RE: Stats log

I'd like on-screen updates every few seconds, and logged-to-file stats at the end of each job. I like to be able to tell at a glance what and how each machine is running. Part of my job is writing firmware for array controllers, and although *my* code certainly never has bugs ( ;-) ), sometimes the test builds can cause the controller to lock up. So visual feeback is important. On the other hand, the stats also need to be saved for uploading into a database so the tabular data is impotant, too.

I looked for "minimal" in the HOWTO but I cannot find that option. After digging around I found a section "7.0 Terse output" at the end of the file that says, "For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format." It shows an example of the output, but it doesn't say how to cause it to be generated. Does --minimal do this?

Lee Jenkins
HP Server Storage Performance

________________________________
From: Shawn Lewis [mailto:shawnlewis_at_google.com]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 2:46 PM
To: Jenkins, Lee
Cc: fio-devel_at_kernel.dk
Subject: Re: Stats log

Are you saying you want updates every few seconds or just at the end of the run? If you just want it at the end of the run the --minimal command line flag gives you tabular output. Check the HOWTO for the format.

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 12:27 PM, Jenkins, Lee <Lee.Jenkins_at_hp.com<mailto:Lee.Jenkins_at_hp.com>> wrote:
I'd like to propose a stats-log option for fio. The log would contain the statistics that appear on stdout but in a tabular form where each line (row) represents a job and the stats are delimited (user-specifiable, comma by default). The first line of the stats file could contain column headers for parser identification. For example:

job name,iodepth,iops,read iops,write iops,bw,read bw,write bw,avg lat,avg read lat,avg write lat,max lat,max read lat,max write lat, ...etc.

Yes, I know this can be done by applying a filter to stdout -- I have actaully already written a perl filter that does just that. However, when stdout is redirected there is no on-screen notification of test progress or current stats. On-screen display is quite handy when you want to spot-check bw rates on job-batches that take several hours to complete. This is the real essence of this proposal: simultaneous on-screen and log-file recording of statistics. I used tee, but there is still no real-time indication of the data rate, or even which job is running.

Also, I'd like to request that all the stats be displayed as floating-point real numbers. Some are currently integers (iops, max latency, etc.), which is fine when there are several digits but not for single-digit values.

Lee Jenkins
HP Server Storage Performance
Received on Fri Sep 26 2008 - 23:35:17 CEST