Load Tester¶ ↑

Author

The Working Group, Inc

Version

0.1

Load tester is a Rails plugin to help you automate load testing on your web app by using httperf and autobench.

Installation¶ ↑

1. Install the plugin¶ ↑

As with any typical Rails plugin, installation is done with script/plugin:

% script/plugin install git://github.com/theworkinggroup/load_tester.git

Create a /config/load_tester.yml file:

test1:
  single_host: 
  host1: pms.local
  port1: 80 
  uri1: /
  low_rate: 10
  high_rate: 20
  rate_step: 5
  num_conn: 10
  num_call: 1 
  timeout: 5
  file: results.tsv

2. Install Httperf (www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/httperf/)¶ ↑

Httperf is a tool for measuring web server performance. It provides a flexible facility for generating various HTTP workloads and for measuring server performance.

wget http://httperf.googlecode.com/files/httperf-0.9.0.tar.gz
tar -xvzf httperf-0.9.0.tar.gz
cd httperf-0.9.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

3. Install Autobench (www.xenoclast.org/autobench)¶ ↑

Autobench automates the benchmarking of web servers using httperf

wget http://www.xenoclast.org/autobench/downloads/autobench-2.1.2.tar.gz
tar -xvzf autobench-2.1.2.tar.gz
cd autobench-2.1.2
make
sudo make install

Here’s what all the parameters mean

autobench --single_host --host1 localhost --port1 3000 \
  --uri1 /posts         # Run a series of httperf tests
  --num_conn 700        # each doing 700 requets
  --low_rate 50         # the first with 50 requests per second
  --rate_step 10        # the next with 10 more req/second
  --high_rate 120       # until you reach 120 req/second
  --num_call 1          # with  1 request per connection
  --timeout 5           # and a 5 second client timeout
  --file results.tsv

Usage¶ ↑

rake load_tester:test

© 2009 The Working Group, Inc