Fio is a project mainly written in C and ROFF, based on the GPL-2.0 license.
Flexible I/O Tester debian package
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.
fio resides in a git repo, the canonical place is:
git://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
The http protocol also works, path is the same.
Snapshots are frequently generated and they include the git meta data as well. You can download them here:
http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/
Pascal Bleser [email protected] has fio RPMs in his repository for SUSE variants, you can find them here:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/rpm-navigation.php?cat=System/fio
Dag Wieërs has RPMs for Red Hat related distros, find them here:
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/fio/
Mandriva has integrated fio into their package repository, so installing on that distro should be as easy as typing 'urpmi fio'.
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 [email protected], subscribe by sending an email to [email protected] with
subscribe fio
in the body of the email. There is no archive for the new list yet, archives for the old list can be found here:
http://maillist.kernel.dk/fio-devel/
Just type 'make' and 'make install'. If on FreeBSD, for now you have to specify the FreeBSD Makefile with -f and use gmake (not make), eg:
$ gmake -f Makefile.Freebsd && gmake -f Makefile.FreeBSD install
Likewise with OpenSolaris, use the Makefile.solaris to compile there. The OpenSolaris make should work fine. This might change in the future if I opt for an autoconf type setup.
If your compile fails with an error like this:
CC gettime.oIn 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
Check that you have the libaio development package installed. On RPM based distros, it's typically called libaio-devel.
$ fio --debug Enable some debugging options (see below) --output Write output to file --timeout Runtime in seconds --latency-log Generate per-job latency logs --bandwidth-log Generate per-job bandwidth logs --minimal Minimal (terse) output --version Print version info and exit --help Print this page --cmdhelp=cmd Print command help, "all" for all of them --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" --section=name Only run specified section in job file --alloc-size=kb Set smalloc pool to this size in kb (def 1024)
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 accidentically 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
? 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.
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.
The job file parameters are:
name=x Use 'x' as the identifier for this job.
description=x 'x' is a text description of the job.
directory=x Use 'x' as the top level directory for storing files
filename=x Force the use of 'x' as the filename for all files
in this thread. If not given, fio will make up
a suitable filename based on the thread and file
number.
rw=x 'x' may be: read, randread, write, randwrite,
rw (read-write mix), randrw (read-write random mix)
rwmixcycle=x Base cycle for switching between read and write
in msecs.
rwmixread=x 'x' percentage of rw mix ios will be reads. If
rwmixwrite is also given, the last of the two will
be used if they don't add up to 100%.
rwmixwrite=x 'x' percentage of rw mix ios will be writes. See
rwmixread.
rand_repeatable=x The sequence of random io blocks can be repeatable
across runs, if 'x' is 1.
size=x Set file size to x bytes (x string can include k/m/g)
ioengine=x 'x' may be: aio/libaio/linuxaio for Linux aio,
posixaio for POSIX aio, solarisaio for Solaris
native async IO, sync for regular read/write io,
psync for regular pread/pwrite io, vsync for regular
readv/writev (with queuing emulation) mmap for mmap'ed
io, syslet-rw for syslet driven read/write, splice for
using splice/vmsplice, sg for direct SG_IO io, net
for network io, or cpuio for a cycler burner load. sg
only works on Linux on SCSI (or SCSI-like devices, such
as usb-storage or sata/libata driven) devices. Fio also
has a null io engine, which is mainly used for testing
fio itself.
iodepth=x For async io, allow 'x' ios in flight
overwrite=x If 'x', layout a write file first.
nrfiles=x Spread io load over 'x' number of files per job,
if possible.
prio=x Run io at prio X, 0-7 is the kernel allowed range
prioclass=x Run io at prio class X
bs=x Use 'x' for thread blocksize. May include k/m postfix.
bsrange=x-y Mix thread block sizes randomly between x and y. May
also include k/m postfix.
direct=x 1 for direct IO, 0 for buffered IO
thinktime=x "Think" x usec after each io
rate=x Throttle rate to x KB/sec
ratemin=x Quit if rate of x KB/sec can't be met
ratecycle=x ratemin averaged over x msecs
cpumask=x Only allow job to run on CPUs defined by mask.
cpus_allowed=x Like 'cpumask', but allow text setting of CPU affinity.
fsync=x If writing with buffered IO, fsync after every
'x' blocks have been written.
end_fsync=x If 'x', run fsync() after end-of-job.
startdelay=x Start this thread x seconds after startup
runtime=x Terminate x seconds after startup. Can include a
normal time suffix if not given in seconds, such as
'm' for minutes, 'h' for hours, and 'd' for days.
offset=x Start io at offset x (x string can include k/m/g)
invalidate=x Invalidate page cache for file prior to doing io
sync=x Use sync writes if x and writing buffered IO.
mem=x If x == malloc, use malloc for buffers. If x == shm,
use shared memory for buffers. If x == mmap, use
anonymous mmap.
exitall When one thread quits, terminate the others
bwavgtime=x Average bandwidth stats over an x msec window.
create_serialize=x If 'x', serialize file creation.
create_fsync=x If 'x', run fsync() after file creation.
unlink If set, unlink files when done.
loops=x Run the job 'x' number of times.
verify=x If 'x' == md5, use md5 for verifies. If 'x' == crc32,
use crc32 for verifies. md5 is 'safer', but crc32 is
a lot faster. Only makes sense for writing to a file.
For other types of checksumming, see HOWTO.
stonewall Wait for preceeding jobs to end before running.
numjobs=x Create 'x' similar entries for this job
thread Use pthreads instead of forked jobs
zonesize=x
zoneskip=y Zone options must be paired. If given, the job
will skip y bytes for every x read/written. This
can be used to gauge hard drive speed over the entire
platter, without reading everything. Both x/y can
include k/m/g suffix.
iolog=x Open and read io pattern from file 'x'. The file must
contain one io action per line in the following format:
rw, offset, length
where with rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset
and length entries being in bytes.
write_iolog=x Write an iolog to file 'x' in the same format as iolog.
The iolog options are exclusive, if both given the
read iolog will be performed.
write_bw_log Write a bandwidth log.
write_lat_log Write a latency log.
lockmem=x Lock down x amount of memory on the machine, to
simulate a machine with less memory available. x can
include k/m/g suffix.
nice=x Run job at given nice value.
exec_prerun=x Run 'x' before job io is begun.
exec_postrun=x Run 'x' after job io has finished.
ioscheduler=x Use ioscheduler 'x' for this job.
cpuload=x For a CPU io thread, percentage of CPU time to attempt
to burn.
cpuchunks=x Split burn cycles into pieces of x usecs.Fio works on (at least) Linux, Solaris, 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).
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 appreciated. There's a lot of value in having the same test/benchmark tool available on all platforms.
Fio was written by Jens Axboe [email protected] 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.
Jens Axboe [email protected] 20060905