Merge branch 'shm_rm' of https://github.com/sitsofe/fio

[fio.git] / README

diff --git a/README b/README
index 8db962b625aaf8b2eb7cad1f27bafbd7edce9fd4..8f5385ef6fe5102db97275cf4c641bcdf852a9b6 100644 (file)
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,321 +1,226 @@
-fio
----
-
-fio is a tool that will spawn a number of threads or processes doing a
-particular type of io action as specified by the user. fio takes a
-number of global parameters, each inherited by the thread unless
-otherwise parameters given to them overriding that setting is given.
-The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching the io load
-one wants to simulate.
+Overview and history
+--------------------
+
+Fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test case
+programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for performance
+reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing such a test app can
+be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.  Hence I needed a tool that
+would be able to simulate a given I/O workload without resorting to writing a
+tailored test case again and again.
+
+A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number of
+processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own way of
+generating I/O. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of memory in an
+memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing reads using asynchronous
+I/O. fio needed to be flexible enough to simulate both of these cases, and many
+more.
+
+Fio spawns a number of threads or processes doing a particular type of I/O
+action as specified by the user. fio takes a number of global parameters, each
+inherited by the thread unless otherwise parameters given to them overriding
+that setting is given.  The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching
+the I/O load one wants to simulate.

 
 
 Source
 ------
 
 
 
 Source
 ------
 

-fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is:
+Fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is:

 
 

-git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
+       git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git

 
 

-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:
+When inside a corporate firewall, git:// URL sometimes does not work.
+If git:// does not work, use the http protocol instead:

 
 

-http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
+       http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git

 
 

-Snapshots are frequently generated and they include the git meta data as
-well. You can download them here:
+Snapshots are frequently generated and :file:`fio-git-*.tar.gz` include the git
+meta data as well. Other tarballs are archives of official fio releases.
+Snapshots can download from:

 
 

-http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/
+       http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/

 
 

+There are also two official mirrors. Both of these are automatically synced with
+the main repository, when changes are pushed. If the main repo is down for some
+reason, either one of these is safe to use as a backup:

 
 

-Binary packages
----------------
+       git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git

 
 

-Debian:
-Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official
-Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio
+       https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git

 
 

-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
+or

 
 

-Red Hat, CentOS & Co:
-Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
-http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
+       git://github.com/axboe/fio.git

 
 

-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/ .
+       https://github.com/axboe/fio.git

 
 
 Mailing list
 ------------
 
 
 
 Mailing list
 ------------
 

-There's a mailing list associated with fio. It's meant for general
-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
+The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including
+general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development.

 
 

-subscribe 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:
 
 
 in the body of the email. Archives can be found here:
 

-http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/
+       http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/

 
 and archives for the old list can be found here:
 
 
 and archives for the old list can be found here:
 

-http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
-
-
-Building
---------
+       http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/

 
 

-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'.
+Author
+------

 
 

-If your compile fails with an error like this:
+Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing of
+the Linux I/O subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing specific test
+applications to simulate a given workload, and found that the existing I/O
+benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough to do what he wanted.

 
 

-    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
+Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905

 
 

-Check that you have the libaio development package installed. On RPM
-based distros, it's typically called libaio-devel.

 
 

+Binary packages
+---------------

 
 

-Windows
--------
+Debian:
+       Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official
+       Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio.

 
 

-On Windows Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to
-build fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.7 from
-http://wixtoolset.org and run dobuild.cmd from the
-os/windows directory.
+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.

 
 

-How to compile FIO on 64-bit Windows:
+Red Hat, CentOS & Co:
+       Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
+       http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/.

 
 

- 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe). Install 'make' and all
-    packages starting with 'mingw64-i686' and 'mingw64-x86_64'.
- 2. Download ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/prebuilt-dll-2-9-1-release/dll/x64/pthreadGC2.dll
-    and copy to the fio source directory.
- 3. Open the Cygwin Terminal.
- 4. Go to the fio directory (source files).
- 5. Run 'make clean'.
- 6. Run 'make'.
+Mandriva:
+       Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing
+       on that distro should be as easy as typing ``urpmi fio``.

 
 

-To build fio on 32-bit Windows, download x86/pthreadGC2.dll instead and do
-'./configure --build-32bit-win=yes' before 'make'.
+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``.

 
 

-It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt
-or other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display
-and signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell
-(see http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details).
+Windows:
+       Rebecca Cran <rebecca+fio@bluestop.org> has fio packages for Windows at
+       http://www.bluestop.org/fio/ .

 
 

+BSDs:
+       Packages for BSDs may be available from their binary package repositories.
+       Look for a package "fio" using their binary package managers.

 
 

-Command line
-------------

 
 

-$ fio
-       --debug                 Enable some debugging options (see below)
-       --parse-only            Parse options only, don't start any IO
-       --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
-       --output-format=type    Output format (terse,json,normal)
-       --terse-version=type    Terse version output format (default 3, or 2 or 4).
-       --version               Print version info and exit
-       --help                  Print this page
-       --cpuclock-test         Perform test/validation of CPU clock
-       --cmdhelp=cmd           Print command help, "all" for all of them
-       --enghelp=engine        Print ioengine help, or list available ioengines
-       --enghelp=engine,cmd    Print help for an ioengine cmd
-       --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"
-       --eta-newline=time      Force a new line for every 'time' period passed
-       --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.
-       --idle-prof=option      Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis
-                               (option=system,percpu) or run unit work
-                               calibration only (option=calibrate).
-
-
-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
+Building

 --------
 
 --------
 

-See the HOWTO file for a more detailed description of parameters and what
-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 that is easy to read and write for the user.
+Just type::

 
 

-The HOWTO or man page has a full list of all options, along with
-descriptions, etc. The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If
-used with an option argument, it will detail that particular option.
+ $ ./configure
+ $ make
+ $ make install

 
 

+Note that GNU make is required. On BSDs it's available from devel/gmake within
+ports directory; on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package.  On platforms where
+GNU make isn't the default, type ``gmake`` instead of ``make``.

 
 

-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.
+Configure will print the enabled options. Note that on Linux based platforms,
+the libaio development packages must be installed to use the libaio
+engine. Depending on distro, it is usually called libaio-devel or libaio-dev.

 
 

-To start the server, you would do:
+For gfio, gtk 2.18 (or newer), associated glib threads, and cairo are required
+to be installed.  gfio isn't built automatically and can be enabled with a
+``--enable-gfio`` option to configure.

 
 

-fio --server=args
+To build fio with a cross-compiler::

 
 

-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' (or ip4)
-for TCP/IP v4, 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, 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:
+ $ make clean
+ $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix

 
 

-1) fio --server
+Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
+It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the ``--esx`` switch to
+configure.

 
 

-2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
-
-3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444
-
-   Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
-
-4) fio --server=,4444
+Windows
+~~~~~~~

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
+On Windows, Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to build
+fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.8 from
+http://wixtoolset.org and run :file:`dobuild.cmd` from the :file:`os/windows`
+directory.

 
 

-5) fio --server=1.2.3.4
+How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows:

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
+ 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/). Install **make** and all
+    packages starting with **mingw64-i686** and **mingw64-x86_64**.
+ 2. Open the Cygwin Terminal.
+ 3. Go to the fio directory (source files).
+ 4. Run ``make clean && make -j``.

 
 

-6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
+To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run ``./configure --build-32bit-win`` before
+``make``.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
+It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt or
+other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display and
+signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell (see
+http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details).

 
 

-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)>
+Documentation
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
 

-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 uses Sphinx_ to generate documentation from the reStructuredText_ files.
+To build HTML formatted documentation run ``make -C doc html`` and direct your
+browser to :file:`./doc/output/html/index.html`.  To build manual page run
+``make -C doc man`` and then ``man doc/output/man/fio.1``.  To see what other
+output formats are supported run ``make -C doc help``.

 
 

-fio --client=server2 <job file(s)> --client=server2 <job file(s)>
+.. _reStructuredText: http://www.sphinx-doc.org/rest.html
+.. _Sphinx: http://www.sphinx-doc.org

 
 
 Platforms
 ---------
 
 
 
 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).
+Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
+Windows, FreeBSD, and DragonFly. 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
 
 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.
+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.
 
 
 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
+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.
 
 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:
+Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. Messages like these::

 
     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.
 
 
     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:
+indicate one needs to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root::

 
     # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
         posix_aio0 Defined  Posix Asynchronous I/O
 
     # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
         posix_aio0 Defined  Posix Asynchronous I/O


@@ -323,20 +228,41 @@ you need to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root:
     # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
         posix_aio0 Available  Posix Asynchronous I/O
 
     # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
         posix_aio0 Available  Posix Asynchronous I/O
 

-POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent:
+POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent::

 
     # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available'
         posix_aio0 changed
 
 
 
     # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available'
         posix_aio0 changed
 
 

-Author
-------
+Running fio
+-----------

 
 

-Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing
-of the Linux IO subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing
-specific test applications to simulate a given workload, and found that
-the existing io benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough
-to do what he wanted.
+Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
+(or job files) as parameters::

 
 

-Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905
+       $ fio [options] [jobfile] ...
+
+and it will start doing what the *jobfile* 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 :option:`stonewall` 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 to the job
+parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters.  For example, for
+the job file parameter :option:`iodepth=2 <iodepth>`, the mirror command line
+option would be :option:`--iodepth 2 <iodepth>` or :option:`--iodepth=2
+<iodepth>`. You can also use the command line for giving more than one job
+entry. For each :option:`--name <name>` option that fio sees, it will start a
+new job with that name.  Command line entries following a
+:option:`--name <name>` entry will apply to that job, until there are no more
+entries or a new :option:`--name <name>` entry is seen. This is similar to the
+job file options, where each option applies to the current job until a new []
+job entry is seen.
+
+fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified in
+the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted, such
+as memory locking, I/O scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.

 
 

+If *jobfile* is specified as ``-``, the job file will be read from standard
+input.