Best way to tax a Linux server?

[poofyhairguy]

Does anyone know a good program in synaptic (or in the base Ubuntu install) that will allow me to max out a media server I'm building? I want this thing to be a mythtv box one day and so I want to make sure that I can get it running at tip top shape. The best would be something I can measure with hard data and not subjective "it runs a little faster." I need a good benchmark.

So....how would you push a server to the limit in the comfort of your own home?

[ubuntu_demon]

I don't know but on a related matter you should try isag for monitoring performance during general usage.

$sudo apt-get install isag

isag uses sysstat. This will configure the sysstat cronjob for you :

$sudo dpkg-reconfigure sysstat

[gil-galad]

Well looking around at the packages I found cpuburn

cpuburn - a collection of programs to put heavy load on CPU

[GrumpySimon]

How are you serving the files? If it's via web-interface, you can test that part of it with 'ab', apache-benchmark. Should come installed with apache.

It allows you to hammer the server with x request per timeperiod, with n concurrancies. You can specify post payloads etc. Very useful tool, and tests the whole system at once (database -> scripting lang. -> webserver), in a way that's relevant for the end users.

It should be in the apache*-utils package.

There's also 'siege', which is similar, but I haven't used this much.

--Simon