'ab' apache benchmark improvements

["David N. Welton" <da...@dedasys.com>]

[ 3rd time's the charm for this posting? ]

[ Please CC replies to me. ]

I have been hacking at the Apache Benchmark source code, and I am
starting to think that it needs an overhaul, and some extending.

One of the big things that I would like to see would be to library-ize
it, in order to break out pieces, and expose the functionality to
other programs (gui's, for instance, or people who want to put the
pieces together in different ways than the current program...).  I
have an initial version of this done, but I'm not really happy with it
yet.

Fix up the documentation: the man page doesn't correspond to what it
actually does.

Name change?  Searching for anything on ab is just about impossible,
and 'apache benchmark' isn't much better.  ' ab - Apache HTTP server
benchmarking tool' at least gets you the man pages, but nothing in the
bug database.  A new name might be helpful for these things.

Fix up the output formats: there is a disparate variety of output
formats.  There ought to be a good way to make this a bit more
regular.  Maybe an internal XML data format that can then be
translated into other things (along with, say, the regular old text
output for quick'n'dirty uses).

Other issues?

Yes, this is a lot of stuff, and I don't know if I will have the time
anytime soon, but I thought I'd ask and see what the response is:-)
Maybe I can get what I do have to a good point - I think it's a step
in the right direction.

-- 
David N. Welton
   Consulting: http://www.dedasys.com/
     Personal: http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
Free Software: http://www.dedasys.com/freesoftware/
   Apache Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org/

Re: 'ab' apache benchmark improvements

[Leon Brocard <ac...@astray.com>]

Ian Holsman sent the following bits through the ether:

> http://httpd.apache.org/test/flood/

I'm having a look at flood in comparison to ab and there's one thing
I'm not quite clear on. The source indicates it supports cookies in
the round robin mode. Do I need to enable that? Actually, what I need
to do is set a cookie to a specific value for testing purposes. How
would I do that?

Cheers, Leon (reposted from test-dev due to deafening silence)
-- 
Leon Brocard.............................http://www.astray.com/
scribot.................................http://www.scribot.com/

... The Lab called,..... Your brain is ready!

Re: 'ab' apache benchmark improvements

[Ian Holsman <ia...@apache.org>]

Hi David.
have you looked at Flood ???

I would suggest you take a look at that first, as it is 100 times
better than ab.

http://httpd.apache.org/test/flood/
I know justin & aaron did a presentation about this.. they may be kind 
enough to mail you a copy/link

Regards
Ian

David N. Welton wrote:
> [ 3rd time's the charm for this posting? ]
> 
> [ Please CC replies to me. ]
> 
> I have been hacking at the Apache Benchmark source code, and I am
> starting to think that it needs an overhaul, and some extending.
> 
> One of the big things that I would like to see would be to library-ize
> it, in order to break out pieces, and expose the functionality to
> other programs (gui's, for instance, or people who want to put the
> pieces together in different ways than the current program...).  I
> have an initial version of this done, but I'm not really happy with it
> yet.
> 
> Fix up the documentation: the man page doesn't correspond to what it
> actually does.
> 
> Name change?  Searching for anything on ab is just about impossible,
> and 'apache benchmark' isn't much better.  ' ab - Apache HTTP server
> benchmarking tool' at least gets you the man pages, but nothing in the
> bug database.  A new name might be helpful for these things.
> 
> Fix up the output formats: there is a disparate variety of output
> formats.  There ought to be a good way to make this a bit more
> regular.  Maybe an internal XML data format that can then be
> translated into other things (along with, say, the regular old text
> output for quick'n'dirty uses).
> 
> Other issues?
> 
> Yes, this is a lot of stuff, and I don't know if I will have the time
> anytime soon, but I thought I'd ask and see what the response is:-)
> Maybe I can get what I do have to a good point - I think it's a step
> in the right direction.
>