It took a little longer than planned, but here it is. It is a Perl API to the Apache ab tool. It took so long because we added a number of useful features, mainly the ability to benchmark sequences of URLs instead of just one. Before I upload it to CPAN, are there any objections to calling it "ApacheBench"? Other names I considered are "Bench", "ab", "ABuse"... but ApacheBench I thought was the best because an m/Apache/ search on CPAN will find it. Stas, hopefully I'll be able to integrate this with your new Apache::Benchmark module. I haven't had time to look over yours fully, but I'm thinking your module will be a layer around this. Currently Apache::Benchmark uses ab, right? This module almost completely replaces ab. There are a few features that still need to be added. Here are the first few sections of the manual. Download the full package at http://adiraj.org/sw/ApacheBench/ApacheBench-0.5.tar.gz. Enjoy. -Adi --- NAME ApacheBench - Perl API for Apache benchmarking and regression testing. SYNOPSIS use ApacheBench; my $b = ApacheBench->new; # global configuration $b->config({ concurrency => 5, priority => "run_priority", }); # add sequence(s) of URLs to request $b->add({ repeat => 10, cookie => ["Login_Cookie=b3dcc9bac34b7e60;"], urls => ["http://localhost/one", "http://localhost/two"], postdata => [undef, undef], order => "depth_first", }); my $regress = $b->execute; # calculate hits/sec == ($#urls+1)*$n*1000 / total_time print (2*10*1000/$regress->{"total_time"})." req/sec\n"; # dump the entire regression hash (WARNING, this could be a LOT OF DATA) use Data::Dumper; my $d = Data::Dumper->new([$regress]); print $d->Dumpxs; GOALS This project is meant to be the foundation for a complete benchmarking and regression testing suite for an advanced, transaction-based mod_perl site. We need to be able to stress our server to its limit while also having a way to verify the HTTP responses for correctness. Since our site is transaction-based (as opposed to content-based), we needed to extend the single-URL ab model to a multiple-URL sequence model. ApacheBench is based on the Apache 1.3.12 ab code (src/support/ab.c). Note: although this tool was designed to be used on an Apache mod_perl site, it is generally applicable to any HTTP-compliant server. Beware, however, that it sends a high volume of HTTP requests in a very short period of time, which may overwhelm some weaker HTTP server platforms like NT/IIS. DESCRIPTION ApacheBench sends sequences of HTTP requests to an HTTP server and keeps track of the time taken to receive a response, the data that was returned, the size of the data that was returned, and various other bits of information. Since it is implemented in C, it sends HTTP requests in a tight loop which can stress your server to 100% capacity, especially if invoked in multiple concurrent instances. It gives accurate time measurements down to the millisecond for each HTTP request-response interval. Included is a simplified re-implementation of ab using the ApacheBench Perl API. This should help get you started with ApacheBench. METHODS new() The constructor. It takes no arguments. config({ %global_params }) Global configuration method. Should only be invoked once, else previous configuration parameters will be clobbered. See the global configuration section for details on how %global_params should be structured. add({ %run_params }) Run configuration method. Can be invoked multiple times. Each invocation will register a new benchmark run to be executed. See the run configuration section for details on how %run_params should be structured. execute() The execute method takes no arguments. It will send the HTTP requests and return a hash reference to the regression data.
