SPEW(1)

🎀 spew — user commands, section 1 🎀

hii bestie 💖 welcome to the spew manual, the little tool that measures I/O performance and/or generates I/O load. she's a User Command, she lives in section 1, and she's about to tell you everything.

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✨ NAME ✨

spew — measures I/O performance and/or generates I/O load

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

spew --write|--read|--read-after-write [OPTION]... TRANSFER_SIZE[kKmMgG]
FILE

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

An I/O performance measurement and load generation tool. Writes and/or reads generated data to or from a character device, block device, or regular file.

no cap, that's the whole vibe. now here are the flags, and there are A LOT of them, so hydrate 💅

• -B, --max-buffer-size=BUFFER_SIZE — each read(2)/write(2) call uses a maximum buffer of size BUFFER_SIZE.
• -b, --min-buffer-size=BUFFER_SIZE — each read(2)/write(2) call uses a minimum buffer of size BUFFER_SIZE.
• -c, --continue-after-error — keep going after data integrity errors.
• -d, --direct — use direct I/O. should only be used on block device files. not all operating systems support direct I/O.
• -g, --generate-load — equivalent to: -v -t -P -p random -i 0.
• -i, --iterations=COUNT — write/read data COUNT times. if count is 0, it repeats forever.
• -l, --logfile=LOGFILE — send log messages to LOGFILE.
• --no-progress — don't show progress (default).
• --no-rcfiles — don't use standard rcfiles.
• -q, --no-statistics — don't output statistics.
• --no-tui — don't use TUI interface.
• -o, --offset=OFFSET — seek to OFFSET before starting I/O.
• -P, --progress — show progress.
• -p, --pattern=PATTERN — use data pattern PATTERN when reading or writing data.
• -r, --random — read/write buffers to random offsets.
• --raw — an alias for --read-after-write.
• --rcfile=RCFILE — read command-line options from RCFILE.
• --read — read data from FILE.
• --read-after-write — read back data after writing to FILE.
• -S, --seed=SEED — use SEED for random number seed.
• -s, --sync — use synchronous I/O.
• --statistics — output statistics (default).
• -t, --tui — use curses-based, terminal user interface.
• -u, --units=UNITS — show transfer rate in UNITS units.
• --usage — show brief usage message and exit.
• -V, --version — output version information and exit.
• -v, --detailed-statistics — output detailed statistics.
• --write — write data to FILE.
• -?, --help — show this help and exit.

and the lil positional / argument besties, in order:

• FILE — regular or device file to write data to.
• LOGFILE — path to a file used for logging.
• MAX_BUFFER_SIZE — minimum buffer size used in each read(2)/write(2) call (default is MIN_BUFFER_SIZE bytes). MAX_BUFFER_SIZE must be an even multiple of 512 bytes and can be specified in bytes, kibibytes(k), kilobytes(K), mebibytes(m), megabytes(M), gibibytes(g), gigabytes(G), tebibytes(t), or terabytes(T). MAX_BUFFER_SIZE defaults to MIN_BUFFER_SIZE. if MAX_BUFFER_SIZE > MIN_BUFFER_SIZE, random buffer sizes between the two limits are used. MAX_BUFFER_SIZE must be an even multiple of MIN_BUFFER_SIZE.
• MIN_BUFFER_SIZE — minimum buffer size used in each read(2)/write(2) call (default is 512 bytes). MIN_BUFFER_SIZE must be an even multiple of 512 bytes and can be specified in bytes, kibibytes(k), kilobytes(K), mebibytes(m), megabytes(M), gibibytes(g), gigabytes(G), tebibytes(t), or terabytes(T).
• OFFSET — position to seek to in the file before starting I/O (default is 0). OFFSET must be an even multiple of 512 bytes and can be specified in bytes, kibibytes(k), kilobytes(K), mebibytes(m), megabytes(M), gibibytes(g), gigabytes(G), tebibytes(t), or terabytes(T).
• PATTERN — data pattern used when writing/reading data. available patterns are: none, zeros, ones, alt, random, numbers, and "#" (where "#" is a number between 0-255). the default pattern is "none".
• RCFILE — read additional command-line options from RCFILE. other options on the command-line will override options in RCFILE.
• SEED — used to seed the random number generator. must be >= 1 and <= 2^32.
• TRANSFER_SIZE — total number of bytes to transfer (must be an even multiple of both MIN_BUFFER_SIZE and MAX_BUFFER_SIZE). TRANSFER_SIZE can be specified in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes.
• UNITS — kibibytes(k), kilobytes(K), mebibytes(m), megabytes(M), gibibytes(g), gigabytes(G), tebibytes(t), or terabytes(T).

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

okay this is the fun part, let's see her in action 🫶

spew --write -b 16k 1m /tmp/bigfile

or

spew -b 16k 1m /tmp/bigfile

writes 1 mebibyte (1 mebibyte = 1024*1024 bytes) using 16 kibibytes (1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes) requests to the file /tmp/bigfile using the default pattern (random). displays the write transfer rate in kibibytes per second and the write transfer time in seconds. iconic.

spew --write -u m -i 10 -b 1k 256k /dev/sda1

or

spew -u m -i 10 -b 1k 256k /dev/sda1

writes 256 kibibytes using 1 kibibyte requests to the block device file /dev/sda1 10 times using the default pattern (random). the iteration and cumulative write transfer rates are displayed in mebibytes per second and the iteration and cumulative write transfer times are displayed in seconds.

spew --raw -d -o 1m -b 16m 1g /tmp/bigfile

or

regorge -s -o 1m -b 16m 1g /tmp/bigfile

write 1 gibibyte (1 gibibyte = 1024*1024*1024 bytes) starting at an offset of 1 mebibyte using 16 mebibyte requests to the file /tmp/bigfile using the default pattern (random). the data is written synchronously and flushed at file close. then read in the same data using the same request size and offset. the data is checked to ensure that the data read in matches the data read out. write and read transfer rates are displayed in kibibytes/second. read and write transfer times are displayed in seconds. she's thorough 💅

spew --read -i 0 -u M -p zeros -b 512 1m /dev/zero

or

gorge -i 0 -u M -p zeros -b 512 1m /dev/zero

read 1 mebibyte of data using 512 byte requests from the file /dev/zero an infinite number of times using the zeros pattern (don't check the data). the iteration and cumulative read transfer rates are displayed in megabytes (1 megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes) per second and the iteration and cumulative read transfer times are displayed in seconds.

spew --raw -g -r -b 1k -B 256K 1t /dev/md1

or

regorge -g -r -b 1k -B 256K 1t /dev/md1

write 1 tebibyte (1 tebibyte = 1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes) using 1-256 kibibyte requests to the block device /dev/md1 using the random pattern. random seeks are performed before each transfer, but each block between the start and end of the data is written exactly once. the request sizes are chosen randomly. then read in the same data using the same request sizes and seeks in the same sequence. repeat the above sequence an infinite number of times until told to quit (via signal or TUI command).

the data is checked to ensure that the data read in matches the data read out. a curses-based TUI is used to display iteration and cumulative transfer rates, transfer times, and bytes transferred. display verbose statistics after quitting. main character energy fr fr 👑

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🧚 ALGORITHMS 🧚

the following algorithm is used to determine blocksize when MAX_BUFFER_SIZE > MIN_BUFFER_SIZE:

find the largest blocksize that is a power of 2 and is >= MAX_BUFFER_SIZE. call this maxbuffersize. find the smallest buffersize that is a power of 2 and is >= MIN_BUFFER_SIZE. call this minbuffersize. Chunksize = maxbuffersize * (difference in number of bits between min and maxbuffersize + 1). the number of chunks is TRANSFER_SIZE/chunksize. call this numchunks. there will be numchunks number of read/writes that are of size maxbuffersize, 2 * numchunks number of read/writes that are of size maxbuffersize/2, 4 * numchunks number of read/writes that are of size maxbuffersize/4, and so on until minbuffersize is reached. MIN_BUFFER_SIZE is used for any remaining transfers if TRANSFER_SIZE is not evenly divisible by chunksize.

example: using a MIN_BLOCK_SIZE of 1k, a MAX_BLOCK_SIZE of 8k and a TRANSFER_SIZE of 264k results in 8 8k read/writes, 16 4k read/write, 32 2k read/writes, and 64 + 8 1k read/writes. math ate that 🍓

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💜 PATTERNS 💜

use the following od(1) command to examine spew generated files where a data integrity problem has occurred:

od -A d --format=d8 --width=32  <file>

note the double space before <file>, bestie — we keep it real here 🙈

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⭐ FILES ⭐

• $HOME/.spewrc or $SPEWRC — holds user default options. these options precede any options included on the command-line.
• /etc/spew.conf — holds system-wide default options. these options precede any options included on the command-line and options included from $HOME/.spewrc or $SPEWRC.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Andrew Patterson <andrew.patterson@hp.com>

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😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

Report bugs to Andrew Patterson <andrew.patterson@hp.com>.

Copyright 2007 Hewlett-Packard Corp.

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and that's the whole thing, bestie 🎀 you now know spew better than she knows herself. go forth and benchmark responsibly 💖

this page is from spew version 1.0.8, dated May 2010 — vintage, lowkey, and still slaying ✨🦋 love u, bye 💅🌈