1rabid(8) Postal rabid(8)
2
6 rabid - program to test POP server throughput.
7
10 rabid [-r max-connections-per-minute] [-p processes] [-l local-address]
11 [-c messages-per-connection] [-a] [-s ssl-percentage] [-i imap-percent‐
12 age] [-b qmail-pop] [-d download-percentage[:delete-percentage]]
13 [-[z|Z] debug-file] [-u] pop-server user-list-filename
14
17 This manual page documents briefly the rabid, program.
18 It is designed to test the performance of POP email servers by reading
20 all messages from randomly selected accounts as fast as possible. A
21 future version will support rate limiting to provide a constant load
22 (for testing SMTP servers).
23 The pop-server parameter specifies the IP address or name of the mail
25 server that the mail is to downloaded from. If you want to specify a
26 port other than port 110 then enclose the host address in square brack‐
27 ets and have the port address immidiately following. If you want a DNS
28 lookup for every connection (for testing round-robin DNS) then immedi‐
29 ately preceed the host address with a '+' character.
30 The user-list-filename is the name of a file which contains a list of
32 user's email addresses and passwords. It will have one address per
33 line and the password follows the address with a space to seperate.
34 The processes parameter is the number of processes that should be
36 forked off to attempt seperate connections. A well configured mail
37 server won't accept an unlimited number of connections so make sure you
38 don't specify a number larger than the number your mail server is con‐
39 figured to handle. Also for sensible results make sure that you don't
40 use enough to make your server thrash as the results won't be represen‐
41 tative of real-world use.
42 The max-connections-per-minute parameter is for limiting the number of
44 connections that the program makes. This is designed to be used when
45 you want to test the performance of other programs when the system is
46 under load. The default is 24000 connections per minute.
47 The messages-per-connection parameter specifies the maximum number of
49 messages to download in a single POP session. The default is -1
50 (unlimited).
51 The local-address parameter specifies which local IP address(es) are
53 used to make the outbound connections. Specified in the same way as
54 the remote address. This is good for testing LocalDirectors or other
55 devices that perform differently depending on which source IP address
56 was used.
57 The -a command turns on all logging. All message data received will be
59 logged. This will make it slow and it may not be able to saturate a
60 fast Ethernet link...
61 The -s switch specifies the percentage of connections which are to use
63 TLS AKA SSL. Use 0 for no SSL, or 100 for always SSL, or any number in
64 between. Default is 0.
65 The -i switch specifies the percentage of IMAP connections (default is
67 POP).
68 The -b switch allows you to specify breakage strings. Currently the
70 only option is for Qmail POP server which adds an extra blank line at
71 the end of each message. -b qmail-pop means to not report this as an
72 error.
73 -d download-percentage[:delete-percentage] allows you to specify what
75 percentage of the messages are downloaded and what percentage of the
76 downloaded messages are deleted. Default is 100%.
77 The -u switch causes the domain of user-names to be ignored. This
79 allows you to have a single file with user-names and passwords which
80 can be used by postal and rabid. By default postal will ignore the
81 password field, rabid may or may not need the domain depending on the
82 configuration of the POP server. The default is to use the domain
83 (which is required if the same user is present in multiple domains),
84 this switch causes the domain part to be stripped from the user-name
85 field.
86 The -z switch allows you to specify a debugging file base. From this
88 base one file is created for each thread (with a ':' and the thread
89 number appended), each file is used to log all IO performed by that
90 thread for debugging purposes.
91 The -Z switch is the same but creates a separate file for each connec‐
93 tion as well with an attitional ':' appended followed by the connection
94 number.
95
98 Doesn't actually do SSL or IMAP yet.
99
102 0 No Error
103 1 Bad Parameters
105 2 System Error, lack of memory or some other resource
107
110 This program, it's manual page, and the Debian package were written by
111 Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au>.
112
115 The source is available from http://doc.coker.com.au/projects/postal/ .
116 See http://etbe.coker.com.au/category/benchmark for further informa‐
118 tion.
119
122 postal(8),bhm(8)
123russell@coker.com.au 0.70 rabid(8)