NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

       biolatency traces block device I/O (disk I/O), and records the distribution of I/O latency
       (time). This is printed as a histogram either on Ctrl-C, or  after  a  given  interval  in
       seconds.

       The  latency of the disk I/O is measured from the issue to the device to its completion. A
       -Q option can be used to include time queued in the kernel.

       This tool uses  in-kernel  eBPF  maps  for  storing  timestamps  and  the  histogram,  for
       efficiency.

       This  works  by  tracing  various kernel blk_*() functions using dynamic tracing, and will
       need updating to match any changes to these functions.

       Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.

REQUIREMENTS

       CONFIG_BPF and bcc.

OPTIONS

       -h Print usage message.

       -T     Include timestamps on output.

       -m     Output histogram in milliseconds.

       -D     Print a histogram per disk device.

       interval
              Output interval, in seconds.

       count  Number of outputs.

EXAMPLES

       Summarize block device I/O latency as a histogram:
              # biolatency

       Print 1 second summaries, 10 times:
              # biolatency 1 10

       Print 1 second summaries, using milliseconds as units for the histogram, and
              include timestamps on output: # biolatency -mT 1

       Include OS queued time in I/O time:
              # biolatency -Q

       Show a latency histogram for each disk device separately:
              # biolatency -D

FIELDS

       usecs  Microsecond range

       msecs  Millisecond range

       count  How many I/O fell into this range

       distribution
              An ASCII bar chart to visualize the distribution (count column)

OVERHEAD

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

SOURCE

       This is from bcc.

              https://github.com/iovisor/bcc

       Also  look  in  the bcc distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing example
       usage, output, and commentary for this tool.

OS

       Linux

STABILITY

       Unstable - in development.

AUTHOR

       Brendan Gregg

SEE ALSO

       biosnoop(8)