ab load testing

Question

Can someone please walk me through the process of how I can load test my website using apache bench tool  ab    I want to know the following   How many people per minute can the site handle   Please walk me through the commands I should run to figure this out    I tried every tutorial  and they are confusing

User · Answer

Please walk me through the commands I should run to figure this out.

The simplest test you can do is to perform 1000 requests, 10 at a time (which approximately simulates 10 concurrent users getting 100 pages each - over the length of the test).

ab -n 1000 -c 10 -k -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate" http://www.example.com/

-n 1000 is the number of requests to make.

-c 10 tells AB to do 10 requests at a time, instead of 1 request at a time, to better simulate concurrent visitors (vs. sequential visitors).

-k sends the KeepAlive header, which asks the web server to not shut down the connection after each request is done, but to instead keep reusing it.

I'm also sending the extra header Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate because mod_deflate is almost always used to compress the text/html output 25%-75% - the effects of which should not be dismissed due to it's impact on the overall performance of the web server (i.e., can transfer 2x the data in the same amount of time, etc).

Results:

Benchmarking www.example.com (be patient)
Completed 100 requests
...
Finished 1000 requests


Server Software:        Apache/2.4.10
Server Hostname:        www.example.com
Server Port:            80

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        428 bytes

Concurrency Level:      10
Time taken for tests:   1.420 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Keep-Alive requests:    995
Total transferred:      723778 bytes
HTML transferred:       428000 bytes
Requests per second:    704.23 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       14.200 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       1.420 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          497.76 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0    0   0.1      0       1
Processing:     5   14   7.5     12      77
Waiting:        5   14   7.5     12      77
Total:          5   14   7.5     12      77

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%     12
  66%     14
  75%     15
  80%     16
  90%     24
  95%     29
  98%     36
  99%     41
 100%     77 (longest request)

For the simplest interpretation, ignore everything BUT this line:

Requests per second:    704.23 [#/sec] (mean)

Multiply that by 60, and you have your requests per minute.

To get real world results, you'll want to test Wordpress instead of some static HTML or index.php file because you need to know how everything performs together: including complex PHP code, and multiple MySQL queries...

For example here is the results of testing a fresh install of Wordpress on the same system and WAMP environment (I'm using WampDeveloper, but there are also Xampp, WampServer, and others)...

Requests per second:    18.68 [#/sec] (mean)

That's 37x slower now!

After the load test, there are a number of things you can do to improve the overall performance (Requests Per Second), and also make the web server more stable under greater load (e.g., increasing the -n and the -c tends to crash Apache), that you can read about here:

Load Testing Apache with AB (Apache Bench)

User · Answer

The apache benchmark tool is very basic  and while it will give you a solid idea of some performance  it is a bad idea to only depend on it if you plan to have your site exposed to serious stress in production   Having said that  here s the most common and simplest parameters   -c    Concurrency    Indicates how many clients  people users  will be hitting the site at the same time  While ab runs  there will be -c clients hitting the site  This is what actually decides the amount of stress your site will suffer during the benchmark   -n  Indicates how many requests are going to be made  This just decides the length of the benchmark  A high -n value with a -c value that your server can support is a good idea to ensure that things don t break under sustained stress  it s not the same to support stress for 5 seconds than for 5 hours   -k  This does the  KeepAlive  funcionality browsers do by nature  You don t need to pass a value for -k as it it  boolean   meaning  it indicates that you desire for your test to use the Keep Alive header from HTTP and sustain the connection   Since browsers do this and you re likely to want to simulate the stress and flow that your site will have from browsers  it is recommended you do a benchmark with this   The final argument is simply the host  By default it will hit http    protocol if you don t specify it   ab -k -c 350 -n 20000 example com    By issuing the command above  you will be hitting http   example com  with 350 simultaneous connections until 20 thousand requests are met  It will be done using the keep alive header   After the process finishes the 20 thousand requests  you will receive feedback on stats  This will tell you how well the site performed under the stress you put it when using the parameters above   For finding out how many people the site can handle at the same time  just see if the response times  means  min and max response times  failed requests  etc  are numbers your site can accept  different sites might desire different speeds   You can run the tool with different -c values until you hit the spot where you say  If I increase it  it starts to get failed requests and it breaks     Depending on your website  you will expect an average number of requests per minute  This varies so much  you won t be able to simulate this with ab  However  think about it this way  If your average user will be hitting 5 requests per minute and the average response time that you find valid is 2 seconds  that means that 10 seconds out of a minute 1 user will be on requests  meaning only 1 6 of the time it will be hitting the site  This also means that if you have 6 users hitting the site with ab simultaneously  you are likely to have 36 users in simulation  even though your concurrency level  -c  is only 6   This depends on the behavior you expect from your users using the site  but you can get it from  I expect my user to hit X requests per minute and I consider an average response time valid if it is 2 seconds   Then just modify your -c level until you are hitting 2 seconds of average response time  but make sure the max response time and stddev is still valid  and see how big you can make -c   I hope I explained this clear    Good luck

User · Answer

Load testing your API by using just ab is not enough  However  I think it s a great tool to give you a basic idea how your site is performant   If you want to use the ab command in to test multiple API endpoints  with different data  all at the same time in background  you need to use  nohup  command  It runs any command even when you close the terminal   I wrote a simple script that automates the whole process  feel free to use it  http   blog ikvasnica com entry load-test-multiple-api-endpoints-concurrently-use-this-simple-shell-script

User · Answer

I was also curious if I can measure the speed of my script with apache abs or a construct   destruct php measure script or a php extension   the last two have failed for me  they are approximate  after which I thought to try  ab  and  abs    the command  ab -k -c 350 -n 20000 example com   is beautiful because it s all easier   but did anyone think to  localhost  on any apache server for example www apachefriends org   you should create a folder such as  bench  in root where you have 2 files  test  bench php  and reference  void php    and then  benchmark it   bench php   lt  php  for  i 1  i lt 50000  i         print   qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm1234567890        gt      void php   lt  php   gt    on your Desktop you should use a  bat file in Windows  like this   bench bat   c  xampp apache bin abs exe  -n 10000 http   localhost bench void php  c  xampp apache bin abs exe  -n 10000 http   localhost bench bench php pause   Now if you pay attention closely      the void script isn t produce zero results     SO THE CONCLUSION IS  from the second result the first result should be decreased     here i got    c  xampp htdocs bench gt  c  xampp apache bin abs exe  -n 10000 http   localhost bench void php This is ApacheBench  Version 2 3  lt  Revision  1826891   gt  Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss  Zeus Technology Ltd  http   www zeustech net  Licensed to The Apache Software Foundation  http   www apache org   Benchmarking localhost  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 Completed 10000 requests Finished 10000 requests   Server Software         Apache 2 4 33 Server Hostname         localhost Server Port             80  Document Path            bench void php Document Length         0 bytes  Concurrency Level       1 Time taken for tests    11 219 seconds Complete requests       10000 Failed requests         0 Total transferred       2150000 bytes HTML transferred        0 bytes Requests per second     891 34    sec   mean  Time per request        1 122  ms   mean  Time per request        1 122  ms   mean  across all concurrent requests  Transfer rate           187 15  Kbytes sec  received  Connection Times  ms                min  mean   -sd  median   max Connect         0    0   0 3      0       1 Processing      0    1   0 9      1      17 Waiting         0    1   0 9      1      17 Total           0    1   0 9      1      17  Percentage of the requests served within a certain time  ms    50       1   66       1   75       1   80       1   90       1   95       2   98       2   99       3  100      17  longest request   c  xampp htdocs bench gt  c  xampp apache bin abs exe  -n 10000 http   localhost bench bench php This is ApacheBench  Version 2 3  lt  Revision  1826891   gt  Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss  Zeus Technology Ltd  http   www zeustech net  Licensed to The Apache Software Foundation  http   www apache org   Benchmarking localhost  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 Completed 10000 requests Finished 10000 requests   Server Software         Apache 2 4 33 Server Hostname         localhost Server Port             80  Document Path            bench bench php Document Length         1799964 bytes  Concurrency Level       1 Time taken for tests    177 006 seconds Complete requests       10000 Failed requests         0 Total transferred       18001600000 bytes HTML transferred        17999640000 bytes Requests per second     56 50    sec   mean  Time per request        17 701  ms   mean  Time per request        17 701  ms   mean  across all concurrent requests  Transfer rate           99317 00  Kbytes sec  received  Connection Times  ms                min  mean   -sd  median   max Connect         0    0   0 3      0       1 Processing     12   17   3 2     17      90 Waiting         0    1   1 1      1      26 Total          13   18   3 2     18      90  Percentage of the requests served within a certain time  ms    50      18   66      19   75      19   80      20   90      21   95      22   98      23   99      26  100      90  longest request   c  xampp htdocs bench gt pause Press any key to continue         90-17  73 the result i expect

User · Answer

hey I understand this is an old thread but I have a query in regards to apachebenchmarking  how do you collect the metrics from apache benchmarking  P S  I have to do it via telegraf and put it to influxdb   any suggestions advice help would be appreciated  Thanks a ton

User · Answer

Steps to set up Apache Bench AB  on windows  IMO - Recommended   Step 1 - Install Xampp  Step 2 - Open CMD  Step 3 - Go to the apache bench destination  cd C  xampp apache bin  from CMD Step 4 - Paste the command  ab -n 100 -c 10 -k -H  Accept-Encoding  gzip  deflate  http   localhost yourport   Step 5 - Wait for it  Your done

[apache] ab load testing

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