Needing recommendations for programs to use to stress test servers.

[Priest_Apostate]

Due to being willing to learn about Linux (and the admin left for greener pastures), I was "voted" to set up a project for automating load testing of Ubuntu servers - even though I haven't had any experience doing either.

I have been studying Bash and Python scripting - and am currently experimenting with automating the installation of a package...but what package do you recommend (or actively use) to stress test servers (not just web-based servers)?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

stress testing servers?
why servers? why not programs for testing?

I never heard of stress testing over a server.

 

[Priest_Apostate]

stress testing servers?
why servers? why not programs for testing?

I never heard of stress testing over a server.

Their desire is to have someone stress-test their unused servers in the back-room, to determine if they can be used for production workloads - or RMA'ed.

(I'm hoping that from your response, that I wasn't given a wild goose chase of a project.)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Their idea is to test if servers in their back-room can be screened for production loads, or RMA'ed.

(I'm hoping that from your response, that I wasn't given a wild goose chase of a project.)

Sorry, I misunderstood, it appeared as if you're looking for servers that do stress testing.

There is something you can experiment with:
Measure Packets Per Second generated on a NIC

# Launch attack in one terminal
sudo hping3 --udp --flood 10.10.10.10

# Measure PPS in another terminal
vnstat -i eth0 -tr

PPS stands for Packets Per Second, which is one kind of a DDOS attack, you can launch the attack from VM and then see how your server defense (if you have any) deals with it.

For e.g. try accessing your server to see if it's accessible during attack.

 

[dos2unix]

Most of these are actually for benchmarking, but you could put the tests in a loop. It will defintely
put a load on them.

Phoronix Test Suite - Linux Testing & Benchmarking Platform, Automated Testing, Open-Source Benchmarking

The Phoronix Test Suite is the most comprehensive testing and benchmarking platform available that provides an extensible framework for which new tests can be easily added. The Phoronix Test Suite is focused on providing completely automated, reproducible, and turn-key deployment benchmarking.

www.phoronix-test-suite.com

Geekbench 6 - Cross-Platform Benchmark

www.geekbench.com

GitHub - ColinIanKing/stress-ng: This is the stress-ng upstream project git repository. stress-ng will stress test a computer system in various selectable ways. It was designed to exercise various physical subsystems of a computer as well as the var

This is the stress-ng upstream project git repository. stress-ng will stress test a computer system in various selectable ways. It was designed to exercise various physical subsystems of a compute...

github.com

GitHub - akopytov/sysbench: Scriptable database and system performance benchmark

Scriptable database and system performance benchmark - akopytov/sysbench

github.com

If you want to stress video cards....

glmark2 is in most distro repos.

 

[Priest_Apostate]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm leaning towards setting up Ansible to push the stress-testing application to said servers (was looking up stress-ng, Tsung, and Locust prior to asking for recommendations here) - along with a script to initiate the testing.

 

[dos2unix]

Thread 'Ansible Series Part 1: Intro and Getting Set Up'

Jan 23, 2025

Ansible is a huge subject, there is no way I can begin to cover all of it in a single post. So, my thinking here, is this will likely contain a number of posts. I usually tend to write simple basic tutorials, but this one will be pretty advanced.

What is ansible? It's a python based automation tool, you can deploy software, change configurations, add users, virtually do anything you can do from the command line. Ok, then if I can already do this from the command line, why do I need ansible?

First of all, it puts it in a repeatable script. Some commands are dangerous. What if I...

• dos2unix
• Replies: 7
• Forum: Shell / Command Line

• 

Thread 'ansible - part2'

Jan 25, 2025

Well OK, now we've ran a few playbooks. But these have been pretty simple, can I put some logic in a playbook?

---
# Ansible playbook to update packages and reboot if any were upgraded

- name: Update and reboot if packages were upgraded
  hosts: fedora,redhat,ubuntu,debian
  become: yes  # Use sudo to become root
  tasks:
    - name: Determine the OS type
      ansible.builtin.shell: |
        if [[ -f /etc/debian_version ]]; then
          echo "debian"
        elif [[ -f /etc/fedora-release ]]; then
          echo "fedora"
        elif [[ -f /etc/redhat-release ]]; then...

• dos2unix
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Dev-ops

 

[KGIII]

Linpack has stress testing, though I can't recall if it is only for Intel's stuff or if it works on AMD's stuff as well.

 

[painty_the_pirate]

Artificial intelligence could generate a HUGE stress, prompted properly. I'm not sure how you'd quantify the stress... but that's my grain of salt for you.