
IO and POSIX_FADV_RANDOM for random IO.
+fadvise_stream=int Notify the kernel what write stream ID to place these
+ writes under. Only supported on Linux. Note, this option
+ may change going forward.
+
size=int The total size of file io for this job. Fio will run until
this many bytes has been transferred, unless runtime is
- limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
- Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
- fio will divide this size between the available files
- specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
- size of the given files or devices. If the the files
- do not exist, size must be given. It is also possible to
- give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20%
- is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
- files or devices.
+ limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance,
+ or increased/decreased by 'io_size'). Unless specific nrfiles
+ and filesize options are given, fio will divide this size
+ between the available files specified by the job. If not set,
+ fio will use the full size of the given files or devices.
+ If the files do not exist, size must be given. It is also
+ possible to give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If
+ size=20% is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the
+ given files or devices.
+
+io_size=int
+io_limit=int Normally fio operates within the region set by 'size', which
+ means that the 'size' option sets both the region and size of
+ IO to be performed. Sometimes that is not what you want. With
+ this option, it is possible to define just the amount of IO
+ that fio should do. For instance, if 'size' is set to 20G and
+ 'io_size' is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within the first
+ 20G but exit when 5G have been done. The opposite is also
+ possible - if 'size' is set to 20G, and 'io_size' is set to
+ 40G, then fio will do 40G of IO within the 0..20G region.
filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
will select sizes for files at random within the given range
and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
given, each created file is the same size.
+file_append=bool Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will
+ operate within the size of a file. If this option is set, then
+ fio will append to the file instead. This has identical
+ behavior to setting offset to the size of a file. This option
+ is ignored on non-regular files.
+
fill_device=bool
fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
while having 90% 4k writes and 10% 8k writes, you would
specify:
- bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90,8k/10
+ bssplit=2k/50:4k/50,4k/90:8k/10
blocksize_unaligned
bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
- random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
- unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
- this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
+ random data and a fixed pattern. The fixed pattern is either
+ zeroes, or the pattern specified by buffer_pattern. If the
+ pattern option is used, it might skew the compression ratio
+ slightly. Note that this is per block size unit, for file/disk
+ wide compression level that matches this setting, you'll also
+ want to set refill_buffers.
buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
buffer.
+buffer_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
+ pattern. If not set, the contents of io buffers is defined by
+ the other options related to buffer contents. The setting can
+ be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex
+ values. It may also be a string, where the string must then
+ be wrapped with "".
+
+dedupe_percentage=int If set, fio will generate this percentage of
+ identical buffers when writing. These buffers will be
+ naturally dedupable. The contents of the buffers depend on
+ what other buffer compression settings have been set. It's
+ possible to have the individual buffers either fully
+ compressible, or not at all. This option only controls the
+ distribution of unique buffers.
+
nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
- falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
- simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
- DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
- DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
- DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
+ falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
+ simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
+ DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
+ DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
+ DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
- ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
- request to DDIR_WRITE event
+ ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
+ request to DDIR_WRITE event
+
+ rbd IO engine supporting direct access to Ceph
+ Rados Block Devices (RBD) via librbd without
+ the need to use the kernel rbd driver. This
+ ioengine defines engine specific options.
+
+ gfapi Using Glusterfs libgfapi sync interface to
+ direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
+ options.
+
+ gfapi_async Using Glusterfs libgfapi async interface
+ to direct access to Glusterfs volumes without
+ having to go through FUSE. This ioengine
+ defines engine specific options.
+
+ libhdfs Read and write through Hadoop (HDFS).
+ The 'filename' option is used to specify host,
+ port of the hdfs name-node to connect. This
+ engine interprets offsets a little
+ differently. In HDFS, files once created
+ cannot be modified. So random writes are not
+ possible. To imitate this, libhdfs engine
+ expects bunch of small files to be created
+ over HDFS, and engine will randomly pick a
+ file out of those files based on the offset
+ generated by fio backend. (see the example
+ job file to create such files, use rw=write
+ option). Please note, you might want to set
+ necessary environment variables to work with
+ hdfs/libhdfs properly.
+
+ mtd Read, write and erase an MTD character device
+ (e.g., /dev/mtd0). Discards are treated as
+ erases. Depending on the underlying device
+ type, the I/O may have to go in a certain
+ pattern, e.g., on NAND, writing sequentially
+ to erase blocks and discarding before
+ overwriting. The writetrim mode works well
+ for this constraint.
external Prefix to specify loading an external
IO engine object file. Append the engine
after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
+io_submit_mode=str This option controls how fio submits the IO to
+ the IO engine. The default is 'inline', which means that the
+ fio job threads submit and reap IO directly. If set to
+ 'offload', the job threads will offload IO submission to a
+ dedicated pool of IO threads. This requires some coordination
+ and thus has a bit of extra overhead, especially for lower
+ queue depth IO where it can increase latencies. The benefit
+ is that fio can manage submission rates independently of
+ the device completion rates. This avoids skewed latency
+ reporting if IO gets back up on the device side (the
+ coordinated omission problem).
+
direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
+atomic=bool If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic
+ writes are guaranteed to be stable once acknowledged by
+ the operating system. Only Linux supports O_ATOMIC right
+ now.
+
buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
caps the file size at real_size - offset.
offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
- the offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the
- thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented
- for each job. This option is useful if there are several jobs
- which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in disjoint
- segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
+ offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the thread
+ number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented for
+ each sub-job (i.e. when numjobs option is specified). This
+ option is useful if there are several jobs which are intended
+ to operate on a file in parallel disjoint segments, with
+ even spacing between the starting points.
number_ios=int Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size
of the region set by size=, or if it exhaust the allocated
time (or hits an error condition). With this setting, the
range/size can be set independently of the number of IOs to
perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit normally
- and report status.
+ and report status. Note that this does not extend the amount
+ of IO that will be done, it will only stop fio if this
+ condition is met before other end-of-job criteria.
fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
new random offset without looking at past io history. This
means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
- some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
- is mutually exclusive with verify= if and only if multiple
- blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
- complete rewrites of blocks.
+ some blocks may be read/written more than once. If this option
+ is used with verify= and multiple blocksizes (via bsrange=),
+ only intact blocks are verified, i.e., partially-overwritten
+ blocks are ignored.
softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
write separation.
+latency_target=int If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance
+ point that the given workload will run at while maintaining a
+ latency below this target. The values is given in microseconds.
+ See latency_window and latency_percentile
+
+latency_window=int Used with latency_target to specify the sample window
+ that the job is run at varying queue depths to test the
+ performance. The value is given in microseconds.
+
+latency_percentile=float The percentage of IOs that must fall within the
+ criteria specified by latency_target and latency_window. If not
+ set, this defaults to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal
+ or below to the value set by latency_target.
+
max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
+cpus_allowed_policy=str Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs
+ specified by cpus_allowed or cpumask. Two policies are
+ supported:
+
+ shared All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
+ split Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
+
+ 'shared' is the default behaviour, if the option isn't
+ specified. If split is specified, then fio will will assign
+ one cpu per job. If not enough CPUs are given for the jobs
+ listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in the set.
+
numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
to 1.
+verify_only Do not perform specified workload---only verify data still
+ matches previous invocation of this workload. This option
+ allows one to check data multiple times at a later date
+ without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
+ workloads that write data, and does not support workloads
+ with the time_based option set.
+
do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
verify is set. Defaults to 1.
crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
it in the header of each block.
+ xxhash Use xxhash as the checksum function. Generally
+ the fastest software checksum that fio
+ supports.
+
sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
meta Write extra information about each io
(timestamp, block number etc.). The block
- number is verified. See also verify_pattern.
+ number is verified. The io sequence number is
+ verified for workloads that write data.
+ See also verify_pattern.
null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
internals with ioengine=null, not for much
if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
blocks will be verified more than once.
+verify_state_save=bool When a job exits during the write phase of a verify
+ workload, save its current state. This allows fio to replay
+ up until that point, if the verify state is loaded for the
+ verify read phase. The format of the filename is, roughly,
+ <type>-<jobname>-<jobindex>-verify.state. <type> is "local"
+ for a local run, "sock" for a client/server socket connection,
+ and "ip" (192.168.0.1, for instance) for a networked
+ client/server connection.
+
+verify_state_load=bool If a verify termination trigger was used, fio stores
+ the current write state of each thread. This can be used at
+ verification time so that fio knows how far it should verify.
+ Without this information, fio will run a full verification
+ pass, according to the settings in the job file used.
+
stonewall
wait_for_previous Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit, before
starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
+replay_align=int Force alignment of IO offsets and lengths in a trace
+ to this power of 2 value.
+
+replay_scale=int Scale sector offsets down by this factor when
+ replaying traces.
+
+per_job_logs=bool If set, this generates bw/clat/iops log with per
+ file private filenames. If not set, jobs with identical names
+ will share the log filename. Default: true.
+
write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
- filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.log.
+ filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.x.log, where
+ x is the index of the job (1..N, where N is the number of
+ jobs). If 'per_job_logs' is false, then the filename will not
+ include the job index.
write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
write_lat_log=foo
- The actual log names will be foo_slat.log, foo_clat.log,
- and foo_lat.log. This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs
- automatically.
+ The actual log names will be foo_slat.x.log, foo_clat.x.log,
+ and foo_lat.x.log, where x is the index of the job (1..N,
+ where N is the number of jobs). This helps fio_generate_plot
+ fine the logs automatically. If 'per_job_logs' is false, then
+ the filename will not include the job index.
+
write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
given with this option, the default filename of
- "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
- fio will still append the type of log.
+ "jobname_type.x.log" is used,where x is the index of the job
+ (1..N, where N is the number of jobs). Even if the filename
+ is given, fio will still append the type of log. If
+ 'per_job_logs' is false, then the filename will not include
+ the job index.
log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
Defaults to 0.
+log_offset=int If this is set, the iolog options will include the byte
+ offset for the IO entry as well as the other data values.
+
+log_compression=int If this is set, fio will compress the IO logs as
+ it goes, to keep the memory footprint lower. When a log
+ reaches the specified size, that chunk is removed and
+ compressed in the background. Given that IO logs are
+ fairly highly compressible, this yields a nice memory
+ savings for longer runs. The downside is that the
+ compression will consume some background CPU cycles, so
+ it may impact the run. This, however, is also true if
+ the logging ends up consuming most of the system memory.
+ So pick your poison. The IO logs are saved normally at the
+ end of a run, by decompressing the chunks and storing them
+ in the specified log file. This feature depends on the
+ availability of zlib.
+
+log_store_compressed=bool If set, and log_compression is also set,
+ fio will store the log files in a compressed format. They
+ can be decompressed with fio, using the --inflate-log
+ command line parameter. The files will be stored with a
+ .fz suffix.
+
+block_error_percentiles=bool If set, record errors in trim block-sized
+ units from writes and trims and output a histogram of
+ how many trims it took to get to errors, and what kind
+ of error was encountered.
+
lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
completion latencies.
percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
- for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
- number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
- the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
- list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
- --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
- the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
- 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
+ for completion latencies and the block error histogram.
+ Each number is a floating number in the range (0,100],
+ and the maximum length of the list is 20. Use ':'
+ to separate the numbers, and list the numbers in ascending
+ order. For example, --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause
+ fio to report the values of completion latency below which
+ 99.5% and 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
supported options are:
[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
microseconds.
+[cpu] exit_on_io_done=bool Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
+
[netsplice] hostname=str
[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
address.
[netsplice] port=int
-[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
+[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to. If this is used
+with numjobs to spawn multiple instances of the same job type, then this will
+be the starting port number since fio will use a range of ports.
[netsplice] interface=str
[net] interface=str The IP address of the network interface used to send or
[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
tcp Transmission control protocol
+ tcpv6 Transmission control protocol V6
udp User datagram protocol
+ udpv6 User datagram protocol V6
unix UNIX domain socket
When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
+
[net] pingpong Normaly a network writer will just continue writing data, and
a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
single reader when multiple readers are listening to the same
address.
+[net] window_size Set the desired socket buffer size for the connection.
+
+[net] mss Set the TCP maximum segment size (TCP_MAXSEG).
+
[e4defrag] donorname=str
File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
[e4defrag] inplace=int
1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
and free right after event
+[mtd] skip_bad=bool Skip operations against known bad blocks.
6.0 Interpreting the output
M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
+ f Running, finishing up (writing IO logs, etc)
V Running, doing verification of written data.
E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
_ Thread reaped, or
X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
+Fio will condense the thread string as not to take up more space on the
+command line as is needed. For instance, if you have 10 readers and 10
+writers running, the output would look like this:
+
+Jobs: 20 (f=20): [R(10),W(10)] [4.0% done] [2103MB/0KB/0KB /s] [538K/0/0 iops] [eta 57m:36s]
+
+Fio will still maintain the ordering, though. So the above means that jobs
+1..10 are readers, and 11..20 are writers.
+
The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
bytes. The action can be one of these:
wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
+ The time is relative to the previous wait statement.
read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
sync fsync() the file
and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.
+
+
+10.0 Verification and triggers
+------------------------------
+Fio is usually run in one of two ways, when data verification is done. The
+first is a normal write job of some sort with verify enabled. When the
+write phase has completed, fio switches to reads and verifies everything
+it wrote. The second model is running just the write phase, and then later
+on running the same job (but with reads instead of writes) to repeat the
+same IO patterns and verify the contents. Both of these methods depend
+on the write phase being completed, as fio otherwise has no idea how much
+data was written.
+
+With verification triggers, fio supports dumping the current write state
+to local files. Then a subsequent read verify workload can load this state
+and know exactly where to stop. This is useful for testing cases where
+power is cut to a server in a managed fashion, for instance.
+
+A verification trigger consists of two things:
+
+1) Storing the write state of each job
+2) Executing a trigger command
+
+The write state is relatively small, on the order of hundreds of bytes
+to single kilobytes. It contains information on the number of completions
+done, the last X completions, etc.
+
+A trigger is invoked either through creation ('touch') of a specified
+file in the system, or through a timeout setting. If fio is run with
+--trigger-file=/tmp/trigger-file, then it will continually check for
+the existence of /tmp/trigger-file. When it sees this file, it will
+fire off the trigger (thus saving state, and executing the trigger
+command).
+
+For client/server runs, there's both a local and remote trigger. If
+fio is running as a server backend, it will send the job states back
+to the client for safe storage, then execute the remote trigger, if
+specified. If a local trigger is specified, the server will still send
+back the write state, but the client will then execute the trigger.
+
+10.1 Verification trigger example
+---------------------------------
+Lets say we want to run a powercut test on the remote machine 'server'.
+Our write workload is in write-test.fio. We want to cut power to 'server'
+at some point during the run, and we'll run this test from the safety
+or our local machine, 'localbox'. On the server, we'll start the fio
+backend normally:
+
+server# fio --server
+
+and on the client, we'll fire off the workload:
+
+localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger-remote="bash -c \"echo b > /proc/sysrq-triger\""
+
+We set /tmp/my-trigger as the trigger file, and we tell fio to execute
+
+echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger
+
+on the server once it has received the trigger and sent us the write
+state. This will work, but it's not _really_ cutting power to the server,
+it's merely abruptly rebooting it. If we have a remote way of cutting
+power to the server through IPMI or similar, we could do that through
+a local trigger command instead. Lets assume we have a script that does
+IPMI reboot of a given hostname, ipmi-reboot. On localbox, we could
+then have run fio with a local trigger instead:
+
+localbox$ fio --client=server --trigger-file=/tmp/my-trigger --trigger="ipmi-reboot server"
+
+For this case, fio would wait for the server to send us the write state,
+then execute 'ipmi-reboot server' when that happened.
+
+10.1 Loading verify state
+-------------------------
+To load store write state, read verification job file must contain
+the verify_state_load option. If that is set, fio will load the previously
+stored state. For a local fio run this is done by loading the files directly,
+and on a client/server run, the server backend will ask the client to send
+the files over and load them from there.
projects / fio.git / blobdiff