Web Server Load Testing Tool: Siege

http://sysadmindesk.com/web-server-load-testing-tool-siege

What is Siege?
Siege is a benchmarking and load testing tool that can be used to measure the performance of a web server when under immense pressure. Siege performs following tests:

• Amount of data transferred.
• Response time of server.
• Transaction rate.
• Throughput.
• Concurrency.
• Times the program returned ok.

Siege provides three modes of operation:

• Regression.
• Internet Simulation.
• Brute Force.

Note: The guide is only for Debian and Ubuntu servers.
1: Before installing any new program, update your server:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade --show-upgraded

2: Download the latest version of Siege from Siege’s Website:

wget  http://download.joedog.org/siege/siege-3.1.0.tar.gz

3: Unzip the file:

tar -zxvf siege-latest.tar.gz

4: Go to Siege directory:

cd siege-*/

5: Before configuration, if GNU compiler collection (gcc) is not installed, install now:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

6: Configure and complete the installation process:

./configure
make
sudo make install

7: Generate a configuration file:

siege.config

8: After that open .siegerc file located in your home directory.
9: By default Siege configuration suggests 25 concurrent users over a period of 1 minute. Choose a location for your log file. Uncomment the variables shown below, and also if you want any other commented settings then don’t forget to remove the pound sign (#):

...
        
#
# Variable declarations. You can set variables here
# for use in the directives below. Example:
# PROXY = proxy.joedog.org
# Reference variables inside ${} or $(), example:
# proxy-host = ${PROXY}
# You can also reference ENVIRONMENT variables without
# actually declaring them, example:
logfile = $(HOME)/siege.log

...

#
# Default number of simulated  concurrent users
# ex: concurrent = 25
#
concurrent = 25

#
# Default duration of the siege.  The right hand argument has
# a modifier which specifies the time units, H=hours, M=minutes,
# and S=seconds. If a modifier is not specified, then minutes
# are assumed.
# ex: time = 50M
#
time = 1M

How to run Siege?
At last, now you are ready to run Siege!
To run Siege, enter the following command, replacing www.example.com  with your IP address or domain name.

siege www.example.com

Output

** SIEGE 2.70
** Preparing 25 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:          2913 hits
Availability:        100.00 %
Elapsed time:         59.51 secs
Data transferred:         0.41 MB
Response time:          0.00 secs
Transaction rate:        48.95 trans/sec
Throughput:          0.01 MB/sec
Concurrency:          0.04
Successful transactions:        2913
Failed transactions:            0
Longest transaction:         0.01
Shortest transaction:         0.00

FILE: /var/log/siege.log
You can disable this annoying message by editing
the .siegerc file in your home directory; change
the directive 'show-logfile' to false.

Commands and further configuration of Siege
If the availability remains 100% with no failed connections then you are not in any problem.
URL file creation
If you want to test number of websites, configure the tool to read from a urls.txt .
1: Open the urls.txt  file located at /usr/local/etc/urls.txt. Add domain names, pages or IPs addresses to that file.

# URLS file for siege
# --
# Format the url entries in any of the following formats:
# http://www.whoohoo.com/index.html
# http://www/index.html
# www/index.html
# http://www.whoohoo.com/cgi-bin/howto/display.cgi?1013
# Use the POST directive for pages that require it:
# http://www.whoohoo.com/cgi-bin/haha.cgi POST ha=1&ho=2
#      or POST content from a file:
# http://www.whoohoo.com/melvin.jsp POST 

2: To run Siege with above mentioned file, enter the following command siege.

 siege

3: For separate file enter following command.

siege -f your/file/path.txt

For more information about Siege and it’s commands, visit their website: Siege Home.