README: update Red Hat fio package URL

[fio.git] / README

diff --git a/README b/README
index 0acb04fbb17d4d68c7b0b750803ea97bd3228197..ec3e9c08955560ae80c8ddae06c4639a6078b1fb 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
 


@@ -21,40 +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:

 
 

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

 
 

-Red Hat, CentOS & Co:
-Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
-http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
+       https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/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'.
+or

 
 

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

 
 

-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


@@ -63,9 +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
 


@@ -78,252 +76,156 @@ 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'.
+Author
+------

 
 

-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'.
+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.

 
 

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

 
 

-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.

 
 

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

 
 

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

 
 

-Windows
--------
+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 .

 
 

-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.
+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://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/fio .

 
 

-How to compile FIO on 64-bit Windows:
+Mandriva:
+       Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing
+       on that distro should be as easy as typing ``urpmi 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'.
+Arch Linux:
+        An Arch Linux package is provided under the Community sub-repository:
+        https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=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
-       --status-interval=t     Force full status dump every 't' 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. 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
-       ? 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 1024k and can grow to 128 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.
+Just type::

 
 

-Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT:
+ $ ./configure
+ $ make
+ $ make install

 
 

-fio --server=args
+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``.

 
 

-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:
+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.

 
 

-1) fio --server
-
-   Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
+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.

 
 

-2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444
+To build fio with a cross-compiler::

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
+ $ make clean
+ $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix

 
 

-3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444
+Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
+It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the ``--esx`` switch to
+configure.

 
 

-4) fio --server=,4444

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
+Windows
+~~~~~~~

 
 

-5) fio --server=1.2.3.4
+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.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
+How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows:

 
 

-6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
+ 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``.

 
 

-   Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
+To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run ``./configure --build-32bit-win`` before
+``make``.

 
 

-Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with:
+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 --local-args --client=<server> --remote-args <job file(s)>

 
 

-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.
+Documentation
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
 

-Fio can connect to multiple servers this way:
+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=<server1> <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.
-
-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


@@ -331,20 +233,41 @@ 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.