Stresser

This gem is a wrapper around the httperf command which can put all types of loads on a webserver. It's like apachebench, but you can replay log files, define sessions, and so forth.

This gem calls httperf many times with different concurrency settings and parses httperf's output into a csv file, that you can then use to visualize your application's performance at different concurrency levels

Here's a collection of graphs that this gem currently creates (though you can create your own by creating a YML file that maps columns from the generated csv file to labels for the image).

First install the gem

$ gem install stresser

Please refer to the supplied sample.conf on how to configure stresser. Also, see man httperf as all options in sample.conf beginning with httperf_ go directly to the httperf commands.

You can call stresser from the command line:

$ stresser -c your_app.conf -o /tmp/stress/result.csv
... lots of httperf output...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Great, now create a graph with
  stresser-grapher -o /tmp/stress /tmp/stress/result.csv
$

You will see the output of the httperf commands that are issued, and a full report will be written to result.csv.

When you're done, you can create a graph of your testrun like this:

$ stresser-grapher -o /tmp/stress /tmp/stress/result.csv 
Generating stati_per_second to /tmp/stress/2010_10_25_17_28_stati_per_second.png...
Generating replies_per_second to /tmp/stress/2010_10_25_17_28_replies_per_second.png...
Generating errors to /tmp/stress/2010_10_25_17_28_errors.png...
Generating connection_time to /tmp/stress/2010_10_25_17_28_connection_time.png...
Generating cpu to /tmp/stress/2010_10_25_17_28_cpu.png...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Great, now open the images with
  open /tmp/2010_10_25_17_28*.png
$

As a little helper to generate log files defining some session workload that requires different urls, stresser-loggen is supplied. Just create a log template named mylog.tpl like this

# My session workload
/users/{{n}}
  /images/foo.gif
  /images/bar.gif
/users{{n}}/dashboard

And then use stresser-loggen to reproduce these lines as often as you like:

stresser-loggen mylog.tpl 100 > mylog.conf

The {{n}} will be replaced with the numbers 0-99.

Run rake spec to run them tests. Currently, only httperf's output of a session based replay log is parsed, but I will add more.

Stresser is based on igvita's autoperf driver for httperf.