git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
-The http protocol also works, path is the same.
+If you are inside a corporate firewall, git:// may not always work for
+you. In that case you can use the http protocol, path is the same:
+
+http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
Snapshots are frequently generated and they include the git meta data as
well. You can download them here:
http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/
-Pascal Bleser <guru@unixtech.be> has fio RPMs in his repository for
-SUSE variants, you can find them here:
+Binary packages
+---------------
+
+Debian:
+Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official
+Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio
+
+Ubuntu:
+Starting with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (aka "Lucid Lynx"), fio packages are part
+of the Ubuntu "universe" repository.
+http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=fio
+
+SUSE:
+Pascal Bleser <guru@unixtech.be> has fio RPMs in his repository for SUSE
+variants, you can find them here:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/rpm-navigation.php?cat=System/fio
+Red Hat, CentOS & Co:
Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
-
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
+Mandriva:
Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing
on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'.
+Solaris:
+Packages for Solaris are available from OpenCSW. Install their pkgutil
+tool (http://www.opencsw.org/get-it/pkgutil/) and then install fio via
+'pkgutil -i fio'.
+
+Windows:
+Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> has fio packages for Windows at
+http://www.bluestop.org/fio .
+
Mailing list
------------
There's a mailing list associated with fio. It's meant for general
-discussion, bug reporting, questions - basically anything that has to
-do with fio. An automated mail detailing recent commits is automatically
-sent to the list at most daily. The list address is fio-devel@kernel.dk,
-subscribe by sending an empty email to fio-devel+subscribe@kernel.dk.
+discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development - basically anything
+that has to do with fio. An automated mail detailing recent commits is
+automatically sent to the list at most daily. The list address is
+fio@vger.kernel.org, subscribe by sending an email to
+majordomo@vger.kernel.org with
+
+subscribe fio
+
+in the body of the email. Archives can be found here:
+
+http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/
+
+and archives for the old list can be found here:
+
+http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
Building
--------
-Just type 'make' and 'make install'. If on FreeBSD, for now you have to
-specify the FreeBSD Makefile with -f, eg:
+Just type 'make' and 'make install'.
+
+Note that GNU make is required. On BSD it's available from devel/gmake;
+on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package. On platforms where GNU make
+isn't the default, type 'gmake' instead of 'make'.
+
+If your compile fails with an error like this:
-$ make -f Makefile.Freebsd && make -f Makefile.FreeBSD install
+ CC gettime.o
+In file included from fio.h:23,
+ from gettime.c:8:
+os/os.h:15:20: error: libaio.h: No such file or directory
+In file included from gettime.c:8:
+fio.h:119: error: field 'iocb' has incomplete type
+make: *** [gettime.o] Error 1
-Likewise with OpenSolaris, use the Makefile.solaris to compile there.
-This might change in the future if I opt for an autoconf type setup.
+Check that you have the libaio development package installed. On RPM
+based distros, it's typically called libaio-devel.
+
+
+Windows
+-------
+
+On Windows Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) is required with at least
+devel/gcc4 and devel/make installed in order to build fio, and
+admin/cygrunsrv to run it. You can also install devel/git to fetch/update
+the source files. To create an MSI installer package put a copy of Cygwin
+in os\windows\fio, install WiX 3.6 from http://wix.sourceforge.net/releases/
+and run dobuild.cmd from the os/windows directory.
+
+Before running fio you'll need to have a copy of cygserver running. Run
+"/usr/bin/cygserver-config" from an elevated Cygwin shell (i.e. launch the
+Cygwin shell under the Administrator account) to configure it. Once
+configured, run "net start cygserver" to start it, or type
+"/usr/sbin/cygserver &" in the Cygwin shell to start a local copy.
+
+If fio exits with the message "Bad system call" it normally means that
+Cygserver isn't running.
Command line
------------
$ fio
- --output Write output to file
- --runtime Runtime in seconds
- --latency-log Generate per-job latency logs
- --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs
- --minimal Minimal (terse) output
- --version Print version info and exit
- --help Print this page
- --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them
- --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options
+ --debug Enable some debugging options (see below)
+ --output Write output to file
+ --timeout Runtime in seconds
+ --latency-log Generate per-job latency logs
+ --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs
+ --minimal Minimal (terse) output
+ --version Print version info and exit
+ --terse-version=type Terse version output format
+ --help Print this page
+ --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them
+ --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options
+ --readonly Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing
+ writes
+ --eta=when When ETA estimate should be printed
+ May be "always", "never" or "auto"
+ --section=name Only run specified section in job file.
+ Multiple sections can be specified.
+ --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024)
+ --warnings-fatal Fio parser warnings are fatal
+ --max-jobs Maximum number of threads/processes to support
+ --server=args Start backend server. See Client/Server section.
+ --client=host Connect to specified backend.
+
Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files,
unless they match a job file parameter. You can add as many as you want,
each job file will be regarded as a separate group and fio will stonewall
its execution.
+The --readonly switch is an extra safety guard to prevent accidentally
+turning on a write setting when that is not desired. Fio will only write
+if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given, but this extra safety net can
+be used as an extra precaution. It will also enable a write check in the
+io engine core to prevent an accidental write due to a fio bug.
+
+The debug switch allows adding options that trigger certain logging
+options in fio. Currently the options are:
+
+ process Dump info related to processes
+ file Dump info related to file actions
+ io Dump info related to IO queuing
+ mem Dump info related to memory allocations
+ blktrace Dump info related to blktrace setup
+ verify Dump info related to IO verification
+ all Enable all debug options
+ random Dump info related to random offset generation
+ parse Dump info related to option matching and parsing
+ diskutil Dump info related to disk utilization updates
+ job:x Dump info only related to job number x
+ mutex Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops
+ profile Dump info related to profile extensions
+ time Dump info related to internal time keeping
+ ? or help Show available debug options.
+
+You can specify as many as you want, eg --debug=file,mem will enable
+file and memory debugging.
+
+The section switch is meant to make it easier to ship a bigger job file
+instead of several smaller ones. Say you define a job file with light,
+moderate, and heavy parts. Then you can ask fio to run the given part
+only by giving it a --section=heavy command line option. The section
+option only applies to job sections, the reserved 'global' section is
+always parsed and taken into account.
+
+Fio has an internal allocator for shared memory called smalloc. It
+allocates shared structures from this pool. The pool defaults to 1024k
+in size, and can grow to 128 pools. If running large jobs with randommap
+enabled it can run out of memory, in which case the --alloc-size switch
+is handy for starting with a larger pool size. The backing store is
+files in /tmp. Fio cleans up after itself, while it is running you
+may see .fio_smalloc.* files in /tmp.
+
Job file
--------
See the HOWTO file for a more detailed description of parameters and what
-they mean. This file contains the terse version. Only a few options can
-be controlled with command line parameters, generally it's a lot easier to
+they mean. This file contains the terse version. You can describe big and
+complex setups with the command line, but generally it's a lot easier to
just write a simple job file to describe the workload. The job file format
-is in the ini style format, as it's easy to read and write for the user.
+is in the ini style format, as that is easy to read and write for the user.
The job file parameters are:
across runs, if 'x' is 1.
size=x Set file size to x bytes (x string can include k/m/g)
ioengine=x 'x' may be: aio/libaio/linuxaio for Linux aio,
- posixaio for POSIX aio, sync for regular read/write io,
- mmap for mmap'ed io, syslet-rw for syslet driven
- read/write, splice for using splice/vmsplice,
- sgio for direct SG_IO io, net for network io, or cpuio
- for a cycler burner load. sgio only works on Linux on
- SCSI (or SCSI-like devices, such as usb-storage or
- sata/libata driven) devices. Fio also has a null io
- engine, which is mainly used for testing fio itself.
+ posixaio for POSIX aio, solarisaio for Solaris
+ native async IO, windowsaio for Windows native async IO,
+ sync for regular read/write io,
+ psync for regular pread/pwrite io, vsync for regular
+ readv/writev (with queuing emulation) mmap for mmap'ed
+ io, syslet-rw for syslet driven read/write, splice for
+ using splice/vmsplice, sg for direct SG_IO io, net
+ for network io, or cpuio for a cycler burner load. sg
+ only works on Linux on SCSI (or SCSI-like devices, such
+ as usb-storage or sata/libata driven) devices. Fio also
+ has a null io engine, which is mainly used for testing
+ fio itself.
+
iodepth=x For async io, allow 'x' ios in flight
overwrite=x If 'x', layout a write file first.
nrfiles=x Spread io load over 'x' number of files per job,
also include k/m postfix.
direct=x 1 for direct IO, 0 for buffered IO
thinktime=x "Think" x usec after each io
- rate=x Throttle rate to x KiB/sec
- ratemin=x Quit if rate of x KiB/sec can't be met
+ rate=x Throttle rate to x KB/sec
+ ratemin=x Quit if rate of x KB/sec can't be met
ratecycle=x ratemin averaged over x msecs
cpumask=x Only allow job to run on CPUs defined by mask.
cpus_allowed=x Like 'cpumask', but allow text setting of CPU affinity.
verify=x If 'x' == md5, use md5 for verifies. If 'x' == crc32,
use crc32 for verifies. md5 is 'safer', but crc32 is
a lot faster. Only makes sense for writing to a file.
+ For other types of checksumming, see HOWTO.
stonewall Wait for preceeding jobs to end before running.
numjobs=x Create 'x' similar entries for this job
thread Use pthreads instead of forked jobs
can be used to gauge hard drive speed over the entire
platter, without reading everything. Both x/y can
include k/m/g suffix.
- iolog=x Open and read io pattern from file 'x'. The file must
- contain one io action per line in the following format:
- rw, offset, length
- where with rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset
- and length entries being in bytes.
+ read_iolog=x Open and read io pattern from file 'x'. The file format
+ is described in the HOWTO.
write_iolog=x Write an iolog to file 'x' in the same format as iolog.
The iolog options are exclusive, if both given the
- read iolog will be performed.
+ read iolog will be performed. Specify a separate file
+ for each job, otherwise the iologs will be interspersed
+ and the file may be corrupt.
write_bw_log Write a bandwidth log.
write_lat_log Write a latency log.
lockmem=x Lock down x amount of memory on the machine, to
cpuchunks=x Split burn cycles into pieces of x usecs.
+
+Client/server
+------------
+
+Normally you would run fio as a stand-alone application on the machine
+where the IO workload should be generated. However, it is also possible to
+run the frontend and backend of fio separately. This makes it possible to
+have a fio server running on the machine(s) where the IO workload should
+be running, while controlling it from another machine.
+
+To start the server, you would do:
+
+fio --server=args
+
+on that machine, where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments
+are of the form 'type:hostname or IP:port'. 'type' is either 'ip' for
+TCP/IP, or 'sock' for a local unix domain socket. 'hostname' is either
+a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to listen to (only valid
+for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
+
+1) fio --server
+
+ Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
+
+2) fio --server=ip:hostname:4444
+
+ Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
+
+3) fio --server=:4444
+
+ Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
+
+4) fio --server=1.2.3.4
+
+ Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
+
+5) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
+
+ Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
+
+When a server is running, you can connect to it from a client. The client
+is run with:
+
+fio --local-args --client=server --remote-args <job file(s)>
+
+where --local-args are arguments that are local to the client where it is
+running, 'server' is the connect string, and --remote-args and <job file(s)>
+are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
+does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
+You can connect to multiple clients as well, to do that you could run:
+
+fio --client=server2 --client=server2 <job file(s)>
+
+
+Platforms
+---------
+
+Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, Windows
+and FreeBSD. Some features and/or options may only be available on some of
+the platforms, typically because those features only apply to that platform
+(like the solarisaio engine, or the splice engine on Linux).
+
+Some features are not available on FreeBSD/Solaris even if they could be
+implemented, I'd be happy to take patches for that. An example of that is
+disk utility statistics and (I think) huge page support, support for that
+does exist in FreeBSD/Solaris.
+
+Fio uses pthread mutexes for signalling and locking and FreeBSD does not
+support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, only threads are
+supported on FreeBSD. This could be fixed with sysv ipc locking or
+other locking alternatives.
+
+Other *BSD platforms are untested, but fio should work there almost out
+of the box. Since I don't do test runs or even compiles on those platforms,
+your mileage may vary. Sending me patches for other platforms is greatly
+appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool
+available on all platforms.
+
+Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. If you get messages like:
+
+ Symbol resolution failed for /usr/lib/libc.a(posix_aio.o) because:
+ Symbol _posix_kaio_rdwr (number 2) is not exported from dependent module /unix.
+
+you need to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root:
+
+ # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
+ posix_aio0 Defined Posix Asynchronous I/O
+ # cfgmgr -l posix_aio0
+ # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
+ posix_aio0 Available Posix Asynchronous I/O
+
+POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent:
+
+ # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available'
+ posix_aio0 changed
+
+
Author
------
projects / fio.git / blobdiff