Just several days ago someone ask me , can we benchmark the apache server ? can we set a custom environment to test the apache and server performance ? and i found this tool called ab.
What is Ab ?
ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your current Apache installation performs
Apache Benchmark Procedures
- You need to use same hardware configuration and kernel (OS) for all tests
- You need to use same network configuration. For example, use 100Mbps port for all tests
- First record server load using top or uptime command
- Take at least 3-5 readings and use the best result
- After each test reboot the server and carry out test on next configuration (web server)
- Again record server load using top or uptime command
- Carry on test using static html/php files and dynamic pages
- It also important to carry out test using the Non-KeepAlive and KeepAlive (the Keep-Alive extension to provide long-lived HTTP sessions, which allow multiple requests to be sent over the same TCP connection) features
- Also don’t forget to carry out test using fast-cgi and/or perl tests
Okay let’ start the benchmark
Benchmarking using HTML only script:
Creat a simple html script
#vim tes.html
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN”>
<html>
<head>
<title>Ab test </title>
</head>
<body>
Test using Ab.
</body>
</html>
# ab -n 1000 -c 5 http://202.58.111.111/tes.html
Where,
- -n 1000: ab will send 1000 number of requests to server 202.58.111.111 ( you can changes it to your own ip server) in order to perform for the benchmarking session
- -c 5 : 5 is concurrency number i.e. ab will send 5 number of multiple requests to perform at a time to server 202.58.111.111
Output:
This is ApacheBench, Version 2.0.40-dev <$Revision: 1.146 $> apache-2.0
Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Copyright 2006 The Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/
Benchmarking 202.58.182.129 (be patient)
Completed 100 requests
Completed 200 requests
Completed 300 requests
Completed 400 requests
Completed 500 requests
Completed 600 requests
Completed 700 requests
Completed 800 requests
Completed 900 requests
Finished 1000 requests
Server Software: Apache/2.2.8
Server Hostname: 202.58.182.129
Server Port: 80
Document Path: /tes.html
Document Length: 170 bytes
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 0.168989 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 531531 bytes
HTML transferred: 170170 bytes
Requests per second: 5917.54 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 0.845 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 0.169 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 3071.21 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 0 0 0.0 0 0
Processing: 0 0 0.5 0 6
Waiting: 0 0 0.3 0 6
Total: 0 0 0.5 0 6
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 0
66% 0
75% 0
80% 0
90% 1
95% 1
98% 1
99% 1
100% 6 (longest request)
Benchmarking using php-mysql script
Create the script first
# vim phpsql.php
<?php
$link = mysql_connect(“localhost”, “USERNAME”, “PASSWORD”);
mysql_select_db(“DATABASE”);
$query = “SELECT * FROM TABLENAME”;
$result = mysql_query($query);
while ($line = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
foreach ($line as $value)
{
print “$value\n“;
}
}
mysql_close($link);
?>
Where,
- “localhost”, “USERNAME”, “PASSWORD” and “TABLENAME” are refer to your mysql db settings
Output:
Test benchmark 1:
ab -n 1000 -c 5 http:// 202.58.111.111/phpsql.php
where,
- -n 1000 -> send request to server as much 1000 request
- -c 300 -> will send 300 number of multiple requests to perform at a time to server 202.58.111.111
# ab -n 1000 -c 300 http:// 202.58.111.111/phpsql.php
This is ApacheBench, Version 2.0.40-dev <$Revision: 1.146 $> apache-2.0
Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Copyright 2006 The Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/
Benchmarking 202.58.182.129 (be patient)
Completed 100 requests
Completed 200 requests
Completed 300 requests
Completed 400 requests
Completed 500 requests
Completed 600 requests
Completed 700 requests
Completed 800 requests
Completed 900 requests
Finished 1000 requests
Server Software: Apache/2.2.8
Server Hostname: 202.58.182.129
Server Port: 80
Document Path: /psql.php
Document Length: 157315 bytes
Concurrency Level: 300
Time taken for tests: 7.890645 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 37
(Connect: 0, Length: 37, Exceptions: 0)
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 152002245 bytes
HTML transferred: 151726883 bytes
Requests per second: 126.73 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 2367.194 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 7.891 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 18812.02 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 0 260 843.5 0 3017
Processing: 10 1570 1692.6 1070 7880
Waiting: 9 1531 1699.7 1027 7861
Total: 52 1830 2008.5 1074 7886
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 1074
66% 1106
75% 1134
80% 1218
90% 4792
95% 7494
98% 7605
99% 7810
100% 7886 (longest request)
On this test there were failed request = 37 failed length it can be because of the dynamic script, ab needs the content to be returned of identical length from one request to the next, so if your
content is dynamic in any way, it may “fail”. If there are any real Apache::ASP errors, they should show up in your apache error_log.
The server performance:
# top
top – 15:21:37 up 33 days, 19:42, 3 users, load average: 2.12, 1.96, 1.48
Tasks: 133 total, 2 running, 130 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
Cpu(s): 2.3%us, 0.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 97.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.2%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 4153976k total, 2800284k used, 1353692k free, 689188k buffers
Swap: 7783288k total, 0k used, 7783288k free, 1728880k cached
Load average pull up become 2.12 , memory also raising to 2800284k but the server still okay
Test benchmark 2:
ab -n 10000 -c 300 http:// 202.58.111.111/phpsql.php
where,
- -n 1000 -> send request to server as much 10000 request
- -c 300 -> will send 300 number of multiple requests to perform at a time to server 202.58.111.111
ab -n 10000 -c 300 http:// 202.58.111.111/phpsql.php
This is ApacheBench, Version 2.0.40-dev <$Revision: 1.146 $> apache-2.0
Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Copyright 2006 The Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/
Benchmarking 202.58.182.129 (be patient)
Completed 1000 requests
Completed 2000 requests
Completed 3000 requests
Completed 4000 requests
Completed 5000 requests
Completed 6000 requests
Completed 7000 requests
Completed 8000 requests
Completed 9000 requests
Finished 10000 requests
Server Software: Apache/2.2.8
Server Hostname: 202.58.182.129
Server Port: 80
Document Path: /psql.php
Document Length: 157315 bytes
Concurrency Level: 300
Time taken for tests: 41.466140 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 5158
(Connect: 0, Length: 5158, Exceptions: 0)
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 772220127 bytes
HTML transferred: 769366660 bytes
Requests per second: 241.16 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 1243.984 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 4.147 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 18186.43 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 0 114 389.0 23 3419
Processing: 15 1071 1492.6 707 20874
Waiting: 13 813 1376.7 586 20854
Total: 30 1186 1539.6 839 21036
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 839
66% 1414
75% 1720
80% 1846
90% 2088
95% 3188
98% 6012
99% 10190
100% 21036 (longest request)
Server load performance
# top
top – 15:15:04 up 33 days, 19:35, 3 users, load average: 12.57, 4.27, 1.80
Tasks: 211 total, 1 running, 209 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
Cpu(s): 40.5%us, 2.9%sy, 0.0%ni, 56.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.5%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 4153976k total, 3063280k used, 1090696k free, 689184k buffers
Swap: 7783288k total, 0k used, 7783288k free, 1728440k cached
Load average raise to 12.57 and the memory also raising becoming 3063280k but the server still okay
uptime
15:23:45 up 33 days, 19:44, 3 users, load average: 0.28, 1.28, 1.28
Take at least 3-5 readings and use the best result
Okay that’s for apache how about for windows ( IIS) ?
You can use microsoft tools called wast ,
- Web Application Stress Tool (WAST): You can use WAST to simulate the following:
- Simulate the effect of multiple web browsers concurrently connecting to IIS to run applications
- Simulate the effect of multiple web browsers concurrently connecting to IIS to download Web content
- Simulate different loads so that you can determine the effect on the Web server.
As for the settings you can refer here http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/webstress/webstress.htm
