On 2014-09-30 19:17, Jens Axboe wrote:
> On 2014-09-30 19:12, Elliott, Robert (Server Storage) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Jens Axboe [mailto:axboe@kernel.dk]
>> ...
>>> I'd much rather keep fio ignorant of any "special" directories, even if
>>> it means that sometimes you do potentially run into issues like the
>>> above, where you specify a block device that does not exist.
>>
>> How about an option in the script:
>> direct=2   file must exist and be a block device, otherwise skip it
>
> Might be a bit nasty to overload direct= like that. But I'd be open to
> adding an option that says must_be_bdev or something, which can be a
> bool as well.

Totally untested patch attached (it compiles). There's a new option, 
filetype. If not set, if will allow any file type. Can be set to:

any        default, allow any file type
file       regular file
bdev       block device
chardev    character device
pipe       pipe

So for your case, you'd set

filetype=bdev

and you'd avoid the issue. Note that it only works for files specified 
with filename=. Any other way of adding a file (blktrace replay, 
opendir=, or fio added files when no filename= given) will ignore the 
filetype setting.

-- 
Jens Axboe