X-Git-Url: https://git.kernel.dk/?p=fio.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;h=38022bbb6596bb1dc18214995e603aa09fa96bba;hp=31d53fe4aa3f892e1ee3bbfbb7dd07e5716ca92c;hb=a76e1995b08ffe645b2d9f81d258afc38688884b;hpb=88d398d07f39ca6870fb2a3fcfa44aa80d93f278 diff --git a/README b/README index 31d53fe4..38022bbb 100644 --- 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 ------ -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 @@ -21,68 +34,37 @@ If git:// does not work, use the http protocol instead: http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git -Snapshots are frequently generated and fio-git-*.tar.gz include the git +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/ -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 + 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 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 ------------ The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including -general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development. +general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development. For bug reporting, +see REPORTING-BUGS. -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 @@ -95,261 +77,133 @@ and archives for the old list can be found here: http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/ -Building --------- - -Just type './configure', 'make' and 'make install'. +Author +------ -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'. +Fio was written by Jens Axboe 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 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 +--------------- -It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the --esx switch to -configure. +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 . -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://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/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. +Mandriva: + Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing + on that distro should be as easy as typing ``urpmi fio``. -How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows: +Arch Linux: + An Arch Linux package is provided under the Community sub-repository: + https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=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'. - -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 has fio packages for Windows at + https://www.bluestop.org/fio/ . The latest builds for Windows can also + be grabbed from https://ci.appveyor.com/project/axboe/fio by clicking + the latest x86 or x64 build, then selecting the ARTIFACTS tab. +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 - --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= --remote-args + $ 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 -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= --client= -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-x86_64**. Ensure + **mingw64-x86_64-zlib** are installed if you wish + to enable fio's log compression functionality. + 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 for 32-bit Windows, ensure the -i686 versions of the previously +mentioned -x86_64 packages are installed and run ``./configure +--build-32bit-win`` before ``make``. To build an fio that supports versions of +Windows below Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 also add ``--target-win-ver=xp`` +to the end of the configure line that you run before doing ``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 +https://github.com/mintty/mintty/issues/56 and +https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#inputoutput-interaction-with-alien-programs +for details). -fio --client=host.list -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 @@ -357,32 +211,31 @@ 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 -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 -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. -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. -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 @@ -390,20 +243,41 @@ 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 -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 -Author ------- +Running fio +----------- -Fio was written by Jens Axboe 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 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 `, the mirror command line +option would be :option:`--iodepth 2 ` or :option:`--iodepth=2 +`. You can also use the command line for giving more than one job +entry. For each :option:`--name ` option that fio sees, it will start a +new job with that name. Command line entries following a +:option:`--name ` entry will apply to that job, until there are no more +entries or a new :option:`--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.