man/man8/biotop.8

.TH biotop 8  "2016-02-06" "USER COMMANDS"
.SH NAME
biotop \- Block device (disk) I/O by process top.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B biotop [\-h] [\-C] [\-r MAXROWS] [interval] [count]
.SH DESCRIPTION
This is top for disks. 

This traces block device I/O (disk I/O), and prints a per-process summary every
interval (by default, 1 second). The summary is sorted on the top disk
consumers by throughput (Kbytes). The PID and process name shown are measured
from when the I/O was first created, which usually identifies the responsible
process.

For efficiency, this uses in-kernel eBPF maps to cache process details (PID and
comm) by I/O request, as well as a starting timestamp for calculating I/O
latency, and the final summary.

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.
.SH REQUIREMENTS
CONFIG_BPF and bcc.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\-C
Don't clear the screen.
.TP
\-r MAXROWS
Maximum number of rows to print. Default is 20.
.TP
\-p PID
Trace this PID only.
.TP
interval
Interval between updates, seconds.
.TP
count
Number of interval summaries.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Summarize block device I/O by process, 1 second screen refresh:
#
.B biotop
.TP
Don't clear the screen:
#
.B biotop -C
.TP
5 second summaries, 10 times only:
#
.B biotop 5 10
.SH FIELDS
.TP
loadavg:
The contents of /proc/loadavg
.TP
PID
Cached process ID, if present. This usually (but isn't guaranteed) to identify
the responsible process for the I/O.
.TP
COMM
Cached process name, if present. This usually (but isn't guaranteed) to identify
the responsible process for the I/O.
.TP
D
Direction: R == read, W == write. This is a simplification.
.TP
MAJ
Major device number.
.TP
MIN
Minor device number.
.TP
DISK
Disk device name.
.TP
I/O
Number of I/O during the interval.
.TP
Kbytes
Total Kbytes for these I/O, during the interval.
.TP
AVGms
Average time for the I/O (latency) from the issue to the device, to its
completion, in milliseconds.
.SH OVERHEAD
Since block device I/O usually has a relatively low frequency (< 10,000/s),
the overhead for this tool is expected to be low or negligible. For high IOPS
storage systems, test and quantify before use.
.SH SOURCE
This is from bcc.
.IP
https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
.PP
Also look in the bcc distribution for a companion _examples.txt file containing
example usage, output, and commentary for this tool.
.SH OS
Linux
.SH STABILITY
Unstable - in development.
.SH AUTHOR
Brendan Gregg
.SH INSPIRATION
top(1) by William LeFebvre
.SH SEE ALSO
biosnoop(8), biolatency(8), iostat(1)