bcc-filetop - Man Page

filetop [-h] [-a] [-C] [-r MAXROWS] [-s {reads,writes,rbytes,wbytes}] [-p PID] [interval] [count]

This is top for files.

This traces file reads and writes, and prints a per-file summary every interval (by default, 1 second). By default the summary is sorted on the highest read throughput (Kbytes). Sorting order can be changed via -s option. By default only IO on regular files is shown. The -a option will list all file types (sockets, FIFOs, etc).

This uses in-kernel eBPF maps to store per process summaries for efficiency.

This script works by tracing the __vfs_read() and __vfs_write() functions using kernel dynamic tracing, which instruments explicit read and write calls. If files are read or written using another means (eg, via mmap()), then they will not be visible using this tool. Also, this tool will need updating to match any code changes to those vfs functions.

This should be useful for file system workload characterization when analyzing the performance of applications.

Note that tracing VFS level reads and writes can be a frequent activity, and this tool can begin to cost measurable overhead at high I/O rates.

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

CONFIG_BPF and bcc.

-a

Include non-regular file types (sockets, FIFOs, etc).

-C

Don't clear the screen.

-r MAXROWS

Maximum number of rows to print. Default is 20.

-s {reads,writes,rbytes,wbytes}

Sort column. Default is rbytes (read throughput).

-p PID

Trace this PID only.

interval

Interval between updates, seconds.

count

Number of interval summaries.

Summarize block device I/O by process, 1 second screen refresh:

# filetop

Don't clear the screen, and top 8 rows only:

# filetop -Cr 8

5 second summaries, 10 times only:

# filetop 5 10

loadavg:

The contents of /proc/loadavg

PID

Process ID.

COMM

Process name.

READS

Count of reads during interval.

WRITES

Count of writes during interval.

R_Kb

Total read Kbytes during interval.

W_Kb

Total write Kbytes during interval.

T

Type of file: R == regular, S == socket, O == other (pipe, etc).

FILE

Filename.

Depending on the frequency of application reads and writes, overhead can become significant, in the worst case slowing applications by over 50%. Hopefully for real world workloads the overhead is much less -- test before use. The reason for the high overhead is that VFS reads and writes can be a frequent event, and despite the eBPF overhead being very small per event, if you multiply this small overhead by a million events per second, it becomes a million times worse. Literally. You can gauge the number of reads and writes using the vfsstat(8) tool, also from bcc.

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.

Linux

Unstable - in development.

Brendan Gregg

top(1) by William LeFebvre

vfsstat(8), vfscount(8), fileslower(8)