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Using top file
20
Periodically report read/write activity by file.

The top file gadget is used to visualize reads and writes by file, with container details.

On Kubernetes

This guide will deploy an example workload that performs some disk I/O activity to show how to use top file.

Before starting our workload, let's start our top file gadget to be sure it captures all the events from the beginning:

$ kubectl gadget top file -p mypod
K8S.NODE         K8S.NAMESPACE    K8S.POD          K8S.CONTAINER    PID     COMM             READS  WRITES R_Kb    W_Kb    T FILE
...

The T column indicates the type of the file: R for regular files, S for sockets, and O for other (including pipes). By default only regular files are shown; use the --all-files option to show all file types.

In another terminal, let's create our pod. It'll install git and then clone the linux source code.

$ kubectl run -it mypod --image ubuntu -- /bin/sh -c "apt-get update && apt-get install -y git && git clone https://github.com/torvalds/linux"

We can see how the top file terminal shows the files that are read and written by the pod. For instace, apt-get is reading a lot of files in when updating the packages list and installing packages.

K8S.NODE         K8S.NAMESPACE    K8S.POD          K8S.CONTAINER    PID     COMM             READS  WRITES R_Kb    W_Kb    T FILE
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          425    0      27022   0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          278    0      17775   0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal_main_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          244    0      15594   0       R security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-security_main_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          93     0      5921    0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal_universe_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          91     0      5797    0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-updates_universe_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          82     0      5160    0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-updates_restricted_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          73     0      4568    0       R security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-security_restricted_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          70     0      4435    0       R security.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal-security_universe_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            642727  apt-get          19     0      1172    0       R archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_focal_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages.lz4

After the initial installation is done, we can see how git uses a temporary file to store the repository being cloned.

K8S.NODE         K8S.NAMESPACE    K8S.POD          K8S.CONTAINER    PID     COMM             READS  WRITES R_Kb    W_Kb    T FILE
ubuntu-hirsute   default          mypod            mypod            647042  git              0      1070   0       4280    R tmp_pack_2rpZd

Finally, we need to clean up our pod, press Ctrl + C on its terminal and them remove it:

$ kubectl delete pod mypod

By default the top file gadget prints a summary each second. It can be customized with the --interval flag. For example, to print a summary each 5 seconds:

$ kubectl gadget top file --interval 5

This gadget also supports the following flags to customize the output:

$ kubectl gadget top file --help
Periodically report read/write activity by file

Usage:
  kubectl-gadget top file [flags]

Flags:
      --all-files              include non-regular file types (sockets, FIFOs, etc)
...
  -m, --max-rows uint32        Maximum number of rows to return (default 50)
...

With ig

Start a container that performs some write operations to a file:

$ docker run --rm --name test-top-file busybox /bin/sh -c 'while true; do echo foo > bar; sleep 1; done'

Start the gadget and it'll show those operations:

$ sudo ig top file -c test-top-file
RUNTIME.CONTAINERNAME                  PID        COMM             READS                WRITES               RBYTES               WBYTES               T FILE
test-top-file                          139255     sh               0                    1                    0B                   4B                   R bar