tools/biosnoop_example.txt

Demonstrations of biosnoop, the Linux eBPF/bcc version.


biosnoop traces block device I/O (disk I/O), and prints a line of output
per I/O. Example:

# ./biosnoop
TIME(s)     COMM           PID    DISK    T SECTOR     BYTES   LAT(ms)
0.000004    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13092560   4096       0.74
0.000178    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13092432   4096       0.61
0.001469    supervise      1956   xvda1   W 13092440   4096       1.24
0.001588    supervise      1956   xvda1   W 13115128   4096       1.09
1.022346    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13115272   4096       0.98
1.022568    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13188496   4096       0.93
1.023534    supervise      1956   xvda1   W 13188520   4096       0.79
1.023585    supervise      1956   xvda1   W 13189512   4096       0.60
2.003920    xfsaild/md0    456    xvdc    W 62901512   8192       0.23
2.003931    xfsaild/md0    456    xvdb    W 62901513   512        0.25
2.004034    xfsaild/md0    456    xvdb    W 62901520   8192       0.35
2.004042    xfsaild/md0    456    xvdb    W 63542016   4096       0.36
2.004204    kworker/0:3    26040  xvdb    W 41950344   65536      0.34
2.044352    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13192672   4096       0.65
2.044574    supervise      1950   xvda1   W 13189072   4096       0.58

This includes the PID and comm (process name) that were on-CPU at the time of
issue (which usually means the process responsible).

The latency of the disk I/O, measured from the issue to the device to its
completion, is included as the last column.

This example output is from what should be an idle system, however, the
following is visible in iostat:

$ iostat -x 1
[...]
avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.12    0.00    0.12    0.00    0.00   99.75

Device: rrqm/s  wrqm/s    r/s    w/s  rkB/s  wkB/s  await  svctm  %util
xvda      0.00    0.00   0.00   4.00   0.00  16.00   0.00   0.00   0.00
xvdb      0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00
xvdc      0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00
md0       0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00   0.00

There are 4 write IOPS.

The output of biosnoop identifies the reason: multiple supervise processes are
issuing writes to the xvda1 disk. I can now drill down on supervise using other
tools to understand its file system workload.


The -Q option includes a column to show the time spent queued in the OS:

# biosnoop.py -Q
TIME(s)     COMM           PID    DISK    T SECTOR     BYTES  QUE(ms) LAT(ms)
0.000000    kworker/u72:1  13379  nvme1n1 W 1142400    4096      0.01    0.55
0.000771    sync           22177  nvme1n1 W 41963894   3072      0.11    0.47
5.332998    xfsaild/nvme1n 1061   nvme1n1 W 545728     16384     0.01    0.61
5.333044    xfsaild/nvme1n 1061   nvme1n1 W 2349728    16384     0.02    0.64
5.333065    xfsaild/nvme1n 1061   nvme1n1 W 20971521   512       0.02    0.65
5.333067    xfsaild/nvme1n 1061   nvme1n1 W 20971528   8192      0.00    0.65
[...]


USAGE message:

usage: biosnoop.py [-h] [-Q] [-d DISK] [-P]

Trace block I/O

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -Q, --queue           include OS queued time
  -d DISK, --disk DISK  trace this disk only
  -P, --pattern         display block I/O pattern (sequential or random)

examples:
    ./biosnoop           # trace all block I/O
    ./biosnoop -Q        # include OS queued time
    ./biosnoop -d sdc    # trace sdc only
    ./biosnoop -P        # display block I/O pattern