Provided by: sysbench_0.4.12-1.1ubuntu1_amd64 
NAME
sysbench - A modular, cross-platform and multi-threaded benchmark tool.
SYNOPSIS
sysbench [common-options] --test=name [test-options] command
sysbench [{-h | --help} | {-v | --version}]
DESCRIPTION
SysBench is a modular, cross-platform and multi-threaded benchmark tool for evaluating OS parameters that
are important for a system running a database under intensive load.
The idea of this benchmark suite is to quickly get an impression about system performance without setting
up complex database benchmarks or even without installing a database at all.
Current features allow to test the following system parameters:
• file I/O performance
• scheduler performance
• memory allocation and transfer speed
• POSIX threads implementation performance
• database server performance
The design is very simple. SysBench runs a specified number of threads and they all execute requests in
parallel. The actual workload produced by requests depends on the specified test mode. You can limit
either the total number of requests or the total time for the benchmark, or both.
Available test modes are implemented by compiled-in modules, and SysBench was designed to make adding new
test modes an easy task. Each test mode may have additional (or workload-specific) options.
OPTIONS
--num-threads
The total number of worker threads to create (defaut: 1)
--max-requests
Limit for total number of requests. 0 means unlimited (defaut: 10000)
--max-time
Limit for total execution time in seconds. 0 (defaut: 0)
--thread-stack-size
Size of stack for each thread (defaut: 32K)
--init-rnd
Specifies if random numbers generator should be initialized from timer before the test start (defaut:
off)
--test
Name of the test mode to run Required
--debug
Print more debug info (default: off)
--validate
Perform validation of test results where possible (default: off)
--help
Print help on general syntax or on a test mode specified with --test, and exit
--version
Show version of program.
--percentile
SysBench measures execution times for all processed requests to display statistical information like
minimal, average and maximum execution time. For most benchmarks it is also useful to know a request
execution time value matching some percentile (e.g. 95% percentile means we should drop 5% of the
most long requests and choose the maximal value from the remaining ones).
This option allows to specify a percentile rank of query execution times to count (default: 95)
--batch
Dump current results periodically (default: off - see also the section called “Batch mode”)
--batch-delay
Delay between batch dumps in secods (default: 300 - see also the section called “Batch mode”)
Note that numerical values for all size options (like --thread-stack-size in this table) may be specified
by appending the corresponding multiplicative suffix (K for kilobytes, M for megabytes, G for gigabytes
and T for terabytes).
Batch mode
In some cases it is useful to have not only the final benchmarks statistics, but also periodical dumps of
current stats to see how they change over the test run. For this purpose SysBench has a batch execution
mode which is turned on by the --batch option. You may specify the delay in seconds between the
consequent dumps with the --batch-delay option.
Example:
sysbench --batch --batch-delay=5 --test=threads run
This will run SysBench in a threads test mode, with the current values of minimum, average, maximum and
percentile for request execution times printed every 5 seconds.
Test modes
This section gives a detailed description for each test mode available in SysBench.
cpu
The cpu is one of the most simple benchmarks in SysBench. In this mode each request consists in
calculation of prime numbers up to a value specified by the --cpu-max-primes option. All calculations
are performed using 64-bit integers.
Each thread executes the requests concurrently until either the total number of requests or the total
execution time exceed the limits specified with the common command line options.
Example:
sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 run
threads
This test mode was written to benchmark scheduler performance, more specifically the cases when a
scheduler has a large number of threads competing for some set of mutexes.
SysBench creates a specified number of threads and a specified number of mutexes. Then each thread
starts running the requests consisting of locking the mutex, yielding the CPU, so the thread is
placed in the run queue by the scheduler, then unlocking the mutex when the thread is rescheduled
back to execution. For each request, the above actions are run several times in a loop, so the more
iterations is performed, the more concurrency is placed on each mutex.
The following options are available in this test mode:
--thread-yields
Number of lock/yield/unlock loops to execute per each request (default: 1000)
--thread-locks
Number of mutexes to create (default: 8)
Example:
sysbench --num-threads=64 --test=threads --thread-yields=100 --thread-locks=2 run
mutex
This test mode was written to emulate a situation when all threads run concurrently most of the time,
acquiring the mutex lock only for a short period of time (incrementing a global variable). So the
purpose of this benchmarks is to examine the performance of mutex implementation.
The following options are available in this test mode:
--mutex-num
Number of mutexes. The actual mutex to lock is chosen randomly before each lock (default: 4096)
--memory-scope
Possible values: global, local. Specifies whether each thread will use a globally allocated
memory block, or a local one. (default: global)
--memory-total-size
Total size of data to transfer (default: 100G)
--memory-oper
Type of memory operations. Possible values: read, write
fileio
This test mode can be used to produce various kinds of file I/O workloads. At the prepare stage
SysBench creates a specified number of files with a specified total size, then at the run stage, each
thread performs specified I/O operations on this set of files.
When the global --validate option is used with the fileio test mode, SysBench performs checksums
validation on all data read from the disk. On each write operation the block is filled with random
values, then the checksum is calculated and stored in the block along with the offset of this block
within a file. On each read operation the block is validated by comparing the stored offset with the
real offset, and the stored checksum with the real calculated checksum.
The following I/O operations are supported:
seqwr
sequential write
seqrewr
sequential rewrite
seqrd
sequential read
rndrd
random read
rndwr
random write
rndrw
combined random read/write
Also, the following file access modes can be specified, if the underlying platform supports them:
Asynchronous I/O mode
At the moment only Linux AIO implementation is supported. When running in asynchronous mode,
SysBench queues a specified number of I/O requests using Linux AIO API, then waits for at least
one of submitted requests to complete. After that a new series of I/O requests is submitted.
Slow mmap() mode
In this mode SysBench will use mmap'ed I/O. However, a separate mmap will be used for each I/O
request due to the limitation of 32-bit architectures (we cannot mmap() the whole file, as its
size migth possibly exceed the maximum of 2 GB of the process address space).
Fast mmap() mode
On 64-bit architectures it is possible to mmap() the whole file into the process address space,
avoiding the limitation of 2 GB on 32-bit platforms.
Using fdatasync() instead of fsync()
Flush only data buffers, but not the metadata.
Additional flags to open(2)
SysBench can use additional flags to open(2), such as O_SYNC, O_DSYNC and O_DIRECT.
Below is a list of test-specific option for the fileio mode:
--file-num
Number of files to create (default: 128)
--file-block-size
Block size to use in all I/O operations (default: 16K)
--file-total-size
Total size of files (default: 2G)
--file-test-mode
Type of workload to produce. Possible values: seqwr, seqrewr, seqrd, rndrd, rndwr, rndwr (see
above) required
--file-io-mode
I/O mode. Possible values: sync, async, fastmmap, slowmmap (only if supported by the platform,
see above). (default: sync)
--file-async-backlog
Number of asynchronous operations to queue per thread (only for --file-io-mode=async, see above)
(default: 128)
--file-extra-flags
Additional flags to use with open(2)
--file-fsync-freq
Do fsync() after this number of requests (default: 0 - don't use fsync())
--file-fsync-all
Do fsync() after each write operationi (default: no)
--file-fsync-end
Do fsync() at the end of the test (default: yes)
--file-fsync-mode
Which method to use for synchronization. Possible values: fsync, fdatasync (default: fsync)
--file-merged-requests
Merge at most this number of I/O requests if possible (default: 0 - don't merge)
--file-rw-ratio
reads/writes ration for combined random read/write test (default: 1.5)
Usage example:
$ sysbench --num-threads=16 --test=fileio --file-total-size=3G --file-test-mode=rndrw prepare
$ sysbench --num-threads=16 --test=fileio --file-total-size=3G --file-test-mode=rndrw run
$ sysbench --num-threads=16 --test=fileio --file-total-size=3G --file-test-mode=rndrw cleanup
In the above example the first command creates 128 files with the total size of 3 GB in the current
directory, the second command runs the actual benchmark and displays the results upon completion, and
the third one removes the files used for the test.
oltp
This test mode was written to benchmark a real database performance. At the prepare stage the
following table is created in the specified database (sbtest by default):
CREATE TABLE `sbtest` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`k` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
`c` char(120) NOT NULL default '',
`pad` char(60) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `k` (`k`);
Then this table is filled with a specified number of rows.
The following execution modes are available at the run stage:
Simple
In this mode each thread runs simple queries of the following form:
SELECT c FROM sbtest WHERE id=N
where N takes a random value in range 1..<table size>
Advanced transactional
Each thread performs transactions on the test table. If the test table and database support
transactions (e.g. InnoDB engine in MySQL), then BEGIN/COMMIT statements will be used to
start/stop a transaction. Otherwise, SysBench will use LOCK TABLES/UNLOCK TABLES statements (e.g.
for MyISAM engine in MySQL). If some rows are deleted in a transaction, the same rows will be
inserted within the same transaction, so this test mode does not destruct any data in the test
table and can be run multiple times on the same table.
Depending on the command line options, each transaction may contain the following statements:
• Point queries:
SELECT c FROM sbtest WHERE id=N
• Range queries:
SELECT c FROM sbtest WHERE id BETWEEN N AND M
• Range SUM() queries:
SELECT SUM(K) FROM sbtest WHERE id BETWEEN N and M
• Range ORDER BY queries:
SELECT c FROM sbtest WHERE id between N and M ORDER BY c
• Range DISTINCT queries:
SELECT DISTINCT c FROM sbtest WHERE id BETWEEN N and M ORDER BY c
• UPDATEs on index column:
UPDATE sbtest SET k=k+1 WHERE id=N
• UPDATEs on non-index column:
UPDATE sbtest SET c=N WHERE id=M
• DELETE queries:
DELETE FROM sbtest WHERE id=N
• INSERT queries:
INSERT INTO sbtest VALUES (...)
Non-transactional
This mode is similar to Simple, but you can also choose the query to run. Note that unlike the
Advanced transactional mode, this one does not preserve the test table between requests, so you
should recreate it with the appropriate cleanup/prepare commands between consecutive benchmarks.
Below is a list of possible queries:
• Point queries:
SELECT pad FROM sbtest WHERE id=N
• UPDATEs on index column:
UPDATE sbtest SET k=k+1 WHERE id=N
• UPDATEs on non-index column:
UPDATE sbtest SET c=N WHERE id=M
• DELETE queries:
DELETE FROM sbtest WHERE id=N
The generated row IDs are unique over each test run, so no row is deleted twice.
• INSERT queries:
INSERT INTO sbtest (k, c, pad) VALUES(N, M, S)
--oltp-test-mode
Execution mode (see above). Possible values: simpe (simple), complex (advanced transactional) and
nontrx (non-transactional) (default: complex)
--oltp-read-only
Read-only mode. No UPDATE, DELETE or INSERT queries will be performed. (default: off)
--oltp-range-size
Range size for range queries (default: 100)
--oltp-point-selects
Number of point select queries in a single transaction (default: 10)
--oltp-simple-ranges
Number of simple range queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-sum-ranges
Number of SUM range queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-order-ranges
Number of ORDER range queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-distinct-ranges
Number of DISTINCT range queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-index-updates
Number of index UPDATE queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-non-index-updates
Number of non-index UPDATE queries in a single transaction (default: 1)
--oltp-nontrx-mode
Type of queries for non-transactional execution mode (see above). Possible values: select,
update_key, update_nokey, insert, delete. (default: select)
--oltp-connect-delay
Time in microseconds to sleep after each connection to database (default: 10000)
--oltp-user-delay-min
Minimum time in microseconds to sleep after each request (default: 0)
--oltp-user-delay-max
Maximum time in microseconds to sleep after each request (default: 0)
--oltp-table-name
Name of the test table (default: sbtest)
--oltp-table-size
Number of rows in the test table (default: 10000)
--oltp-dist-type
Distribution of random numbers. Possible values: uniform (uniform distribution), gauss (gaussian
distribution) and special. (default: special)
With special distribution a specified percent of numbers is generated in a specified percent of
cases (see options below).
--oltp-dist-pct
Percentage of values to be treated as 'special' (for special distribution) (default: 1)
--oltp-dist-res
Percentage of cases when 'special' values are generated (for special distribution) (default: 75)
--db-ps-mode
If the database driver supports Prepared Statements API, SysBench will use server-side prepared
statements for all queries where possible. Otherwise, client-side (or emulated) prepared
statements will be used. This option allows to force using emulation even when PS API is
available. Possible values: disable, auto. (default: auto)
Also, each database driver may provide its own options. Currently only MySQL driver is available.
Below is a list of MySQL-specific options:
--mysql-host
MySQL server host. (default: localhost)
Starting from version 0.4.5 you may specify a list of hosts separated by commas. In this case
SysBench will distribute connections between specified MySQL hosts on a round-robin basis. Note
that all connection ports and passwords must be the same on all hosts. Also, databases and tables
must be prepared explicitely on each host before executing the benchmark.
--mysql-port
MySQL server port (in case TCP/IP connection should be used) (default: 3306)
--mysql-socket
Unix socket file to communicate with the MySQL server
--mysql-user
MySQL user (default: user)
--mysql-password
MySQL password
--mysql-db
MySQL database name. Note SysBench will not automatically create this database. You should create
it manually and grant the appropriate privileges to a user which will be used to access the test
table. (default: sbtest)
--mysql-table-engine
Type of the test table. Possible values: myisam, innodb, heap, ndbcluster, bdb, maria, falcon,
pbxt (default: innodb)
--mysql-ssl
Use SSL connections. (default: no)
--myisam-max-rows
MAX_ROWS option for MyISAM tables (required for big tables) (default: 1000000)
--mysql-create-options
Additional options passed to CREATE TABLE.
Example usage:
$ sysbench --test=oltp --mysql-table-type=myisam --oltp-table-size=1000000 --mysql-socket=/tmp/mysql.sock prepare
$ sysbench --num-threads=16 --max-requests=100000 --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --mysql-socket=/tmp/mysql.sock --oltp-read-only run
The first command will create a MyISAM table 'sbtest' in a database 'sbtest' on a MySQL server using
/tmp/mysql.sock socket, then fill this table with 1M records. The second command will run the actual
benchmark with 16 client threads, limiting the total number of request by 100,000.
AUTHOR
Alexey Kopytov <kaamos@users.sourceforge.net> Author.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2004-2008 MySQL AB
This manual page was rewritten for the Debian system (and may be used by others) from the manual.xml of
the original package.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General
Public License, Version 2 or (at your option) any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation.
On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.