bcc-biolatency(8)

1biolatency(8)               System Manager's Manual              biolatency(8)
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NAME

6       biolatency - Summarize block device I/O latency as a histogram.
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SYNOPSIS

9       biolatency [-h] [-T] [-Q] [-m] [-D] [interval [count]]
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DESCRIPTION

12       biolatency  traces block device I/O (disk I/O), and records the distri‐
13       bution of I/O latency (time). This is printed as a histogram either  on
14       Ctrl-C, or after a given interval in seconds.
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16       The latency of the disk I/O is measured from the issue to the device to
17       its completion. A -Q option can be used to include time queued  in  the
18       kernel.
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20       This  tool uses in-kernel eBPF maps for storing timestamps and the his‐
21       togram, for efficiency.
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23       This works by tracing various kernel blk_*()  functions  using  dynamic
24       tracing,  and  will  need  updating to match any changes to these func‐
25       tions.
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27       Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.
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REQUIREMENTS

30       CONFIG_BPF and bcc.
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OPTIONS

33       -h Print usage message.
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35       -T     Include timestamps on output.
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37       -m     Output histogram in milliseconds.
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39       -D     Print a histogram per disk device.
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41       interval
42              Output interval, in seconds.
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44       count  Number of outputs.
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EXAMPLES

47       Summarize block device I/O latency as a histogram:
48              # biolatency
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50       Print 1 second summaries, 10 times:
51              # biolatency 1 10
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53       Print 1 second summaries, using milliseconds  as  units  for  the  his‐
54       togram, and
55              include timestamps on output: # biolatency -mT 1
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57       Include OS queued time in I/O time:
58              # biolatency -Q
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60       Show a latency histogram for each disk device separately:
61              # biolatency -D
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FIELDS

64       usecs  Microsecond range
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66       msecs  Millisecond range
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68       count  How many I/O fell into this range
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70       distribution
71              An ASCII bar chart to visualize the distribution (count column)
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OVERHEAD

74       This  traces  kernel functions and maintains in-kernel timestamps and a
75       histogram, which are asynchronously copied to user-space.  This  method
76       is  very  efficient, and the overhead for most storage I/O rates (< 10k
77       IOPS) should be negligible.  If you have a higher IOPS storage environ‐
78       ment, test and quantify the overhead before use.
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SOURCE

81       This is from bcc.
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83              https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
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85       Also  look  in  the bcc distribution for a companion _examples.txt file
86       containing example usage, output, and commentary for this tool.
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OS

89       Linux
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STABILITY

92       Unstable - in development.
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AUTHOR

95       Brendan Gregg
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