1iowatcher(1) General Commands Manual iowatcher(1)
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6 iowatcher - Create visualizations from blktrace results
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10 iowatcher OPTIONS...
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14 iowatcher graphs the results of a blktrace run. It can graph the
15 result of an existing blktrace, start a new blktrace, or start a new
16 blktrace and a benchmark run. It can then create an image or movie of
17 the IO from a given trace. iowatcher can produce either SVG files or
18 movies in mp4 format (with ffmpeg) or ogg format (with png2theora).
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22 --help Print a brief usage summary.
23 -d, --device <device>
25 Controls which device you are tracing. You can only trace one
26 device at a time for now. It is sent directly to blktrace, and
27 only needed when you are making a new trace.
28 -D, --blktrace-destination <destination>
30 Destination for blktrace.
31 -p, --prog <program>
33 Program to run while blktrace is run.
34 -K, --keep-movie-svgs
36 Keep the SVG files generated for movie mode.
37 -t, --trace <file|directory>
39 Controls the name of the blktrace file. iowatcher uses a dump
40 from blkparse, so -t tries to guess the name of the correspond‐
41 ing per CPU blktrace data files if the dump file doesn't already
42 exist. If you want more than one trace in a given graph, you
43 can specify -t more than once. If a directory is specified,
44 iowatcher will use the name of the directory as the base name of
45 the dump file and all trace files found inside the directory
46 will be processed.
47 -l, --label <label>
49 Sets a label in the graph for a trace file. The labels are
50 added in the same order the trace files are added.
51 -m, --movie [spindle|rect]
53 Create a movie. The file format depends on the extension used
54 in the -o filename.* option. If you specify an .ogv or .ogg
55 extension, the result will be Ogg Theora video, if png2theora is
56 available. If you use an .mp4 extension, the result will be an
57 mp4 video if ffmpeg is available. You can use any other exten‐
58 sion, but the end result will be an mp4. You can use
59 --movie=spindle or --movie=rect, which changes the style of the
60 IO mapping.
61 -T, --title <title>
63 Set a title to be placed at the top of the graph.
64 -o, --output <file>
66 Output filename (default: trace.svg).
67 -r, --rolling <seconds>
69 Control the duration for the rolling average. iowatcher tries
70 to smooth out bumpy graphs by averaging the current second with
71 seconds from the past. Larger numbers here give you flatter
72 graphs.
73 -h, --height <height>
75 Set the height of each graph
76 -w, --width <width>
78 Set the width of each graph
79 -c, --columns <columns>
81 Numbers of columns in graph output
82 -x, --xzoom <min:max>
84 Limit processed time range to min:max
85 -y, --yzoom <min:max>
87 Limit processed sectors to min:max
88 -a, --io-plot-action <action>
90 Plot given action (one of Q,D,C) in IO graph
91 -P, --per-process-io
93 Distinguish between processes in IO graph
94 -O, --only-graph <graph>
96 Add a single graph to the output (see GRAPHS). By default all
97 the graphs are included, but with -O you get only the graphs you
98 ask for. -O may be used more than once.
99 -N, --no-graph <type>
101 Remove a single graph from the output (see GRAPHS). This may
102 also be used more than once.
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105 Choices for -O and -N are:
106 io, tput, latency, queue_depth, iops, cpu-sys, cpu-io, cpu-irq, cpu-
107 user, cpu-soft
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111 Generate graph from the existing trace.dump:
112 iowatcher -t trace.dump -o trace.svg
114 Skip the IO graph:
116 iowatcher -t trace.dump -o trace.svg -N io
118 Only graph tput and latency:
120 iowatcher -t trace.dump -o trace.svg -O tput -O latency
122 Generate a graph from two runs, and label them:
124 iowatcher -t ext4.dump -t xfs.dump -l Ext4 -l XFS -o trace.svg
126 Run a fio benchmark and store the trace in trace.dump, add a title to
128 the top, use /dev/sda for blktrace:
129 iowatcher -d /dev/sda -t trace.dump -T 'Fio Benchmark' -p 'fio
131 some_job_file'
132 Make a movie from an existing trace:
134 iowatcher -t trace --movie -o trace.mp4
136 iowatcher(1)