NAME
btrecord - recreate IO loads recorded by blktrace
SYNOPSIS
Usage:
btrecord [ options ] <dev...>
DESCRIPTION
The btrecord and btreplay tools provide the ability to record and
replay IOs captured by the blktrace utility. Attempts are made to
maintain ordering, CPU mappings and time-separation of IOs.
The blktrace utility provides the ability to collect detailed traces
from the kernel for each IO processed by the block IO layer. The traces
provide a complete timeline for each IO processed, including detailed
information concerning when an IO was first received by the block IO
layer — indicating the device, CPU number, time stamp, IO direction,
sector number and IO size (number of sectors). Using this information,
one is able to replay the IO again on the same machine or another set
up entirely.
The basic operating work-flow to replay IOs would be something like:
- Run blktrace to collect traces. Here you specify the
device or devices that you wish to trace and later replay IOs upon.
Note:
the only traces you are interested in are QUEUE requests —
thus, to save system resources (including storage for traces), one
could
specify the -a queue command line option to blktrace.
- While blktrace is running, you run the workload that you
are interested in.
- When the work load has completed, you stop the blktrace
utility (thus saving all traces over the complete workload).
- You extract the pertinent IO information from the traces saved by
blktrace using the btrecord utility. This will parse
each trace file created by blktrace, and crafty IO descriptions
to be used in the next phase of the workload processing.
- Once btrecord has successfully created a series of data
files to be processed, you can run the btreplay utility which
attempts to generate the same IOs seen during the sample workload
phase.
OPTIONS
-d <dir>
--input-directory=<dir>
Set input directory. This option requires a single parameter
providing the directory name for where input files are to be
found. The default directory is the current directory (.).
-D <dir>
--output-directory=<dir>
Set output directory. This option requires a single parameter
providing the directory name for where output files are to be
found. The default directory is the current directory (.).
-F
--find-traces
Find trace files automatically This option instructs btreplay to
go find all the trace files in the directory specified (either
via the -d option, or in the default directory (.).
-h
--help
Show help and exit.
-V
--version
Show version number and exit.
-m <nanoseconds>
--input-base=<nanoseconds>
The -m option requires a single parameter which specifies an
amount of time (in nanoseconds) to include in any one bunch of
IOs that are to be processed. The smaller the value, the smaller
the number of IOs processed at one time — perhaps yielding in
more realistic replay. However, after a certain point the
amount of overhead per bunch may result in additional real
replay time, thus yielding less accurate replay times.
The default value is 10,000,000 nanoseconds (10 milliseconds).
-M <num>
--max-pkts=<num>
Set maximum number of packets per bunch. The -M option requires
a single parameter which specifies the maximum number of IOs to
store in a single bunch. As with the -m option, smaller values
may or may not yield more accurate replay times.
The default value is 8, with a maximum value of up to 512 being
supported.
-o <basename>
--output-base=<basename>
Set base name for output files. Each output file has 3 fields:
1. Device identifier (taken directly from the device name of
the
blktrace output file).
2. btrecord base name — by default ‘‘replay’’.
3. The CPU number (again, taken directly from the
blktrace output file name).
This option requires a single parameter that will override the
default name (replay), and replace it with the specified value.
-v
--verbose
Enable verbose output. This option will output some simple
statistics at the end of a successful run. Example output is:
sdab:0: 580661 pkts (tot), 126030 pkts (replay), 89809 bunches, 1.4 pkts/bunch
sdab:1: 2559775 pkts (tot), 430172 pkts (replay), 293029 bunches, 1.5 pkts/bunch
sdab:2: 653559 pkts (tot), 136522 pkts (replay), 102288 bunches, 1.3 pkts/bunch
sdab:3: 474773 pkts (tot), 117849 pkts (replay), 69572 bunches, 1.7 pkts/bunch
The meaning of the columns is:
1. The first field contains the device name and CPU
identifier. Thus:
sdab:0: means the device sdab and traces on CPU 0.
2. The second field contains the total number of packets
processed for each
device file.
3. The next field shows the number of packets eligible for
replay.
4. The fourth field contains the total number of IO bunches.
5. The last field shows the average number of IOs per bunch
recorded.
AUTHORS
btrecord was written by Alan D. Brunelle. This man page was created
from the btreplay documentation by Bas Zoetekouw.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <linux-btrace@vger.kernel.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2007 Alan D. Brunelle, Alan D. Brunelle and Nathan Scott.
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the
terms of the GNU General Public License
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. There is NO WARRANTY, to the
extent permitted by law.
This manual page was created for Debian by Bas Zoetekouw. It was
derived from the documentation provided by the authors and it may be
used, distributed and modified under the terms of the GNU General
Public License, version 2.
On Debian systems, the text of the GNU General Public License can be
found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2.
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for btreplay can be found in
/usr/share/doc/blktrace on Debian systems.
blktrace (8), blkparse (1), btreplay (8)