manpage: update URL links to HOWTO/README

[fio.git] / README

diff --git a/README b/README
index fdd5bec69269e45dcbad0ebb76b2297b172c0f09..951550b83f141a1f0063cb563650f4906644f090 100644 (file)
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,18 +1,31 @@
-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
 


@@ -21,56 +34,25 @@ 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 include the git meta data as well.
+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/
 
 Snapshots can download from:
 
        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:
+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:

 
        git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git
 
        git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git

+

        https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git
 
 or
 
        git://github.com/axboe/fio.git
        https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git
 
 or
 
        git://github.com/axboe/fio.git

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

 
 
 Mailing list
 
 
 Mailing list


@@ -79,9 +61,9 @@ Mailing list
 The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including
 general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development.
 
 The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including
 general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development.
 

-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
+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
 
 
        subscribe fio
 


@@ -94,262 +76,120 @@ and archives for the old list can be found here:
        http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
 
 
        http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
 
 

-Building
---------
-
-Just type './configure', 'make' and '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'.
-
-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.
+Author
+------

 
 

-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 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.

 
 

-To build FIO with a cross-compiler:
- $ make clean
- $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix
-Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.
+Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk> 20060905

 
 

-It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the --esx switch to
-configure.

 
 

+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 3.8 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, Fedora, CentOS & Co:
+       Starting with Fedora 9/Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 4, fio
+       packages are part of the Fedora/EPEL repositories.
+       https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/package/rpms/fio/ .

 
 

- 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'.
+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, run './configure --build-32bit-win' 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
-       --bandwidth-log         Generate aggregate bandwidth logs
-       --minimal               Minimal (terse) output
-       --output-format=type    Output format (terse,json,json+,normal)
-       --terse-version=type    Set 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
-       --crctest=type          Test speed of checksum functions
-       --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
-       --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
-       --status-interval=t     Force full status dump every 't' period passed
-       --readonly              Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing writes
-       --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 16384)
-       --warnings-fatal        Fio parser warnings are fatal
-       --max-jobs=nr           Maximum number of threads/processes to support
-       --server=args           Start a backend fio server. See Client/Server section.
-       --client=hostname       Talk to remote backend(s) fio server at hostname
-       --daemonize=pidfile     Background fio server, write pid to file
-       --remote-config=file    Tell fio server to load this local job file
-       --idle-prof=option      Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis
-                               (option=system,percpu) or run unit work
-                               calibration only (option=calibrate)
-       --inflate-log=log       Inflate and output compressed log
-       --trigger-file=file     Execute trigger cmd when file exists
-       --trigger-timeout=t     Execute trigger af this time
-       --trigger=cmd           Set this command as local trigger
-       --trigger-remote=cmd    Set this command as remote trigger
-       --aux-path=path         Use this path for fio state generated files
-
-
-Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files,
-unless they match a job file parameter. Multiple job files can be listed 
-and each job file will be regarded as a separate group. fio will stonewall
-execution between each group.
-
-The --readonly option is an extra safety guard to prevent users from
-accidentally starting a write workload when that is not desired.  Fio
-will only write if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given.  This extra
-safety net can be used as an extra precaution as --readonly will also
-enable a write check in the io engine core to prevent writes due to
-unknown user space bug(s).
-
-The --debug option triggers additional logging by fio.
-Currently, additional logging is available for:
-
-       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
-       net             Dump info related to networking connections
-       rate            Dump info related to IO rate switching
-       compress        Dump info related to log compress/decompress
-       steadystate     Dump info related to steady state detection
-       helperthread    Dump info related to helper thread
-       ? or help       Show available debug options.
-
-One can specify multiple debug options: e.g. --debug=file,mem will enable
-file and memory debugging.
-
-The --section option allows one to combine related jobs into one file.
-E.g. one job file could define light, moderate, and heavy sections. Tell fio to
-run only the "heavy" section by giving --section=heavy command line option.
-One can also specify the "write" operations in one section and "verify"
-operation in another section.  The --section option only applies to job
-sections.  The reserved 'global' section is always parsed and used.
-
-The --alloc-size switch allows one to use a larger pool size for smalloc.
-If running large jobs with randommap enabled, fio can run out of memory.
-Smalloc is an internal allocator for shared structures from a fixed size
-memory pool. The pool size defaults to 16MiB and can grow to 8 pools.
-
-NOTE: While running .fio_smalloc.* backing store files are visible in /tmp.
-
-
-Job file
+Building

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

-See the HOWTO file for a complete description of job file syntax and
-parameters.  The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If used with
-an option argument, --cmdhelp will detail the given option.  The job file
-format is in the ini style format, as that is easy for the user to review
-and modify.
-
-This README contains the terse version. Job files can describe big and
-complex setups that are not possible with the command line.  Job files
-are a good practice even for simple jobs since the file provides an
-easily accessed record of the workload and can include comments.
-
-See the examples/ directory for inspiration on how to write job files.  Note
-the copyright and license requirements currently apply to examples/ files.
-
-
-Client/server
-------------
-
-Normally fio is invoked as a stand-alone application on the machine
-where the IO workload should be generated. However, the frontend and
-backend of fio can be run separately. Ie the fio server can generate
-an IO workload on the "Device Under Test" while being controlled from
-another machine.
-
-Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT:
-
-fio --server=args
-
-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:
-
-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.
+Just type::

 
 

-3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444
+ $ ./configure
+ $ make
+ $ make install

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
+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``.

 
 

-4) fio --server=,4444
+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.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
-
-5) fio --server=1.2.3.4
-
-   Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
-
-6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
-
-   Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
+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.

 
 

-Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with:
+To build fio with a cross-compiler::

 
 

-fio --local-args --client=<server> --remote-args <job file(s)>
+ $ make clean
+ $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix

 
 

-where --local-args are arguments for 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.
+Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.

 
 

-Fio can connect to multiple servers this way:
+It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the ``--esx`` switch to
+configure.

 
 

-fio --client=<server1> <job file(s)> --client=<server2> <job file(s)>

 
 

-If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
-to load a local file as well. This is done by using --remote-config:
+Windows
+~~~~~~~

 
 

-fio --client=server --remote-config /path/to/file.fio
+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.

 
 

-Then fio will open this local (to the server) job file instead
-of being passed one from the client.
+How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows:

 
 

-If you have many servers (example: 100 VMs/containers), 
-you can input a pathname of a file containing host IPs/names as the parameter 
-value for the --client option.  For example, here is an example "host.list" 
-file containing 2 hostnames:
+ 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``.

 
 

-host1.your.dns.domain
-host2.your.dns.domain
+To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run ``./configure --build-32bit-win`` before
+``make``.

 
 

-The fio command would then be:
+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).

 
 

-fio --client=host.list <job file(s)>

 
 

-In this mode, you cannot input server-specific parameters or job files -- all
-servers receive the same job file.  
+Documentation
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
 

-In order to let fio --client runs use a shared filesystem 
-from multiple hosts, fio  --client now prepends the IP address of the 
-server to the filename.  For example, if fio is using directory /mnt/nfs/fio 
-and is writing filename fileio.tmp, with a --client hostfile containing 
-two hostnames h1 and h2 with IP addresses 192.168.10.120 and  192.168.10.121,
-then fio will create two files:
+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``.

 
 

-       /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.120.fileio.tmp
-       /mnt/nfs/fio/192.168.10.121.fileio.tmp
+.. _reStructuredText: http://www.sphinx-doc.org/rest.html
+.. _Sphinx: http://www.sphinx-doc.org

 
 
 Platforms
 
 
 Platforms


@@ -357,32 +197,31 @@ Platforms
 
 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
 
 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).
+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.
-
-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
+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 some platforms do not
+support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, on such platforms only
+threads are supported. 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.
 
 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. Messages like these:
+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.
 

-indicate one needs 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


@@ -390,20 +229,41 @@ indicate one needs 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.