Re: [exim] Stress testing an smtp server

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Author: Ian Eiloart
Date:  
To: Odhiambo G. Washington, exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Stress testing an smtp server


--On 26 April 2006 22:34:24 +0300 "Odhiambo G. Washington"
<wash@???> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am looking for something that I cannot define clearly, but which I
> believe you will ;)
>
> I am looking for a tool that I can use to stress-test my SMTP server
> (Exim, of course). I simply want to load the server to an extent that
> would lead it to in turn stress the CPU and eat a considerable amount
> of memory...


There's a pair of programs, smtp-source (an smtp/lmtp message generator)
and smtp-sink (a message dump) which might be useful.
<http://www.postfix.org/TUNING_README.html> I've not tried them, but
they're written by Wietse Venema's - the author of the Postfix MTA - so
they should be pretty good.

smtp-source can use IPv4 or 6, can send many messages over one or many 
transactions, can run many sessions in parallel. You can specify arbitrary 
message lengths, subject, sender and recipient addresses, can generate 
multiple distinct recipient addresses, random delays between messages and 
various other options. It doesn't support authenticated or encrypted smtp, 
afaik.
    <http://www.postfix.org/smtp-source.1.html>


smtp-sink can accept all of the messages - I guess you need a special 
router in your exim config. It supports SASL authentication, ESMTP, and 
pipelining. You can configure it to reject (5xx or 4xx) or quit after any 
specific SMTP command, and it has flexible logging options.
    <http://www.postfix.org/smtp-sink.1.html>





> Generally, I just need to see how a server that I have (Dell PowerEdge
> 2800 with 2x3.2GHz and 4GB RAM) would behave under stress.
>
> I believe I am still not clear, but maybe I am...
>
> It's a production box, so I would not want mail to go out to anyone,
> except myself, if there was any mail to go out as part of the test.
>
> Advise?
>
>
>
>         cheers
>        - wash
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--
Ian Eiloart
IT Services, University of Sussex