Add softrandommap and --alloc-size options

[fio.git] / HOWTO

diff --git a/HOWTO b/HOWTO
index 0d3d7759843b3b4bbbfa3375f1a7b73733e95930..66ebebe8579dd5954e574bf016c31b5fbd0e5baf 100644 (file)
--- a/HOWTO
+++ b/HOWTO
@@ -219,6 +219,25 @@ filename=str       Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
 opendir=str    Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
                directory and down the file system tree.
 
 opendir=str    Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
                directory and down the file system tree.
 

+lockfile=str   Fio defaults to not doing any locking files before it does
+               IO to them. If a file or file descriptor is shared, fio
+               can serialize IO to that file to make the end result
+               consistent. This is usual for emulating real workloads that
+               share files. The lock modes are:
+
+                       none            No locking. The default.
+                       exclusive       Only one thread/process may do IO,
+                                       excluding all others.
+                       readwrite       Read-write locking on the file. Many
+                                       readers may access the file at the
+                                       same time, but writes get exclusive
+                                       access.
+
+               The option may be post-fixed with a lock batch number. If
+               set, then each thread/process may do that amount of IOs to
+               the file before giving up the lock. Since lock acqusition is
+               expensive, batching the lock/unlocks will speed up IO.
+

 readwrite=str
 rw=str         Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
 
 readwrite=str
 rw=str         Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
 


@@ -383,7 +402,10 @@ ioengine=str       Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
                                cycles according to the cpuload= and
                                cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
                                will cause that job to do nothing but burn
                                cycles according to the cpuload= and
                                cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
                                will cause that job to do nothing but burn

-                               85% of the CPU.
+                               85% of the CPU. In case of SMP machines,
+                               use numjobs=<no_of_cpu> to get desired CPU
+                               usage, as the cpuload only loads a single
+                               CPU at the desired rate.

 
                        guasi   The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
                                Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach
 
                        guasi   The GUASI IO engine is the Generic Userspace
                                Asyncronous Syscall Interface approach


@@ -460,6 +482,12 @@ norandommap        Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
                fio doesn't track potential block rewrites which may alter
                the calculated checksum for that block.
 
                fio doesn't track potential block rewrites which may alter
                the calculated checksum for that block.
 

+softrandommap  See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map enabled
+               and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it
+               will continue without a random block map. As coverage will
+               not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
+               disabled by default.
+

 nice=int       Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
 
 prio=int       Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
 nice=int       Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
 
 prio=int       Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to