1 fio
2 ---
3
4 fio is a tool that will spawn a number of threads or processes doing a
5 particular type of io action as specified by the user. fio takes a
6 number of global parameters, each inherited by the thread unless
7 otherwise parameters given to them overriding that setting is given.
8 The typical use of fio is to write a job file matching the io load
9 one wants to simulate.
10
11
12 Source
13 ------
14
15 fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is:
16
17 git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
18
19 When inside a corporate firewall, git:// URL sometimes does not work.
20 If git:// does not work, use the http protocol instead:
21
22 http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
23
24 Snapshots are frequently generated and include the git meta data as well.
25 Snapshots can download from:
26
27 http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/
28
29 There are also two official mirrors. Both of these are synced within
30 an hour of commits landing at git.kernel.dk. So if the main repo is
31 down for some reason, either one of those is safe to use:
32
33 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git
34 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/axboe/fio.git
35
36 or
37
38 https://github.com/axboe/fio.git
39
40
41 Binary packages
42 ---------------
43
44 Debian:
45 Starting with Debian "Squeeze", fio packages are part of the official
46 Debian repository. http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fio
47
48 Ubuntu:
49 Starting with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (aka "Lucid Lynx"), fio packages are part
50 of the Ubuntu "universe" repository.
51 http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=fio
52
53 Red Hat, CentOS & Co:
54 Dag Wiers has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
55 http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
56
57 Mandriva:
58 Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing
59 on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'.
60
61 Solaris:
62 Packages for Solaris are available from OpenCSW. Install their pkgutil
63 tool (http://www.opencsw.org/get-it/pkgutil/) and then install fio via
64 'pkgutil -i fio'.
65
66 Windows:
67 Bruce Cran <bruce (a] cran.org.uk> has fio packages for Windows at
68 http://www.bluestop.org/fio/ .
69
70
71 Mailing list
72 ------------
73
74 The fio project mailing list is meant for anything related to fio including
75 general discussion, bug reporting, questions, and development.
76
77 An automated mail detailing recent commits is automatically sent to the
78 list at most daily. The list address is fio (a] vger.kernel.org, subscribe
79 by sending an email to majordomo (a] vger.kernel.org with
80
81 subscribe fio
82
83 in the body of the email. Archives can be found here:
84
85 http://www.spinics.net/lists/fio/
86
87 and archives for the old list can be found here:
88
89 http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
90
91
92 Building
93 --------
94
95 Just type 'configure', 'make' and 'make install'.
96
97 Note that GNU make is required. On BSD it's available from devel/gmake;
98 on Solaris it's in the SUNWgmake package. On platforms where GNU make
99 isn't the default, type 'gmake' instead of 'make'.
100
101 Configure will print the enabled options. Note that on Linux based
102 platforms, the libaio development packages must be installed to use
103 the libaio engine. Depending on distro, it is usually called
104 libaio-devel or libaio-dev.
105
106 For gfio, gtk 2.18 (or newer), associated glib threads, and cairo are required
107 to be installed. gfio isn't built automatically and can be enabled
108 with a --enable-gfio option to configure.
109
110 To build FIO with a cross-compiler:
111 $ make clean
112 $ make CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/toolchain/prefix
113 Configure will attempt to determine the target platform automatically.
114
115 It's possible to build fio for ESX as well, use the --esx switch to
116 configure.
117
118
119 Windows
120 -------
121
122 On Windows, Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) is required in order to
123 build fio. To create an MSI installer package install WiX 3.8 from
124 http://wixtoolset.org and run dobuild.cmd from the
125 os/windows directory.
126
127 How to compile fio on 64-bit Windows:
128
129 1. Install Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/). Install 'make' and all
130 packages starting with 'mingw64-i686' and 'mingw64-x86_64'.
131 2. Open the Cygwin Terminal.
132 3. Go to the fio directory (source files).
133 4. Run 'make clean && make -j'.
134
135 To build fio on 32-bit Windows, run './configure --build-32bit-win' before 'make'.
136
137 It's recommended that once built or installed, fio be run in a Command Prompt
138 or other 'native' console such as console2, since there are known to be display
139 and signal issues when running it under a Cygwin shell
140 (see http://code.google.com/p/mintty/issues/detail?id=56 for details).
141
142
143 Command line
144 ------------
145
146 $ fio
147 --debug Enable some debugging options (see below)
148 --parse-only Parse options only, don't start any IO
149 --output Write output to file
150 --runtime Runtime in seconds
151 --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs
152 --minimal Minimal (terse) output
153 --output-format=type Output format (terse,json,normal)
154 --terse-version=type Terse version output format (default 3, or 2 or 4).
155 --version Print version info and exit
156 --help Print this page
157 --cpuclock-test Perform test/validation of CPU clock
158 --crctest[=test] Test speed of checksum functions
159 --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them
160 --enghelp=engine Print ioengine help, or list available ioengines
161 --enghelp=engine,cmd Print help for an ioengine cmd
162 --showcmd Turn a job file into command line options
163 --readonly Turn on safety read-only checks, preventing
164 writes
165 --eta=when When ETA estimate should be printed
166 May be "always", "never" or "auto"
167 --eta-newline=time Force a new line for every 'time' period passed
168 --status-interval=t Force full status dump every 't' period passed
169 --section=name Only run specified section in job file.
170 Multiple sections can be specified.
171 --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024)
172 --warnings-fatal Fio parser warnings are fatal
173 --max-jobs Maximum number of threads/processes to support
174 --server=args Start backend server. See Client/Server section.
175 --client=host Connect to specified backend.
176 --remote-config=file Tell fio server to load this local file
177 --idle-prof=option Report cpu idleness on a system or percpu basis
178 (option=system,percpu) or run unit work
179 calibration only (option=calibrate).
180 --inflate-log=log Inflate and output compressed log
181
182
183 Any parameters following the options will be assumed to be job files,
184 unless they match a job file parameter. Multiple job files can be listed
185 and each job file will be regarded as a separate group. fio will stonewall
186 execution between each group.
187
188 The --readonly option is an extra safety guard to prevent users from
189 accidentally starting a write workload when that is not desired. Fio
190 will only write if rw=write/randwrite/rw/randrw is given. This extra
191 safety net can be used as an extra precaution as --readonly will also
192 enable a write check in the io engine core to prevent writes due to
193 unknown user space bug(s).
194
195 The --debug option triggers additional logging by fio.
196 Currently, additional logging is available for:
197
198 process Dump info related to processes
199 file Dump info related to file actions
200 io Dump info related to IO queuing
201 mem Dump info related to memory allocations
202 blktrace Dump info related to blktrace setup
203 verify Dump info related to IO verification
204 all Enable all debug options
205 random Dump info related to random offset generation
206 parse Dump info related to option matching and parsing
207 diskutil Dump info related to disk utilization updates
208 job:x Dump info only related to job number x
209 mutex Dump info only related to mutex up/down ops
210 profile Dump info related to profile extensions
211 time Dump info related to internal time keeping
212 net Dump info related to networking connections
213 rate Dump info related to IO rate switching
214 compress Dump info related to log compress/decompress
215 ? or help Show available debug options.
216
217 One can specify multiple debug options: e.g. --debug=file,mem will enable
218 file and memory debugging.
219
220 The --section option allows one to combine related jobs into one file.
221 E.g. one job file could define light, moderate, and heavy sections. Tell fio to
222 run only the "heavy" section by giving --section=heavy command line option.
223 One can also specify the "write" operations in one section and "verify"
224 operation in another section. The --section option only applies to job
225 sections. The reserved 'global' section is always parsed and used.
226
227 The --alloc-size switch allows one to use a larger pool size for smalloc.
228 If running large jobs with randommap enabled, fio can run out of memory.
229 Smalloc is an internal allocator for shared structures from a fixed size
230 memory pool. The pool size defaults to 1024k and can grow to 128 pools.
231
232 NOTE: While running .fio_smalloc.* backing store files are visible in /tmp.
233
234
235 Job file
236 --------
237
238 See the HOWTO file for a complete description of job file syntax and
239 parameters. The --cmdhelp option also lists all options. If used with
240 an option argument, --cmdhelp will detail the given option. The job file
241 format is in the ini style format, as that is easy for the user to review
242 and modify.
243
244 This README contains the terse version. Job files can describe big and
245 complex setups that are not possible with the command line. Job files
246 are a good practice even for simple jobs since the file provides an
247 easily accessed record of the workload and can include comments.
248
249 See the examples/ directory for inspiration on how to write job files. Note
250 the copyright and license requirements currently apply to examples/ files.
251
252
253 Client/server
254 ------------
255
256 Normally fio is invoked as a stand-alone application on the machine
257 where the IO workload should be generated. However, the frontend and
258 backend of fio can be run separately. Ie the fio server can generate
259 an IO workload on the "Device Under Test" while being controlled from
260 another machine.
261
262 Start the server on the machine which has access to the storage DUT:
263
264 fio --server=args
265
266 where args defines what fio listens to. The arguments are of the form
267 'type,hostname or IP,port'. 'type' is either 'ip' (or ip4) for TCP/IP v4,
268 'ip6' for TCP/IP v6, or 'sock' for a local unix domain socket.
269 'hostname' is either a hostname or IP address, and 'port' is the port to
270 listen to (only valid for TCP/IP, not a local socket). Some examples:
271
272 1) fio --server
273
274 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on the default port (8765).
275
276 2) fio --server=ip:hostname,4444
277
278 Start a fio server, listening on IP belonging to hostname and on port 4444.
279
280 3) fio --server=ip6:::1,4444
281
282 Start a fio server, listening on IPv6 localhost ::1 and on port 4444.
283
284 4) fio --server=,4444
285
286 Start a fio server, listening on all interfaces on port 4444.
287
288 5) fio --server=1.2.3.4
289
290 Start a fio server, listening on IP 1.2.3.4 on the default port.
291
292 6) fio --server=sock:/tmp/fio.sock
293
294 Start a fio server, listening on the local socket /tmp/fio.sock.
295
296 Once a server is running, a "client" can connect to the fio server with:
297
298 fio --local-args --client=<server> --remote-args <job file(s)>
299
300 where --local-args are arguments for the client where it is
301 running, 'server' is the connect string, and --remote-args and <job file(s)>
302 are sent to the server. The 'server' string follows the same format as it
303 does on the server side, to allow IP/hostname/socket and port strings.
304
305 Fio can connect to multiple servers this way:
306
307 fio --client=<server1> <job file(s)> --client=<server2> <job file(s)>
308
309 If the job file is located on the fio server, then you can tell the server
310 to load a local file as well. This is done by using --remote-config:
311
312 fio --client=server --remote-config /path/to/file.fio
313
314 Then the fio server will open this local (to the server) job file instead
315 of being passed one from the client.
316
317
318 Platforms
319 ---------
320
321 Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSX, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
322 Windows and FreeBSD. Some features and/or options may only be available on
323 some of the platforms, typically because those features only apply to that
324 platform (like the solarisaio engine, or the splice engine on Linux).
325
326 Some features are not available on FreeBSD/Solaris even if they could be
327 implemented, I'd be happy to take patches for that. An example of that is
328 disk utility statistics and (I think) huge page support, support for that
329 does exist in FreeBSD/Solaris.
330
331 Fio uses pthread mutexes for signalling and locking and FreeBSD does not
332 support process shared pthread mutexes. As a result, only threads are
333 supported on FreeBSD. This could be fixed with sysv ipc locking or
334 other locking alternatives.
335
336 Other *BSD platforms are untested, but fio should work there almost out
337 of the box. Since I don't do test runs or even compiles on those platforms,
338 your mileage may vary. Sending me patches for other platforms is greatly
339 appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool
340 available on all platforms.
341
342 Note that POSIX aio is not enabled by default on AIX. Messages like these:
343
344 Symbol resolution failed for /usr/lib/libc.a(posix_aio.o) because:
345 Symbol _posix_kaio_rdwr (number 2) is not exported from dependent module /unix.
346
347 indicate one needs to enable POSIX aio. Run the following commands as root:
348
349 # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
350 posix_aio0 Defined Posix Asynchronous I/O
351 # cfgmgr -l posix_aio0
352 # lsdev -C -l posix_aio0
353 posix_aio0 Available Posix Asynchronous I/O
354
355 POSIX aio should work now. To make the change permanent:
356
357 # chdev -l posix_aio0 -P -a autoconfig='available'
358 posix_aio0 changed
359
360
361 Author
362 ------
363
364 Fio was written by Jens Axboe <axboe (a] kernel.dk> to enable flexible testing
365 of the Linux IO subsystem and schedulers. He got tired of writing
366 specific test applications to simulate a given workload, and found that
367 the existing io benchmark/test tools out there weren't flexible enough
368 to do what he wanted.
369
370 Jens Axboe <axboe (a] kernel.dk> 20060905
371
372